Monday, October 31, 2011

Gustation

Well. Happy Halloween.

I am so tired right now. I apologize if this entry seems a bit disjointed, or a bit too short. I'm almost literally falling asleep sitting up...

I had fun today. I was actually happy, for once. Instead of going to a Halloween party, the 757 decided to just chill at my house. Since we weren't drinking, or planning on doing anything extreme, Luca even brought Katy over. I'm telling you,...we love that kid. She's almost a 757 member herself!

We took her trick and treating for a bit, actually. She was a witch-princess hybrid! She couldn't decide on which one she should be, so she just decided to be both, haha. She was just so adorable. We hit every house in the neighborhood, I swear.

I split up from the main group for a little while, though. I wanted to go back to the place where this all started...and you know, just check it out. I felt like I almost had to.

The air around me seemed to thicken when I got to the water. The night was humid, and it almost seemed to be more of an early September day, rather than an October one. While the street that I had just been on was extremely crowded with kids, this street was completely abandoned.

This is the location on Google Maps. There used to be a bridge there, but it was torn down years ago, due to it importing crime and traffic problems into the neighborhood. There are still bits of the bridge that remain in the creek, though...submerged, underneath the surface, waiting...

I approached the precipice behind the barrier, entranced by pure curiosity. When I step onto the grass, I hear a sudden rustling in the underbrush to the right, and before I could fully comprehend the shadow hiding outside of the faint glimmer of moonlight, it jumps right out to me; a man, in a soaking wet suit.

His skin is almost toneless, almost completely pale. His hair is long, and drenched just like his clothes. His eyes are bloodshot, and his arms hang limp at his sides. His mouth keeps twitching at the corners, almost like a tic of some sort. He seems to almost be shivering.

It was strange. I did not feel threatened, and I of course did not feel afraid (wooo, Sowing Season served an actual purpose for once); I was perfectly at ease, even with this hobo standing before me, with unknown intentions. What did he want...?

The man begins to speak, with a heavy Russian accent;
"Owen...?"

"Yes?"

He begins to list off a bunch of random shit. I have no idea how or why I remembered all of this stuff, but here it is:

"You have become a Degausser: You are in charge of destroying attraction between two objects. You are in charge of burning down the Forest. You are in charge of staking the Heart. You are in charge of The 757. You are his favorite bird. You are the apple of his Eye. You are a Space Cadet. You are a Good Man.

"Grey has become a Milestone: He is your breath. He is all your Dark. He is the Demon in the Attic to the Left. He is the Storm. He is Mr. Hangman. He is Not The Sun. He is The Devil.
He is the smiling face on a silver plate. He is a moon made in anger and angst. He's a voice that never sings."

Before I can question him after he finishes, he turns around and jumps into the creek. He runs out to the deep end, and before I can ask him what he actually meant again, he begins to swim away.

I don't bother tracking him with my eyes.

Frustrated, and confused, I sat down on the grass for a while. A few minutes pass, and I hear someone behind me. I do not move, because I can sense that the person behind me was one of my fellow 757 members; I just...felt him there. We're truly connected together, I guess, now.

"Heyyyy, Luca..." I say, softly.

"Hey, Owen. You ok? We're waiting back at the house for you; Katelyn's asleep, and I need to take her home."

"I'm fine. Just give me a minute. I'm thinking..."

"Alright. Mind if I chill with ya' while you ~think~?"

"Haha, sure, dude, why not."

He sits down beside me, and looks out into the distance. I continue thinking; what did all this mean? What were we supposed to do?

Luca interrupts my thoughts with a question.

"Owen, what happened? The ground is soaking wet with some shit..."

"Some dude attacked me. It's okay though, he jumped back into the creek and is chilling with the fishies."

He looks me in the eyes with an incredulous look, and laughs. I do the same.

He didn't ask me any more questions about that, so I'm assume he thought I was joking.

"I wonder what Grey's doing right now. I don't...~feel~ him anywhere near us...."

 I suddenly turn serious and say, "Don't worry about it. Seriously, Luca. We need to stop thinking so much. We need to rely on pure instinct more; let it flow through us, you know? I think something's helping us behind the scenes, or many things; for example, Slender Man. He could have been a hallucination, but I doubt it. I think he wants us to win. But there's another thing. Some strong thing. I want to find out what this thing is; you agree?"


"Yeah...I think everyone feels it, man. I have my own theory on what it could actually be, though."

"Huh? Really? What could it be?" This intrigued me.

This gets weird. Luca reaches over, and pokes my chest.


"The Heart. I think it's the heart of Portsmouth that wants us to help it."

"....what."

"I heard Norman talking over the phone about something involving a ~heart~ in Portsmouth...of Portsmouth. I am not pulling your leg or anything, honestly. 
You want to ask him tomorrow about it?"

I think about it, and I say, "No. If he hasn't told us about it yet, it probably isn't important."

"But he's done that with other things too, and they ended up being important."

"Good point...yeah, fine, I guess we should ask him about it tomorrow....
You ready to go back to the house now?"

"Yeah...let's go." 

--------------

We hung out back at the house for ten minutes, and then we all parted ways.

And now we're here.

Will ask The Old Man about "The Heart" tomorrow. Could it be associated with what that man had said?

Also planning to ask my bodyguard a few things....
Night.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Audition

We were surrounded by invisible soldiers last night.

Steven, Markus, and I were hanging out at Luca's house, just talking about regular shit. We weren't even having a proper 757 meeting, ...just acting like normal kids. We were having fun, just watching an old movie with Luca's little sweet little sister (she's an amazing kid, by the way).

Then the drumming started. Outside, in the forest surrounding the house, the drumming started.

It was like a march of some type. The drumming was reminiscent of the times I heard the Norcom High School band practicing in the backyard of my house...that sound carried, let me tell you that.
That sound followed you.

The drumming was getting louder as the invisible soldiers approached. Markus went to living room window, looked out of it, and squinted his eyes. We waited for some type of reaction out of him, but none came. Instead, he stood there for like a minuted, and then turned around, and told us he saw nothing.

Despite this, the drumming increased; it sounded as if the soldiers were right outside the house now. I got up myself, and approached the door...

"Luca, you get your sister and hide somewhere else in the house. Call the old man about this. Come on, you guys, let's see what's out there..."

Normally, you'd expect someone like Luca to resist towards this type of request; he's a bit like me...stubborn. He'd want to help too. Instead, he instantly grabbed his sister and ran.

But The 757 are the perfect team, or at least, we are becoming that. It's strange to say, but with Mason leaving, we've all gotten closer somehow. It's like Mason was a bit of an obstacle in our way to becoming a full team. There are a few weak links still, but we seem to be in almost perfect sync.
The numbers stitched to our skin are probably helping with this. I still don't know what the numbers mean...

Anyways. Back to the story.
Opening the door, our eyes found themselves looking at an empty front yard. No demons, no monsters, no Fears, no Grey, no thing; just an empty yard.
The drumming had silenced itself immediately as the door opened.

I walked out near the street, and looked across to the other side of it...
In the forest, I saw, and also did not see, an army of soldiers. At least 30 or so of them. They had 17th century clothing on, and all had a dead look in their eyes.
By see, I mean I sensed their presence, and I could see them in my mind.
By not see, I meant that my eyes could not physically decipher any shapes in that area, except for the trees.

What was happeni

One of the men steps out into the street, and looks me directly in the eye. His eyes are so determined...
He speaks:
"You must vanquish the beast from this land.
You are chosen, young man, to be the hero of this land.
Your friends are also chosen; you all will battle the creature, and hopefully, send it back into the darkness.
You have all been Degaussed."

Exactly when he said "Degaussed", I felt the number on my chest start to itch and burn. I ignored the sensation, and asked him exactly what he meant.

He acted as if he didn't hear me, though, and looked into the sky.
"The sky is so beautiful today! Behold, men; 
Portsmouth is shining bright tonight.
Maybe this time, 
this bright will be able to hold back all our dark...."

A light flashed into my eyes...at first, I thought it was something supernatural in origin as well, but I looked to the left, and discovered it to be just a normal truck. I yelled at the man in the street to get out of the way, but he completely ignored me. The truck rammed into the man...but the crunch of bone and the splatter of blood was never heard that night.

The truck was gone, and so were the ghosts, or spirits, or whatever they happened to be.

Another sound replaced the drumming, however. This was not over...not by a long shot.

This sound was originating in the forest behind the house this time. The sound of thudding feet racing across the forest floor, and the sound of crunching leaves, served as accompanying music to the rapid thump-thump of a drum. This drum was far more wild in sound that the drums that had been with the ghosts.

We ran into the house, afraid that this time, the ghosts wouldn't be as friendly.

 After the front door was lock, we ducked into the kitchen, and hid in the pantry. I hoped that Luca and his sister were alright, as I heard the most inhuman scream outside of the house. The scream mutated into a voice, and began to speak.

At the same time, Steven was trying to call Luca on his phone, to see if they were alright. The call was disrupted in mid ring...it just stopped calling Luca, and indicated that there was no longer service in our area.

But, while I recall hearing Steven's phone calling him, according to Luca, his phone never rang once.

The voice outside, that was loud enough to reach us all the way into the interior of the house, said:

"Owen...Luca...friends...I know you're there...why don't you come out here and say hello?" Grey said.

No one moved a muscle.

"Oh, but boys...you have to see my new getup...it's just lovely! I'm almost perfect...thanks to you, Owen. I want to properly show my thanks. Come on out...if you don't adhere to my demands, why I'll...
I'll blow your house down!! Gahahaha! Out little piggy, out!"
I feel Steven shaking with fear....that almost made me get up and give myself up.
But deep down, I knew, we all knew, that he was lying. Grey planned on having himself a massacre tonight.

We heard Grey...growl, like an animal. Was he getting angry? That wasn't a good sign. Grey actually intended on finishing things tonight. This time, he wasn't playing any games with us.

Suddenly, an explosive blast is heard. The house shakes, and we hear something...crawling. We hear something giggling. We hear the floorboards creaking with what seemed to be a heavy weight...

We kept quiet. For about half a minute, we hardly even breathed.

Eventually, we heard a clicking sound on the linoleum, which then transformed into heavy footsteps, with the additional sound of the floor cracking. It stopped, directly in front of the pantry.

We were done for, or at least I was, since I was the one closest to the door, so I stood up a bit, and tried to hide Markus and Steven behind me. The door handle turned, and seemed that Grey was about to open it the old fashion way...

But then, we heard someone shout "Not in my house!!" A gunshot, a scream, a chuckle, a yelp.

I opened the door, and saw a piece of what appeared to be the same material that Grey's mask was made up of. A shadow fell over it,...a tail hovered above the ground in front of me. It was what the pieces on the ground had broken off of, it seemed.

The tail was attached to Grey, who was monstrous in form now. The black robe was torn to shreds, as white thorns protruded all over his body. His shoulders were extremely wide now, and thorns also plagued the top of them. His mask resembled some type of lizard's face, instead of a human's; the mask was angular, and the horns on the top of it were extremely long and sharp. His hands were claws, with daggers for fingernails.

But that wasn't the dangerous part. Oh no. Inside of the Monster, there was something else...a storm. A storm was raging inside of Grey. The wires were rapidly moving around, like a tornado, inside of his body.

Luca stood in front of Grey, with a gun pointed directly at him. Both of their eyes were locked in a stare.
"Oh, Luca...do you really think you can challenge me?
I don't think you'd survive one second in my wo-"

Before Grey could finish, Luca shot at him again. A bullet connected with Grey's shoulder, tearing off some more of the white material. Grey growled, and then screamed.
The windows to the kitchen shattered, and Grey pounced at Luca.

I jumped into action, hoping to stop Grey; I was not about to let him kill one of my friends. However, his tail slashed behind him, as if it had a mind of its own. The end of it was sharpened, and the entire tail was thick. The tail whipped itself at me, and I was thrown out onto the floor.
My chest was cut, and blood trickled out at an alarming rate.

Though I was hurt, I got right back up, and followed them. The two of them had jumped out of view, into the living room. Markus and Steven ran over to me, hoping to help with my wound, but I told them not to worry about it, and to hurry after Luca.

Out in the living room; Grey stood tall over Luca, whose gun seemed to be out of ammo. Luca threw the gun at Grey, but like the bullets, it had no overall effect on him. Grey laughed, long and hard, and then prepared to stab his sharpened, scorpion-like tail through Luca.

There wasn't anything else I could do, so I jumped in front of Luca, prepared to take the blow...

But the tail was stopped, by something. I was holding my hand out, and some...force had made a shield-like exterior around it. The tail had hit it, and was stopped completely.

Grey was just as surprised as I was. He said, under his breath;
"Degausser..."

As he said that, my chest started vibrating, or at least the left side of it did. A golden glow emanated from it...the number on my chest was shining bright. The cut disappeared...

"What's happening..." I muttered


"You all have been...but that hasn't happened in hundreds of years!!...." Grey said.
 
"Owen, the hell is on your chest?!" Markus shouted.

Grey stepped back, as if the shining light was hurting him.
"I'll be back, brats. This is only a small miscalculation..."

Grey ran out of the house, on all fours. As he ran out, Katy stood on the stairs. Grey took one look at her, but did not attack, thankfully.

We followed him out, and saw that he had blown apart the front of the house. There was no front door or porch now...only a hole. Outside, Grey ran into the forest, and as we saw him leave, we thought we could see some other things in the darkness as well...

The old man arrived just two minutes after Grey disappeared. He told us that we had only called him three minutes ago, but to us, it seemed to be at least almost half an hour ago.

Told him about the Degausser thing. He nodded, as if he was expecting it, and said that he would tell us on a later date about that. Drove home afterwards.

Home, and doing homework. Don't plan on going to school tomorrow.

I wish I was scared.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Vision

Mason quit The 757. He's gone. He left me one final text message...and now won't reply to anything I send him, or answer the phone when I call him.

I should have seen it coming. He's been so quiet the past couple of weeks. He barely participates in The 757. This was just...completely out of character for him. I have no idea why...

This is bad. We're a man down. Grey is definitely going to take the chance to strike soon.

And to make matters worse, Andrew and Patrick are having second thoughts about this whole thing. We're breaking apart. What do I do? How do I keep us together?

Or should I let them leave? Should I face Grey alone? Isn't that how it should be? After all, I'm the reason we're in this mess in the first place. I'm the reason this is happening. Why should they suffer for my mistakes?

Nothing else to report, except for one other thing.

I meditated again today...I met with Daisy.

I was back in that humid forest. A golden light awaited me, and it materialized into the fox. It looked upon me with kind, thoughtful eyes. I reached my hand out, and petted it. It nodded towards the left of us, and walked into that direction. I followed...it...

No. Not it. Her.

After a few minutes of walking, we reached a huge ravine; a huge rocky split in the earth, with a few traces of water at the bottom. I look to the other side, and my gaze falls upon a dark shape...a shadowy figure in the distance. I look closer, and I see that we are not alone in this world.

There was another Fox there. It was the complete opposite of Daisy; darkness incarnate. It practically leaked the night sky. And it was opposite her in another way as well. While it was hard to discover Daisy's name, this Fox's name was easy to decipher. However...I did not want to acknowledge his name. It floated directly into my head, but I just...I just couldn't believe it.

Its name was Luca. The dark Fox was named Luca.

Or was it really a fox...? It was hard to tell, honestly. Either a small wolf or a large fox.

When it saw me looking at it, it growled, and then ran off into the forest. I looked at my side, towards Daisy, and asked her, without saying a word, what that thing was.

She looked up at me, and told me without telling me that I had no need to worry of such things at that moment in time. I needed to focus on other matters, instead.

About 15 minutes later, we ended up in a forest clearing. She was walking in front of me, at first, but suddenly turned around, and stopped there. She told me, again without any sounds leaking away from her mouth, that I needed to practice forming my own spiritual weapon out of her body's energy.

I hardly understand now, but it made perfect sense in that clearing. I was preparing to do something, by raising my right hand into my hand, pointing at Daisy, when the forest and ground started shaking.

Daisy tells me, this time with sound, that "Our time is up, child." I am dragged away from that land, and a few seconds later, I'm back in my bed; the vibrations of my cell phone receiving a text had dragged me away from her.

The text was from The Old Man. He told me that my bodyguard is off tonight, on sick leave, so he's going to be in charge of watching over my house tonight.

I look outside, and I see him in his car.

I can't see Grey, but I know he's there, out there, somewhere.

Time to sleep. I guess. Night.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Jesus Christ

I was completely alone again today.
No one could save me when Grey dragged me into my own personal Hell.

I couldn't get up for school. I didn't even bother trying, actually. The shadows in my bedroom were reaching all around me...I didn't want to step on them. I felt so helpless, but more importantly, powerless.
At one point, I tried reading The Bible again. Couldn't do it. Threw it into the corner of my room.

I started asking myself questions. What exactly did I believe in? What was the point? Why exactly do I keep fighting? Wouldn't it just be easier to give in?
Why only questions? Aren't there any answers out there?

Why am I so alone in this?

I don't remember at what time it began. I only remember hearing the clock stop. That was when my bed changed into a boat, and my room became the ocean. A lantern shone above my head. I was sailing alone on a dark, shadow sea. There was the moon, watching from above.

Where was I sailing to? Who was my captain? Should I jump into the ocean...let the water in?
Need you like water in my lungs

A tiny, wooden cross was on the floor of the boat. I picked it up, and studied it; there was a name on it. The lantern light was not enough to help decipher it properly, so I did not know what exactly it said.
The wind whispered in my ear. It wanted me to follow it. So I set my sails high.

I sailed onwards. The moon laughed and the stars blinked. A fog shrouded the surroundings like a fluffy blanket. The water reflected my entire life before me; I saw myself on my knees, praying to no one.
I saw myself alone.

I put my shivering, twitching hands into both of my jeans pockets; my right hand contacted a parchment of some type. I pulled it out...a corner ripped off, but it was still legible. I was barely able to recognize the markings. It was a map. A map of an ocean.
On one side of it, there was a tiny piece of land. It was marked with a word that I could not read.
On the other side of the map, there was a huge piece of land. It was marked with another illegible word.

In between, a tiny dot. Above this dot, was scrawled my name.
My middle name was bolded: Owen Grey Norris.

I was heading towards the bigger piece of land.

The boat sailed on, while I thought over what exactly could that land be. My thoughts were interrupted when I noticed a stranger in the boat to the right of me. He had long brown hair...to his shoulders. He was dressed in a white robe, and he wore contrasting, dirty sandals.
His eyes were completely blue, but also gray at the same time. A third color I could not recognize hid inside of his bright eyes too. What exactly was it?
Who exactly was he?

I think I knew all along. I just played dumb. Wouldn't alot of kids do that, if they knew who was in the boat with them too? Especially if they felt guilty?
He was Jesus Christ. My lord, my savior.
What the fuck was he doing in the same boat as me, though.

He looked back at me, and I saw his full face. I opened my mouth to say something, but I could not say it.

"Don't be afraid to let your tongue loose, child. I bear no ill will. 
Tell me, what exactly is on your mind?"

"...who are you...?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

He chuckles, and grins at me. His teeth are almost blindingly white.
"Depends. Who do you think I am, boy?"

"Chuck Norris."
He laughs.

"Then I am Chuck Norris."
"Which means you're God." I reply.

"Yessir. I am, really honestly truly, God. We can keep joking around about my identity if you want, but yes, 

I am Jesus Christ."

I cannot respond to that. How could I have? So I just looked away from him. I didn't want to acknowledge his existence. If I could not see him, then he wasn't there.
The boat sails on. We're moving along quite nicely, though the wind is picking up in a more restless fashion.

The fog clears up a bit (it is still heavy, though), and moonlight shines past my face. I follow it with my gaze, and I see Jesus again. He was sitting there, just looking at me.
The moonlight shines on his face, and I think to myself:
"Jesus Christ, that's a pretty face;
the kind you'd find on someone who could save."

With this thought, I remember another thought I had the other day.
The one I tried to push away.
The one I tried to not think about.
The one I tried forgetting.








The thought caused a load of questions to invade my mind.

What if The 757 see me as a risk? Something holding them back?
What if Norman decides I'm too much of a liability?
What if The Lonely Hearts get tired of the bullshit I've caused?

Will they put my away, into an asylum? Will they kill me?
Will they attach cement blocks to my feet, and drop me into the water?
Will they let me drown in the darkness?

I had thought:
If they don't put me away,...well, it'll be a miracle.

It had occurred while I was talking to Norman about something. I don't remember what.

Maybe I deserve to be alone.

Jesus taps me on the shoulder.

"We're almost there; as long as you don't let the water into the boat, we'll reach land."

His touch felt golden, and I felt visible.
I felt there. Someone had finally seen the true "me".

But it wasn't enough.

I looked down into the water, and saw my friends going about, having fun. Having lives.
While here's Owen...sitting alone, tripping balls, and seeing Jesus Christ.

I looked at the reflection of my face. I didn't recognize the monster I saw.

For a quick second, the mirage, or hallucination, or whatever it was, glitches, and I am back in my room, alone, in my bed. I do not want to leave the dreamland yet, so I tug at the remaining pieces of the dream, and immerse myself back in the liquid shadows.

I find myself back on the boat with Jesus. He looks at me like I never left...
I say:

Well, Jesus Christ, I'm alone again.
So what did you do those three days you were dead?
'cause this problem's gonna last, more than the weekend....

This was me calling the old man out.

Jesus does not react in the way I expect him to do. He smiles, and looks out into the distance.
"Child, I went underwater; I went below the surface. I am sure you're not looking for an obvious, or literal, answer here. What do you want from me, Owen? Are you blaming me for your loneliness? Or your entire situation?"

I shake my head in disgust. He just doesn't get it. Neither do I, but it's him who's important in this situation.

The winds are picking up. Waves push over into the boat. A humongous cloud blocks out the moon.
The boat tilts. The sail rips. The hull cracks.
The ocean spills over us.

Before we are swept away into the water, I hurriedly speak to Jesus again. Though I am fighting to stay in the boat, he is standing on the water.
"Well, Jesus Christ, I'm not scared to die,
I'm a little bit scared of what comes after!!
Do I get the gold chariot...or do I float through the ceiling?"


His mouth opens, and begins to answer my question, but before he can, a giant wave swallows me whole and I am taken into the depths of the sea.
I think to myself:

Do I divide and fall apart?
'cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark.

The water is my darkness. It invades my soul, wrapping around and tumbling inside me.

I black out.
I awake on a grey beach. I am on land.

There is a gate before me. White light shines through. Warmth permeates out from inside.
A man stands guard. His name is Thomas. I walk up to him,
he asks to see my hands.
I am rejected.

I am awake on my bed. The covers barely keep the cold away.The shadows are darker than they have ever been before. The light above me is on, but it does not glow.

I feel a heavy weight on my chest; no, inside my chest. I still cannot get up.
I suddenly remember when I was boy, and how my grandparents had a cross on the wall in the living room.

I remember throwing my tiny bible they gave me for Christmas one time when I was a kid. I was so mad at my mother once, when she told me something involving Christianity. I don't remember what.
I remember having to pick the cross up, and feeling...guilty for knocking it down.
I remember hammering it back to the wall, and forgetting about it a week later.

I shake out of this vision, and try getting up out of bed again. I am successful.
I stagger into the hallway...it feels so long. I fall to the floor.
Our pet cat, Kitsy, jumps onto my back, and then scampers off into the open closet next to me.

Conscious thought fades yet again. I'm alone, in a cabin. Jesus Christ stands before me.

I yell at him.
"I know you're coming for the people like me, but we all got wood and nails!!"

He shakes his head, and walks away. I'm alone, in a cabin.

Grey appears behind me, and says:

"Rejected even by an eternally loving God. 
Would you like to be accepted by me? 
I'll always accept you, Owen..."

I'm in a factory, with Grey, watching wooden crosses being made by dark lumberjacks.
Iron nails are being created somewhere else; I can hear them being made.

I'm alone again.

The shadows are gone in my room; it's Friday. I've been in my room for two days.

Grey was here. He marked his name on my window.
With blood.
-----

I'm now sitting here, shivering. I have no clue on what to do.

My dreams copied Brand New again, though. I know that.

Seriously, listen to this. It's almost exactly what I said in the hallucination.

...if it was a hallucination.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.

Today was just so quiet. No news whatsoever.

I didn't go to school today. Didn't really feel like it. I just couldn't get up out of bed. I feel like shit right now.

I've read more of The Holy Bible. I don't know why. Just felt like it. I guess I'm just looking for something more than Daisy to rely on. Maybe it's futile for me to think some deity's watching over me. I've always claimed to be an atheist, and should now think of myself as one more than ever.

What kind of God would allow such evil as The Dying Man to exist on this planet in the first place anyways? Or the rest of the...the "Fears"?

All the pain that's resulted from Grey...that's evidence enough. Or should be. And yet, I'm still skimming through Bible verses, hoping to find something that will "inspire" me in some way. I'm hopeless.

I feel so alone right now. I feel worse than how I felt while living with my mother, and that's saying something. This is probably just another mood swing influenced by Sowing Season,...so when will it switch over to anger?

The darkness is sinking in. I feel like I'm falling into it. It's cold, oh so cold. Am I going to drown in this?

I could look outside my window right now and see Vera in her car, on her nightwatch. I feel bad for her, since she has to stay outside in her car alone. Is she as lonely as me? Should I...no.

The moon's outside too.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

It is finished.

I'm so tired, like I always am. I just wish I could just have a full night's sleep. That's all I want now. I can't even have that, there's just always something that prevents me from sleeping. And when I actually do sleep, I just have horrible nightmares involving either The Dying Man, or events surrounding my abusive mother.

I hate that. I hate this. I hate all of this. I hate me. Why didn't I do the smart thing in the Summer? Why didn't I just pull the trigger? Ended it there? Forget it all in an instant. One explosive instant.

I never get what I want, though. Steven had to show up, and then the old man. Of course, Grey probably would have stopped me from killing myself. It was worth a shot though.

What is Grey aiming to do anyways. And why does he need my body so badly? What's so special about me? I don't feel special, of course, but from what I've heard, Grey could have done alot worse than what he did to me. I could be missing limbs, or skin tissue; he could have rotted out my entire body.

But instead of that, he seemed to like me, in a way. He didn't want anything bad to happen to my body.

I need to find this out. I just can't keep going on without knowing. It just stresses me out.

Well. I should probably talk about my trip today. My trip into my subconscious or whatever. Cut to the chase; I met the personification of my greatest Fear today. The personification I mentioned earlier, actually. I decided that I needed to try meditating another time, and believe it or not, I concentrated enough to somehow go -deeper- into my thoughts. I basically submerged myself into my mind's processes.

I felt...I felt I was sinking like a stone in the sea, actually. My mind was an ocean of dark water flooding what was once magnificent structures of integrity and optimism. The grand cities that populated my mind were now spread out and divided. It was eternally night there.

Soon, my thoughts became -solid-. I was in the water myself, swimming. I searched for something to grab onto...found a canoe. Jumped into, found a paddle, and began rowing towards some unknown predestination. Behind, and under, me, I heard the ticking of an alarm clock, and also the sound of a passing car. I felt the Summer sun on my chest, even though it was cold, and there was obviously no sun.

And then, the sky transformed into a mixture of orange and yellow. Stars blinked in the clouds of color, and the water was now shaded green. I heard the huff and puff of an astronaut, but saw no one.

The water returned to normal after a couple of minutes, and the colors in the sky receded. It turned completely black again.

It changed shortly again. Suddenly, though I was still in the canoe in some way, shape, or form in another time and space, I was also in my old childhood home...209 Constitution Avenue...I'll never forget that address. The house was cold, and still in the middle of almost completely rotting away. I was sitting there, alone, screaming my guts out. I heard a knock on the door, and heard a little girl cry out in pain.

Back in the canoe again. Not in the house. I rowed faster, and eventually saw an island on the horizon.

The island was completely composed of trees. There was almost a certain supernatural glow to the trees, which caused the island to sustain its own light. I don't remember how or when, but I ended up walking through and deeper into the forest, and island.

And then I reached a clearing. At first, it resembled the clearing I encountered in the previous blog entry, but then it started changing. The trees multiplied and grew closer. The grass shortened, and lengthened, as if someone was cutting it time to time. In the middle, the center tree died, rotted away, and in its place, a full stone circle appeared. The markings from Aristotle's Cosmos appeared soon after.

It was the device that marked me and my friends earlier. Curiosity struck me, and caused me to walk onto the circle. Nothing happened, except the overwhelming urge to look back, a bit to my left.

And so I did, and at first saw a field of daisies. As if it was just a curtain, though, it faded away to reveal something behind it; a golden fox, staring at me in the grass. Behind it, there was a heavy accumulation of trees, and behind those, there was what appeared to be a house.

I stared into the fox's eyes, and felt dazed, which led to me feeling quite faint. I tumbled over, into the grass, and felt golden light pass over me.

I awoke deeper in the forest. A low fog covered the ground. Standing above me, Death, whom I had glimpsed in the previous blog entry. His robe, this time however, was created from shadow, and his bones were dirtier and grayer. He also had a scythe...a rusty, bloody scythe, ready to tear into my body.

This thing did not scare me. How could it ever? Sowing Season prevents it external Fear reactions...it could probably block internal ones too. I was infallible in this regard, I thought.

I was wrong. Dead wrong. Fear was still there. Sowing Season prevented most of it, but deep down, I was, still am, and always will be, afraid.

But not of Death. That wasn't what inspired the Fear within me. I am entirely afraid to die.

Death picked up on this, it seemed. He was ready to cut me down with his scythe, but changed his mind before swinging. He looked at me strangely...and looked to the side. I followed his gaze, and saw my family.

I saw, in the corner of my eye, his dirty grin widen. He had found my weakness, my biggest fear.

Before Sowing Season, I was afraid of a shitload of things. I was afraid of dying alone, I was afraid of the future, I was afraid of rejection, whatever.

I was absolutely terrified, of my loved ones getting hurt.

With this, he knew how to get to me. I tried to stop him, but he was too fast. He cut down the hallucinatory family, and I broke down. I collapsed to the ground, and I was ready to finally let him in. I was ready to accept him.

Golden light shone back over me, and I awoke to find the golden fox staring at me. I was back in the small clearing, on the cold rock. It licked me, and I suddenly remembered an old childhood memory of mine....

Finding a daisy in the middle of a hill near the post office in Portsmouth. I was just struck by how beautiful it looked, and how hopeful I felt about the upcoming Spring. I was happy, if I recall.

That's rare.

Daisy. I always liked that name.

And I connected the dots, and I knew; the fox's name was Daisy. She had always been there for me. She has just been waiting around for me to notice her, is all. She's ready to destroy the monster that had corrupted her living space. She was ready to eliminate Grey.

With that, Daisy licked me again, and I felt thousands of times stronger, and happier. I was going to ask her...well, I don't remember what I was going to ask her! But I was going to ask her something, before the scene erased itself, landing me back in my bed; meditation was over, apparently.

I had spent almost an hour in that state. Amazing.

I feel like shit now, after switching over. I want to go back and talk to Daisy. I want to get to know her.

Maybe I'll see her in my dreams tonight.

As always, I'll keep you updated on whatever....night.

oh no wait. Before I go, I noticed a pattern between the dreamworld and a couple of things. Kind of funny, but...

Alarm clock.


Astronaut, green water, red/orange sky; "sinking like a stone in the sea"....



Little girl, white house (though it is a white house, so that doesn't really count. It even kinda sorta looks like the house in this picture. I'll upload a picture soon and show you guys, I guess), screaming,....

Golden fox, forest, "Daisy", house in the background....



The reasoning is obvious; I listen to Brand New so much, it's shaped my subconscious mind...I guess?

I have no fucking clue.

Monday, October 17, 2011

I thirst.

Keil and Andrew both have a marking now.

Keil was marked during the night. He was stirred awake at around eleven by a strange noise. Curious, he explored around...before he knew it, he was suddenly in a jungle-like environment. In front of him, he came to see the same thing Luca and I had seen. He stepped inside of the circle by his own accord, was marked, and then found himself right back in his bed.

He is number 6.

Andrew was marked this morning. He was already up and out of bed...he was feeding his cat. Next thing he knows, though, he's in the forest, alone. Instead of walking into the circle like Keil and I did, he tries running away, in a panic. The Slender Man was there though,...and basically scared Andrew into the circle. Next thing Andrew knows, he's branded with a number, and he's back in his kitchen.

He is number 2.

Will everyone in the 757 get a number? What is that forest? Where is that forest? Why is that forest?

Bah. Too many questions. I need answers, and soon. This is just ridiculous.

 A woman contacted The 757 today, requiring us to investigate her small house out in Suffolk. We basically made our first house call today, actually. She had reported that ever since a few weeks ago, she had been hearing strange noises, seeing some apparition in a robe with a mask on outside of her windows, and the house was constantly cold.

It had to be connected to The Dying Man...I don't believe in ghosts, anyways.

We all drove out there around 5...was a nightmare though.

First of all, no one wanted to fucking get up. No one wanted to get around to doing the actual work.

Second was the fact that Keil's car broke down, so I had to drive all the way to Norfolk to pick him up.

Finally, we all almost got lost. Luca fortunately found the house.

The lady was very small, and had a mousy face. Black circles marked around her eyes, and she kept stuttering. She was obviously distraught, and she could barely say an entire sentence without her voice breaking.

She didn't need to say a thing. We were ready for this...or at least, I was. I felt something in me awaken today. When she opened that door and started explaining, I just knew what to do, without any prior experience, too.

I told the others to get ready...I then walked into the house, and they followed closely behind me. I felt almost as if I was a puppet to some other force at this moment...like something else was leading me.

I felt like I was on strings, almost.

I led everyone to the back wall of the kitchen. The wall was made up of brick. Near the floor, on the second line up of the bricks, there was one brick loose. I kicked at it, and it fell out of the wall.

In the tiny square space, sat a thick, but small, wooden cross. Specks of bloodstains marked across it.

I picked it up, and instantly, everything changed.

I wasn't in the kitchen anymore. I was in a forest clearing. On the other side of the clearing, there were men in weird looking clothing, running out into the field. I,...I don't know why, but I ducked to the ground, and crawled into a thick patch of the grass.

A tree stood about ten feet away from where I was. It was the only tree in the entire clearing. Its wood was dark, its branches were long, its shadow foreboding. It seemed...wrong, somehow. Warped.

No, that isn't right. The entire clearing felt wrong. It felt...surreal. It felt weird. It just...I don't know. It was wrong, and that's all I can use to describe what I felt.

The men had been running out towards me. They were now in front of the tree. They were both wearing weird clothes. Both men were wearing an unlined coat, and breeches. They had weird buckled shoes on, and both wore funny looking hats, with three points. They looked as if they were from the 18th century.

The look on their faces, I will never forget. Both were in an extreme panic. They did not want to be in this clearing, for some reason. What was wrong here...

And then they began to speak, and I knew I wasn't in normal ol' Virginia. I wasn't in some history reenactment. I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't hallucinating. Their accents and speech patterns were too unique for something as simple as a dream to replicate. I wasn't in the twentieth century.

I was somewhen else.

The shorter, stockier of the men started to speak.

"By God, we need to fly soon, William. I can hear the savages singing blood in the forest. They are aware this area is forbidden to mortals. Us men should know that too. We're going to perish here...!!"

William sighs, and with a bit of an obviously annoyed tone, says:

"No. This needs to be put to rest tonight. If we wait another cycle, -he- will be far too strong to destroy."

This seemingly silenced the shorter man. William looked around the clearing quickly, and though my head was completely uncovered among the reeds of grass, he did not see me. In fact, he looked right on through me. Was he ignoring me...?

He tugged at something around his neck...a necklace? He pulled it up from over his head, and placed the object against the trunk of the tree.

It was a wooden cross...it was the wooden cross. The one I had just been holding...

The tree started to shake, and the shorter stockier man gasped out in terror. William just stood there, and stared intently into the bark of the tree. The tree's brown color drained away, and a sick metallic Grey took over. The air distorted around the tree. An anguished scream sounded off away in the distance.

"William!! The forest is coming alive!! The Devils are dancing, Wiliam, we need to flee!!"

"SILENCE YOURSELF. Fight off your Demons!!
Do not let your bright become too slight to hold back all this dark!!"

"William, you've grown mad! We can't fight back against this hallowed Ear-"

The cries of William's friend were silenced when a pitch black wire pierced straight through his throat.

Black strings, or tentacles, or wire, whatever, slithered around the tree. I could not find the source of the strings. The strings tugged at the man's body, and pulled him into the writhing tentacles.

William did not look back. He did not desire to. He was not afraid. Why was that?

A voice. A slimy, greasy voice, and yet seductive at the very same time, chided William.

"Lo, William! You posses the knowledge to know not to challenge me!! This is my forest. This is my land. This is my world.. I warned you earlier that you may not settle here, but you did not open your ears.

I am the King here. And you were my horse. I let you live; I regret doing that now."

"You did not let me li-"

A wire plunges into the tree bark next to William.

"Stay your tongue. I have no desire to listen to your delusional fantasies. I am a God. What do you have, William, against me?"

"I have Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. I have my faith. He is my King. You are not."

A shadow walks up from behind the tree. William does not notice; he keeps his eyes set on the wood. The glow of the Grey wood casts light on the shadow,...it is a skeleton in a robe. He is Death.

Death puts a hand on William's shoulder.

"You cannot fight back against your Demons, William. Not when I'm in control. You may have God one day, and maybe God will have you too. But today, you're with me. Today, I have you. All you have is pain today. Are you not weary of the sermons? Are you not weary of the unanswered questions? I can give you everything you want. Just empty your vessel and let. me. in.

"Never-"

William finally turns around, and swats Death's hand away. In his right hand, he holds the cross, and points it directly into Death's face.

Death backs away for a moment, and the tendrils retreat.

William holds the cross high, and recites:
  Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights.
 Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.
 Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.
 Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.
 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.
 He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass.
Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:
Fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling his word:
Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:
Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:
Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth:
Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children:

Let them praise the name of the LORD: 
for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.
 He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him.
 Praise ye the LORD.
 With each impending paragraph, Death shrunk back, and hissed at William.
With each paragraph, Death became more alive with anger.

The tendrils wrapped around Death, and he grew. Fifteen seconds later, a monster towered over William. A monster at least 30 feet tall. The monster was situated on the opposite side of the clearing from me, so I did not have to worry at that moment about being caught by it. It was almost completely composed of the wiry tendrils. It was in the shape of a dragon with grand wings and gigantic claws. Everything was made up of the wires, except for the facial area. There, what seemed to be a dragon's skull, sat upon it. It was like a mask. Under it, eyes of a color my eyes could not identify shone like dying stars on a city skyline.

The monster does not say anything...he doesn't have to. Almost in a telepathic way, he communicates.

"Your savior has no dominion here. You will die in the darkness. You will sink alone."

"I will never be alone. Not when my Father is there for me in the darkness...like he always is."

It chuckles at this. It forgoes the telepathy, and in a growling voice that could shatter mountains, it says:
"You’re so good at talking smack, you heart attack.
But you're the apple of my eye anyway."
William utters a sound that I identified as confusion, and then the Monster lunged at him.

Before I could see the result, I was awakened by cold water crashing onto my face. I was back in the kitchen of that woman's house. Luca and Markus stood over me, and started grinning when I looked up.  

"What happened...?" I asked.

Patrick filled me in. Apparently, I had fainted after touching the cross. I had only been out for at least half a minute. The woman was on the verge of calling an ambulance, because they were afraid that I was dying or something.

The wooden cross had disappeared. I dropped it after fainting, and no one saw where it went.

After that, we had to leave. There was nothing more we could do. We told the lady we would come back and revisit the location on a later date. 

I have not told anyone, including Norman/The Old Man, about what happened. They will see it on the blog if they decide to check it out, I guess.

 I do not want to talk about it right now anyways.

Home again, as always. Wondering. Confused. Alone.

Read some Bible passages for an hour or so. Tired. Time to go to bed. 

Who is William.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,

The marking still won't come off. I've tried and tried, but it won't wash off.

It spooks me out, to be honest. What's it supposed to signify? Why me? Why my chest? Why the number one? Why did The Slender Man throw us into the light in the first place? What does he want?

All questions. That's all I ever find, is more damn questions. When am I going to get a break and actually find out something new about my enemies?

There is some good news to report, I guess. We, The 757, have all met our personalized Lonely Hearts Agents now. Provided by TOM (The Old Man). He drove us to the meeting place, actually.

He somehow managed to get the entire 757, excepting Luca and Mason (Mason was busy), to meet at his house. In the living room, the Lonely Hearts Agents waited.

Sitting on the couch, were two of the agents. Tom introduced the pair as Holly and Dan.

Holly was a blonde, young adult; at least twenty two or so. She was very attractive, and had a soft, cute look in her eyes. She looked as if she was a caring individual. She gave us a terse "How do you do?", and then looked beside her, to Dan.

Dan looked a bit older than Holly. He had a rough look on his face, and looked very tough as well. His eyes had a piercing gaze, which almost felt threatening. Despite the look, he had his left arm around Holly, and appeared quite comfortable. He mouthed "Sup", and  then quickly looked away.

Uneasy, I tried avoiding eye contact with him, and looked upon the next agent.

Agent Vera: Beautiful, foreign redhead. She did not state where she was from anytime during the visit, but it was fairly obvious, because of the heavy Irish accent. She had an investigative look in her eyes. She almost seemed to be one of those "No fun and games" types. She wasn't exactly that though. She smirked a little approving when I looked at her, almost flirtatiously, even. She introduced herself, and even shook my hand.

On the wall next to the two couches, were 2 agents. The first one was some guy by the name Sane or something. I dunno, he didn't really talk to us much. He looked a bit nervous, and kept glancing at his phone every few seconds. He didn't want to be here.

And then,...Agent Lucas. The hipster of the group. He wore a purple scarf, brownish thickrimmed glasses, some ironic T-Shirt, and a plaid, unzipped hoodie. He was listening to some loud, obscure music on his clunky headphones, and pretty much hardly noticed us standing there. By the time he finally noticed us there, TOM had already moved on and started talking to us.

"My real name is Norman Rivers. I am a distant relative of Peter Rivers, though we do not share the same blood, nor am I particularly close to him anyway. I am sorry for going so long without revealing my actual identity to any of you children, but you have got to understand that I was under orders. I have been stationed here since the late Seventies, when The Dying Man first started appearing on our grids."

He just let that sink in. He was going to start speaking again, but Markus interrupted him.

"So wait...Grey really isn't the only thing you have to deal with? There really are other things out there..?"

He shook his head.

"No. Grey, however, is the first prominent personality we've ever had to deal with. He seems to be...well, I'll have to explain first. Do you know that old rhyme...Humpty Dumpty? Where the egg falls to the ground,  and the townspeople have to put him back together again? Imagine that The Dying Man used to be the egg, but has now broken into tiny pieces. He's still The Dying Man, but he's been ultimately separated, and-"

"-and we're the King's Horses, and the King's men?" Andrew said.

"...Yes...you're Andrew, right?" Norman asked.

"Yessir. Why?"

"Ummm...no reason...just wanted to become familiar with faces....and names..." Norman replied.

I noticed a mysterious look in Norman's face....

I decided I had to ask him later if he was the man in the old documents I acquired a bit in Notes 3 (Part 2).

"I'm saying that Grey is more powerful piece...a stronger collective of pieces that we thought were destroyed a hundred years ago. But he's back, due to a certain boy's interference..."

Everyone looked at me...

"What?" I said.

"This is all your fault, Owen. Not trying to make you feel bad, but that's the truth. Go on, tell everyone how you really found the pocketwatch...."

I realized then that he knew.

I stole that fucking watch.

One day, while walking near Scotts Creek in March, which is a body of water a block away from my old house, I spotted a car the sixth time that week. It had been abandoned, and seemed to be completely empty. I had the sudden urge to look inside of it, so I did, and saw the pocketwatch on the dashboard.

I snatched it up, and left.

"Owen, if the pocketwatch had never made contact with your skin, Grey wouldn't have ever reawakened inside of your blood, inside of your body."

I fucked up bad, apparently.

All of my friends just looked upon me with scorn, except Steven. Steven had already known about this.

"Don't feel too bad about it now, though, Owen. It's too late for that now. We just have to focus on cleaning this mess up. Besides, Grey would have awakened again eventually. I'm just glad it's now, when I'm alive. Now, boys, we have to start planning an assualt on Grey. I am wishing for it to happen in a month, but I need your help. Grey's hold on specific areas is still strong. What I need you to do, is for you to just go explore anywhere and everywhere you can throughout the city."

"What good would that do? Just walking randomly to places? The fuck?" Markus commented.

"Yeah, I agree. There's no way I'm walking my lazyass around places for no reasons." Keil added, in his usual smartass tone.

"Rest in peace, friends, it works. Trust me. Just have faith in me. I cannot tell you why, or how, it works, but trust me when I say that it works, because it works. Now, Owen; have you taught everyone here the art of meditation, correct?"

"No, sir. I haven't perfected it yet, either. I haven't tried it since what happened last time, actually." I said.

"Ahhh, I see. Well. I want you to start practicing again, ASAP. And teach them too. This is important. Now, you've all got a month or so left until we make our final move against Grey. Be ready. Start training. I know that most of you don't really have any obligation to be here, to help, and maybe you are considering leaving this...but you can't. You know it. You're all tied together now, for better or for worse. You can either all stick together and fight, or run away and perish silently. I suggest you choose the former."

Norman stole a look at Andrew, and then left for some room elsewhere in the house.

With his departure, we awkwardly conversed with our respective bodyguards.

My specified bodyguard would be Vera (yayyyy <___<). Markus and Patrick would have Dan covering for them, while Steven and Mason got Sane. Keil and Holly were paired up and Lucas was with Andrew.

Not all of us got along with our partners. Markus and Patrick seemed to be pretty chill with Dan, and Keil and Holly were okay, but Andrew and Steven didn't really connect very well with their respective partners. Lucas barely paid Andrew any mind, and Andrew barely spoke to Lucas anyways. Sane was too aloof for Steven, and Steven was too shy to prolong any conversation with him.

I got along very well with Vera. Conversation didn't feel forced at all. I think she's a pretty cool lady. And a cool pretty lady. <__< What, don't blame me. Blame hormones....she's quite the looker, if you ask me.

But she can be pretty hard to understand at times, I have to admit. Still, the accent is nice.

About half an hour later, Norman returns, with Luca's sister Katie by his side. Norman says Katie wants to say hello to all the "big kids" really quick.  She runs over and jumps into the conversations. The room had a tiny amount of awkwardness in the conversation before, but that was all erased with her appearance. She was just such a funny, cute girl. I didn't get to see much of her, though.

Grey interfered with that. I asked for the bathroom, someone pointed it out, and I ran in, and almost vomited all over the floor. I clutched at the toilet seat as I heaved seemingly my entire gut out. Grey fucked with my head, and made it seem like I was vomiting up blood, ash, magma, and fire.

Visions of Jesus Christ speaking into the sky while dying on the cross floated around in my head.

It was only some grey liquid, which scared me more than the things he was making me see.

I was vomiting up ectoplasm, the material that supposedly shows up when a spirit is materializing nearby.

Grey was outside of the house. He could not enter it, and no one was in any danger at this point, but goddamn, just knowing that he was there...

I wasn't scared. But I tried to act like it. I just wanted to be scared, so badly. I should have been scared. But Sowing Season has fucked up everything. I felt so numb. I looked into the mirror, and Grey made my face look as if it was falling apart. I didn't scream, and I didn't cry.

I started to pick at my face, so that in the mirror it looked as if I was pulling my own face apart.

The illusion stopped at that point, and the feelings of pseudo peril ceased.

I had left the bathroom door ajar, and Norman was there, back facing me.

"Owen, was that another attack from Grey?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Remember, you need to tell me whenever you have one of those. Those are important indicators in tracking down Grey...is he outside of the house right now?"

"Yes, though I think he's leaving now. Are you going to send the Agents after him...?"

"No. Too risky. He's probably entered the forest out back. No...I wouldn't want to send them into that. He'd pick them off, one by one."

"Okay..."

I stumble out of the bathroom, and almost fall, but the hallway's wall catches me. Norman offers me a hand, and I take it.

"You okay? Holly's a nurse, if you want, she ca-"

"No, no, it's fine. I'm fine..."

"Alright. By the way, Owen, I know about Luca joining The 757."

I freeze up. Is he mad?

"I am fine with it. He can't fight destiny. I don't really approve it, but I'm not going to stop it either. If I had a choice, though, he would not be allowed anywhere near you or your friends. No offense. Just be sure to take care of him. That child is my life. I trust you and Steven will do that too; you two are strong.

Luca's weak."

-----

The meeting ended at around 6, I believe. I'm home now. Tried meditating...couldn't do it. I know I need to. I promise, I'll try to. It's vital to Grey's defeat.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Woman, behold your son; behold your mother.

Despite not really wanting to, I joined the rest of the 757s for a tiny meeting at my old house today. The purpose of the meeting was for me to explain to the rest of The 757s how to counter against a mental battle with Grey. I didn't really...know, but I did have a basic sense of shit that you DO NOT do.
  1. Whatever you do, don't panic, even if he challenges you to a personal contest in another plane of existence. If you panic, he'll get the upper hand mentally, and maybe even physically too.
  2. Don't be boring. Improvise, improvise, improvise. Use the environment against him. Think creatively. Especially if you're in the middle of the Apple of Eye mental battle. It'll throw him off guard. He was literally scared for a minute, or an emotion close to fear, when he saw that I was actively fighting back against him instead of letting him kill me like I'd imagine many people would do, after giving up. 
  3. Don't lose faith. Believe in yourself, and in the situation. I know that it sounds corny, but just do it.
  4. Don't be a stubborn idiot like I am. If you get the fucking chance, and there's no other hope left, run away. It's better to live and fight another day instead of becoming a host of the sonofabitch.
  5. Don't fight alone. If you've actually been reading my blogs, then you know why I suggest this.
  6. Don't let your guard down; don't let him get to you. If you lower your defenses, and let him in for even a second, it's finished. 
  7. Don't forget what you're fighting for. Ever. 
Everyone except Patrick seemed to get the message. Patrick didn't understand the importance of strategy and planning. He just thought that if we ran up to Grey and tried kicking his ass, it would be an instant win.

Then I told him to stop being a dumbass, and think: We're fighting a monster stuck inside of a human's body. There will be tricks up his sleeves. Plus, Grey would probably just pull us into another plane of existence, and that's preferably a path I would not like to take. He has the natural upper hand there. The only reason I escaped during the Summer showdown was because of Steven's intervention. 

The 757 meeting ended on a grumpy note. No one wanted to be there, and no one hesitated to leave there either. Before Luca and I could leave, however, Steven stopped us, and requested that we finally break the news to The Old Man before he found out the hard way that Luca was apart of  The 757 now. 

Luca did not seem to want us to come over to his house, but he gave in eventually. An hour later, we were walking up to his front door.

Observation: [Funny feeling starts here.]

It was a small one storey house, with a large front yard. On the porch, a little girl sat, and when she saw Luca, her face lit up, and she smiled. She got up and ran straight to Luca, squealing "Big brother, you're home!!". The two siblings embraced, and Luca swung her around in the air.

It was really sweet to see, and reminded me of my little sister, Cosette. She looked exactly like her too, except her hair was a darker brown, and she was obviously older; she looked around 8 or 7, while Cosette's only 5. 

After Luca set his sister back down from Space and to the Earth, the sister looked up at me and Steven with a puzzled look. "Who are you guys? Luca's friends?" she asked sweetly. 

Steven spoke first. "Yeah! My name's Steven, and this kid's name is Owen. We're new friends of Luca's. Nice to meet you!! What's your name?" he said, smiling.

"My name's Katie!! I'm Luca's little sister! My favorite color's green!!"

From there, Steven and her went into their own little conversation; it was a distraction. A second ago, you see, the three of us had sensed something...off, a funny feeling, and somehow knew that there was something we needed to do....almost instinctual, even. While Steven talked to Katie, I nodded at Luca, and pointed at a small overgrowth of trees and bushes next to his house. I walked over to them, and he followed.

We submerged ourselves into the forested area, and...well..

we went somewhere. Somewhere not of this world.

Nowhere.

We were in a forest. A legitimate forest. And the trees...while they weren't that tall, they...they just felt tall. And old. Really old. Alive, too. It felt like everything was breathing at once. A mist hung low to the ground, and a blue tint washed over everything. Green colors were more...brilliant than before, and more prevalent. 

The smell of life hid the taste of death that was drifting throughout the air.

"Where are we, man?" Luca asked.

"I have no clue, but I want to find out." I replied.

Without waiting for a response from Luca, I started to push further into the forest.

The forest started thicken at one point, and branches were scratching our faces and weeds and roots threatened to trip our legs, when the thickness ceased suddenly at a forest clearing.

In the middle of the clearing, there was a circular stone slab, that was patterned with strange markings.

It looked like this; 


[Aristotle's Cosmos]

Had to do some research to find that.

Anyways, the slab was a bit...darker shaded than that, and the black lines were carved into the stone. 

Luca seemed scared of it...really freaked out by it. He warned me to stay back, but I ignored him, and stepped on the stone to get a closer look the markings....

...which started to glow in a blueish haze of light. The slab's different sections started to rotate in alternating directions and speeds, and as I slowly walked closer to the center of the slab, the speed of the alternations increased. When I was finally in dead center, the blue light was almost completely blinding.

The rotation and lights became too much, and I wanted to leave, but a ~voice~ in my head ordered me to stay, in an entirely different language....and yet I could understand it all...

And then I looked to my left, and saw whom the ~voice~ had come from...

The Slender Man, emerging from the trees. It was horrifying to see him, and yet...also, a certain sense of a protective attitude leaked out of him. 

The Fear approached Luca, who didn't even know what It was prior to this incident, which caused him to almost break down by the soul crushing fear this creature instilled upon his heart. The poor kid collapsed to the ground, and almost fainted...but The Slender Man wasn't having that bullshit. He picked Luca up, and threw him into the magical circle with me. 

Seemingly satisfied, the creature disappeared into thin air, and the circle's light swallowed us entirely whole. 

We were now floating in non existence. We had crossed the boundaries from our dimension, and had entered a new one. Luca was shaking in fear, so I "swam" over to him, and held him close, to stop him and calm him down. Soon, he stopped, and I let him go. 

we floated there for quite some time. I almost started thinking I was actually dead, and we that we were just located in Purgatory....I almost started praying.

But then I heard something unlock in the whiteness, and underneath us, existence shone up, like a beacon of light from a closet in the middle of the night. We slowly floated into the existence, and found ourselves back in reality...in front of the the bushes near Luca's house. 

Confused on how to react to that sort of experience, we kinda sorta just shrugged it off and rejoined Steven and Katie. We went into the house, and played with Katie, while waiting for The Old Man to stop by the house. A couple of hours went by, and The Old Man didn't show up. It was dark by that point, so Steven and I had to call it a day. Luca promised to tell The Old Man as soon as he got home.

I neglected to tell Steven what had happened. I don't know why I decided against telling him...I just felt..

When I got home, my chest started itching really bad. Where I was itching, I noticed there was a mark in the left-center area of my chest.

The Latin symbol for the number one was marked on me. It wasn't there before.

I've tried multiple ways of getting it off, but none have worked.

What's this marking mean? What's it for?

Friday, October 14, 2011

Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise

Talked to The Old Man today, though it was a short conversation. He's still very busy with all the technical business surrounding Grey, and has almost zero time with us nowadays.

He told me that he was already aware of the stalking, and had ordered a few Lonely Hearts ( the group Peter Rivers was apart of apparently) agents to watch over us until Grey was defeated. In fact, Steven adn I would be able to meet them in a few days.

Does this mean The Old Man is in a high position of power in The Lonely Hearts Club?

He also told me that I needed to start focusing on meditation, because that's pretty much the only option I have against Grey right now. Warned me that I needed to start practicing very soon, because if not, Grey might get even more powerful....as in, too powerful to kill off.

And before he left, he informed that Grey's murders had started doubling over the past few days, and that they were now widespread over the entire Hampton Roads region, though they are still based in Portsmouth.

With him gone, I decided to take advice and ~meditate~. I printed out the instructions from wiki-how, and...tried following them. -___- Unfortunately, I could not focus. At all.

See, I can be an impatient, hyper kid. I just can't sit still. This is one of my biggest faults.

Eventually, I gave up, and for some reason, decided to try going to sleep. Couldn't, so I thought that maybe if  I read a little bit, I would tire myself and fall asleep. Went to my old book shelf, and began looking through old books. Found The Bible; my aunt's edition of it.

It's very special to me; one of the few things I have left to remember her by.

I flipped through the pages, and read a few bits. I laid down on my bed with it...and dozed off.

And then I started to dream, and for once, it did not involve Grey.

It...it involved Jesus this time instead. I am not kidding you. I awoke in the middle of the desert, and saw Jesus Christ. He was sitting alone, and talking with The Devil. The Devil was tempting Jesus. I knew this bible passage. It's when Jesus goes out into the desert to prove something I think.

The dream morphed suddenly, and I was in an endless space of white nothingness. Above me, there was a gigantic hand, and in it, there was a pencil, scratching away invisible words on an invisible sheet of paper.

I fell.

I was falling.

I'm going to fall.

I was in a court, in front of the judge.

The judge was God.

He pointed at the Jury.

The jury were The Choir.

In the Choir, I saw a Sad Messiah.

He was bored and tired of my laments.

Said, "I died for you one time, but never again."


He pointed to the witness stand.

In the witness stand, I saw The Holy Spirit, in the form of a mother.

My mother.

She wept as she reported how much of a failure I was.

How she tried to show me who was wrong.

How she tried to show me who was strong.

How she tried to show me who didn't belong.

How she tried to show me that I just wouldn't last long.

I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong, right, mother?

And then mother pointed out the Lawyer.

The Lawyer...TheDyingMan.

Not Grey though. This one was different.

Stronger. Wilder. Simpler.

I was Guilty.

But then I tried meditating, and somehow, it worked. As soon as I was ~out~...as soon as I stopped paying attention, the courtroom scene washed away and I was in a forest clearing. Directly across from me, I spied a Fox. The Fox was....well, just made up of light.

Like, light just shone out of it.

I realized that this was the spiritual weapon I could use against Grey...all I needed to find out was its name...

I asked it its name. It did not answer; the dream ended before it could tell, or show me.

I wasn't in my bed, where I had fallen asleep. I was outside, on one side of the street.

On the other side, Grey stood, with his arms outstretched.

 He was laughing happily and telling me to "Come to papa!!" 

Fuck you, Grey. I realized that he had somehow possessed me while I was ~out~, and ran back to my house. Grey tried chasing after me, but I'm a pretty fast runner; had the door locked and everything by the time he got to the front door.

So....that's what happened today.

....Steven wants to investigate a certain location tomorrow, but I don't think I'll be able to make it, unfortunately. Sorry, dudes, my bad.

I just don't feel well.


Thursday, October 13, 2011

Father forgive them, for they know not what they do

Okay, kind of panicking right now. Grey is stalking me, and the rest of the 757s. He's outside of my window, just staring at me... He's not doing anything, so I guess I'll blog until he makes a move. I don't have anything to defend myself here, and I already texted The Old Man to get here ASAP, so I've done all I can do right now. This morning, Markus texted me. He told me that I needed to stop playing around, because he was done with my "silly games". Said that I had to stop hitting his window with rocks, and to take off "the silly ghost mask thing." I called him and informed him that was Grey. He didn't believe me at first, but then he saw that while I was talking, the ghost mask thingy was still there, watching Markus from across the street. I told him to stay calm, and that I would be there as soon as I could, but he interrupted me and said that Grey left the scene. I still ordered him to be careful, and ended the call. Five minutes later, I get a call from Patrick, and go through the exact same thing with him. [Note: Patrick and Markus live really close to each other]. I go out the way and text the rest of the 757 about it, and order them all to be on their toes today. I thought that may have been the end of it...[why did I think that?], and went to school like I normally do. Except, this time,...Grey followed me. Into school. I saw him... He was never in the same room as me though. He seemed not to be able to enter a clear doorway...as if a barrier was there. I'm a bit puzzled about it, but nevertheless, thankful. Grey is different. He now,....well, he doesn't look like the form I saw in the -dreamscape-, but he seems to be just as powerful as that form... He wouldn't stick around. He'd go to Markus' and Andrew's classes, and bother them. (Patrick goes to another school in our area by the name I.C. Norcom). I don't think he's allowed to hurt us in school. It's weird, I know. He's almost like a vampire. Maybe he needs to be ~invited~ in? That explains the whole -Let me in- bullshit, anyways. After school, Patrick and Andrew reported seeing Grey slowly walking behind them from large distances. Every time they looked away, Grey would appear closer, so Patrick ended up just ignoring Grey and silently quickened his pace, while Andrew ran for his life. Patrick doesn't give a fuck....he just doesn't realize who he's up against. I did not notice Grey following me home, nor did the rest of The 757s. Looking outside, Grey is gone now. If he comes back, I'll blog about it ASAP. Night.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Millstone

The 757 investigated almost all of Oldetown today. We were looking for any clues to Grey's whereabouts, and while we did find some evidence of his existence, none of them really foretold on how to find Grey, or give any specifications on the aforementioned whereabouts.

I texted everyone to congregate at my house around noon. Before anyone arrived, I went exploring in it, and...well, apparently Grey's visited there. On one of the walls, someone spraypainted the words: "Space Cadet, Pull Out." Under it, Grey left his name.

This really angered me. He vandalized my childhood home! Though it isn't in good shape now, due to my emotionally abusive mother (not going to talk much about that, but yes, my mother is abusive) abandoning it in March of this year.

Maybe I should talk more about my family and backstory in a future post.

Anyways, soon it was noon, and everyone started to arrive. First, Steven and Luca pulled up in front of the house (Steven driving). Luca still seemed a bit hesitant, but he wasn't leaving anytime soon; no one can now. We're all bonded together now.

Then, Keil, Mason and Markus, and afterwards Patrick by himself, and finally, timid little Andrew.

Before we set out, I got to talking with Luca more about things pertaining to The Dying Man, and his possession by it. The following thoughts result from that conversation:

----------------------------
If The Dying Man was controlling Luca too, then it is confirmed that my possession was not just a special case. This might be a local breakout of something paranormal in nature. Or, this may just be a worldwide phenomenon. Then again, I've seen no evidence to the latter, so maybe this is only centered into this region of Virginia. I don't know, but Grey's influence is definitely increasing here, and if the former theory is true, then Ptown maybe just practice for what he intends to do with the rest of the world. If so, we need to stop it immediately.

I'm not stupid though. I know Grey isn't the only thing, and definitely isn't the strongest thing, out there. What about the creatures surrounding the blogger Peter Rivers;...The Fears? Is The Dying Man really one of them, like Peter claimed, or is he something else? He just seems so inferior compared to them.....

Or maybe we're not giving him enough credit. He does seem to have alot of potential. He could, theoretically, end up possessing a large amount of the human race. Or, perhaps, he already has?

How do we stop him? Judging from my experiences, he's almost like a cockroach. And if these experiences over the last few months have shown anything, it is that if his influence over a person is strong enough, he can pull off almost anything with their bodies.

Now, notice I said anything. Can he possess things, not just humans? After all, we forced him out of my body by transferring his possession from it to the mask I recieved from Peter.

If he can possess objects,...can he possess towns? Cities? Worlds?

Has Grey literally merged with Portsmouth?
----------------------------

Bleh. These thoughts scare me.

I have to kill the problem here. I need to completely eradicate this plague. I can't let it escape and hurt anyone else. I don't want someone to go through the pain I had to endure.

And yet, people are dying out on my streets right now, and I can't do anything about it...

Onwards.

[[by the way, we skipped school today to do this, but I think The Old Man told us that if we end up missing any days due to Grey, he would take care of it, so I guess we'll just pin it on him.]]

We set off around 12:30 to Oldetown. We didn't really know what to do, so we kind of just wandered the town, honestly. We explored alleyways, parks, and forgotten streets. We searched for suspicious activity, supernatural happenings, and paranormal behaviors.

We kept our eyes, ears, and even our noses open.

We searched the Oak Grove cemetary in the West Park View neighborhood near Oldetown first. When we first stepped into the entrance of the graveyard, I just suddenly got hit with the profound feeling of complete...dread, accompanied with another feeling; the common touch of a prickly, cold static that usually finds itself on the back of a person's neck.

Felt like I was being watched. I looked around constantly, and saw nothing, but I knew better, or at least my body did, that something was stalking us.

Was it Grey? Or just my imagination?

I ignored these feelings and pushed on. We decided to split up after entering the gate; Patrick, Markus, Mason, and Keil walked together, while Steven and Luca wandered together. I was alone, as I had decided not to accompany Luca and Steven, and Andrew chose not to skip out on this leg of the journey...because, well, he was scared.

It was a good thing that he skipped out on the exploration, though. Later on, after finding nothing of value or mention, we congregated near the center of the cemetary, and decided that we should move on to another location. As we were exiting the graveyard, Markus happened to spot one gravemarker, with the dating:

July 3rd, 1960 - December 23rd, 1976

The dating was underneath the name "Andrew Wood."

Everyone seemed to know that this wasn't just a coincidence. I explained to them about the documents the Old Man let me post in the entry "Notes 3(Part 2)" anyways though.

Back then, I would have shrugged off the connection, and would have now, if not for the item that was laying in front of the gravestone.

A rotting apple, with the word "Grey" carved into the browning skin.

"Apple of my Eye."

another warning, eh, Grey? I get it, you want to show me who's boss. Stop bringing it up.

Patrick, after about half a minute of silence between us all, suggested that we got the hell out of there, so we did. Grey could have still been around, so I was on guard while we hurriedly exited the graveyard. From there, we moved onto the back alleys of the downtown area, but that quickly ended after all the hobos started stalking us everywhere...Ptown's flooded with the fuckers, but these ones seened different. More persistent...more hopeless looking.

We walked around a bit more, and almost an hour later, we decided to quit the adventure, as we weren't finding any leads whatsover. We also needed to end it as soon as possible anyway, because The Old Man did not know that his grandson Luca was hanging out with us. Luca was going to leave early, but Keil and I managed to convince him to eat a late lunch with us.

There is a restaurant by the title "The Circle" in Midtown Portsmouth. It is owned by my grandmother's side of my family, The Hopewells. It's a good place, and nearby, so instead of going to Mickey D's or another fast food joint, we pickedit to eat at.

It was fun. I haven't had that much in....well, years. After all the things I was going through when Grey was possessing me, and hell, even before that,...I'm finally free.

Free from tyrants in all shapes and forms.

We laughed. We discussed. We chatted. We ate.

Once our bellies were full and minds were empty, we...called it a day. I took care of the bill (apparently I don't get free food, even if I'm related to the owners) and I drove home.

But the day was not over. That was only a prelude of sorts.

See, a few of us had been invited to a party that night.

...and by that, I mean everyone who's a resident of Portsmouth. Keil moved to Norfolk recently, while Steven and Luca live in Chesapeake.

Andrew, however, wasn't invited in the first place.

The party was at some kid's house I barely knew. Friend of a friend, honestly. It wasn't even a big party...or a party almost at all. More of a small get-together, for old friends. It would have been bigger, but the idiot host of the party decided to throw it on a weekday.

I mostly just sat in the corner. Sowing Season...it was hitting hard. I just felt out of place. I felt....anger...and resentment...plus, the sleepless nights were finally catching up with me...

People tried to get me to socialize, but I softly declined. Eventually, they just gave up on me....everyone I've ever known eventually does that too....

I felt helpless, I felt alone. I felt bored.

These feelings multiplied...flooded my entire emotional being...enslaved me...

Someone should have just killed me there right on the spot...or something...

I felt ~better~ than these people. I felt ~more deserving~ of these people.

Because I almost embarrassed myself and my friends...I almost...burst out into a rant about...something, I don't even remember anymore. I got up, and started to enter the living room of the house we were in, but somehow...my friends knew what I was about to do. They saw my expression, I guess. Markus and Patrick grabbed onto me, and they pulled me back into the living room and started to ask what was up with me.

Something started to control me...my personality changed. I insulted them. I just let all my bitterness out on the ones closest to me.

They told me to chill out, and to go look in the mirror and ask myself what I was actually saying...if I was actually acting like the usual me.

I think they somehow knew that Grey was influencing me again.

I went into the bathroom of the house, looked into the mirror, and....saw Grey where I should have been. Yep. He was fucking with me again.

I faded out of that dimension, and entered the one Grey pulled me into last time....a dream land.

Grey was there too. As I turned around, I saw him, and with him, he brought a materialization of a, before that moment, of an invisible landscape.

An ocean. We were standing on an ocean...

I looked at Grey. He did not speak. All he did was point at my neck. As soon as he did, ropes bursted out the water and wrapped themselves around my throat. They were extremely heavy, and I was pulled underwater.

I was soon at the bottom of the ocean, drowning. The ropes were somehow shortening themselves, and eventually stopped at approximately a 3 feet long distance.

They were wrapped around a Millstone/Milestone. Hahahaha, Grey, great music reference.

Carved into the stone, was the word "Pride."

Water invaded my lungs, and my whole body felt like it was going to explode.

I was not afraid, but christ, it hurt so so much. I just wanted it to end...

And it did. One second, I was dying, another second, I was....

I was in a square room. The walls were composed of bricks. There were no windows or doors.

Suddenly, in the middle of the room, a mile stone appeared. It started to glow, burn red, and...it leaked fire. Or something. I can't exactly explain WHAT it was doing.

The small fire started to grow, and grow, and began swallowing everything in the room. It was inches away (at this point I was backed up to a corner, with my back against the wall), when the bricks behind me fell apart, and I fell through.

Just as I hit the hard ground, the fire shot out of the hole, before the brick square and it disappeared completely.

While I was laying on the ground, sweating, and too exhausted to look around at my surroundings, a voice shouted in my head:

"If you'd be my breath, there's NOTHING I WOULDN'T GIVE."

When the voice finished its declaration, I was thrusted into a sequence of images and memories. from past points in my life.

Going to church for the first time...attending it every other Sunday...praying every night before bed...reading the Bible...looking at the world around me..questioning my faith..rejecting my faith.

My father congratulating me on a good soccer game...my father fixing my brothers and I dinner...my parents seperating...my parents fighting...my parents not paying attention to me...my mother yelling at me...my mother choking me....

Sitting alone at the lunch table...meeting a few of my friends...moving to their lunch table...hanging out with them....falling out of touch with them...moving away from them...

Anna....kissing her for the last time...

I was suddenly trapped inside my own body.

I was suddenly running out into the street.

With every step I took, I decreased in age.

I was suddenly eleven.

I was suddenly eight.

With every person watching, I increased in rage.

I was suddenly in front of a speeding car.

I was suddenly also in front of a speeding schoolbus.

With every screeching tire, I repeated my saving grace.

With everything I mentioned, I weakened the bars to my own cage.

I was my own cage.

With the resulting collision, I was free.

And yet, I don't, and won't ever, know what true freedom is.

Though I was dead in the street, I was alive in a hospital bed in the middle of the trees.

Over my hospital stood Grey, except this time he looked different. He was bulkier, and on his head, there appeared to be dull horns growing out of his head and tearing holes into the hood he was wearing. The mask was different too; now, it was much more skeletal in appearence, and the jaw had widened, accompanied with sharper teeth. Behind the mask, I could see wires slithering inside. The wires were thicker now; they no longer looked like strings, at any rate.

The mask appeared to be in the middle of a transforming into an actual face and head.

This time, Grey wasn't fucking around. He ran over to my bed, picked me up, and threw me against the wall. The wall gave way, and suddenly I wasn't in a hospital. I was flying through the air....the hole that was once in the hospital wall morphed into an Emergency Exit Door.

It was the schoolbus again...it was currently crashing into a Limousine.

Instead of skidding on pavement, I skidded on a cool, tiled floor...

a bathroom. I was back inside of the house.

I had apparently been out of this realm for almost 10 minutes this time....

Grey's grip is even stronger now...

I left the house, went home, and now we're here.

Will converse with The Old Man about it tomorrow....nothing else to say...really...