Pop Quiz, Kiddies

Yep, just another freezing day up in Canada. I had another Slender Man dream last night, but it didn't really have anything significant in it. . . actually, now that I think about it, I can't even remember what the dream was about. It was very short, and it wasn't that scary either, but it still had Him in it. I could remember it a bit this morning when I woke up, but now it's completely gone from my head. If I can remember it later, I'll post again with the details. For now though, I'm just going to write up some key points on the Slender Man.

First of all, the three rules that M stated in The Tutorial.

1. Get Up High
2. Keep Moving
3. Keep Your Eyes Open

It's obvious what the Get Up High rule means at this point. Almost all of us are aware of how M has been surviving all this time, and one of these things is getting up to high areas, like a roof, or a water tower, or a really tall building of the sort. The reason this keeps us safe is because this, oddly enough, confuses Him. Because He is so used to seeing human beings shorter than Him, He can't comprehend the idea of a human being shorter than Him, therefore it confuses him and he can't get you. It's almost like he doesn't see you as a human being; more like a superior being that he doesn't want to get involved with.

Although, unfortunately, you can't stay on the rooftops or in the water towers forever. You'd run out of food, and eventually, lose your sanity as well. And the moment you get off that building/water tower, it's back to running, because then He sees you as a regular human being again; a human being that He can chase after.

The second rule, Keep Moving, is pretty straightforward.

"Because even if Slenderman can't get you people can. And Slenderman is good at getting people to do things for him." -M

You just have to keep switching locations in the general area. According to M, the longest you can stay in one location without getting found is about 2-3 months. The longest time you can stay inside a house is about 2 weeks, if you're lucky.

"I'm tired of having to tell people to move and run and then seeing 2 weeks later they're still in their house. You need to leave and you need to leave as soon as you can. Because if you stay near the people you like when Slenderman is following you, it's like you've killed them." -M

However, there are some people that can pull off exceptions to this rule.

"Then again some people are different. A few months ago I met a girl named Shandi who lived out in the woods. I found her house 1 day when walking down a road and I saw it out of the corner of my eye. I almost didn't go look at it, but then I saw it.

A huge red (X) on the up stairs window of the house." -M

Shandi was able to stay inside her house for months, and her house was out in the middle of the forest. It may have been the fact that she had the Operator symbol painted on the window; this is another trick that I'm going to write about later in this post. Also, she stayed upstairs the entire time; could this have meant it confused Slender Man into thinking she was taller than Him? But then again, there have been tons of cases in the past where Slender Man went after people in a house, on the top floor (the HYBRIDS for example, and their first 'real' encounter that was later defined as being real and not a hoax that they made). Who knows, maybe her house was just tall enough and all the other houses weren't. Maybe it was because she lived alone and didn't attract Him by luring Him in with her family members and the ones she loved (although it's possible that the other family members had already been killed).

Either way, she lived in that house for quite a while, until M showed up.

"She didn't talk to me until I went right next to her and asked her a few things. All the time I was there she only told me a few things about herself and she didn't talk very much. Everything had started happening to her about the same time it had started happening to me. The house hadn't always looked like that, it had been normal. But Slenderman had been in it a few time, tried to set it on fire, basically attacked it from all sides. Her mom, dad, and sister had all died. She didn't know what had happened to her friends. She was home schooled so she didn't really have many anyway. After her sister was killed, who was 9, she had gone crazy, tried to kill Slenderman anyway she could. Tried to burn down the house herself when He was in it. Nothing had worked. Shandi had gone into the woods and tried to shot herself after all that. But it didn't work. He moved her back to the house too quickly. She couldn't live and she couldn't die.

After that Shandi stopped caring. When I lived in the house, mostly because I felt too bad to just leave her behind, she barely ate, or slept or did anything besides sit in that chair. Sometimes she talked to me, or told me stories she made up, but that was about it. She never even got the notebooks. She was too strong to be taken, and too weak to beat him.

She had lived in the house without running for months, and she was still alive. Then 1 morning I woke up, the room dark with His large form blocking the window." -M

Could it be possible that He was waiting until she was an 'eligible candidate' to become hallowed? It's obvious that Slender Man was playing with her head. Because as M states, "Slender Man likes to play with His food."

Although, it's still not recommended that a runner stays in their house for more than two weeks. Slender Man may be stupid, but he still figures out the tricks you play on him eventually. Staying in the house just puts your family members and the ones you love at a greater risk, and it doesn't do good for your sanity either.

"This doesn't mean that you can live as long in the house as Shandi did, keep in mind. Shandi was unusual. Like I said it usually only takes 2 weeks. But even if you're strong, if you think you can wait him out in your house, you can't. He'll get you in you stay still, even if it's after days, or weeks, or months. He'll find you, and He'll know where you and everybody you love is, and He'll kill you." -M

That's one of the tricks to running from Him: you have to keep as much sanity as you possibly can.

He doesn't want you to keep your sanity. He wants you to lose it. Because when you lose it, that's when he takes control of you. That's when he kills you.

Okay, moving onto the third rule. Keep your eyes open.

M also blames Marble Hornets for this rule; according to him, they singlehandedly willed this one into existence (recall that Marble Hornets was indeed fake at the time it was started, but thanks to them and the Tulpa effect, Slender Man was willed into existence, and now they really are on the run).

Slender Man has this sort of weakness that M and one of his fellow runners, James Matthews, experimented with. Apparently, when you look straight at Slender Man, He can't get you. It's obvious that He doesn't exist in the same sort of time existence we do. You can tell by the way he moves and, well, based on what He is. However, if you were to look at Slender Man, this almost ties Him down to our plane of existence; He can't get you then. Therefore, if you were to come face-to-face with Him and couldn't get to a rooftop, just stare at Him and back away. It's not fullproof, but it keeps you safe in emergencies.

"There is 1 exception to this rule and that's if you're blind. There's a girl out there who's name is Mimi Shrawts. I don't know what happened to her. I had to leave. But she's out there, with this problem and still she was beating it. I asked her how and said that even though she couldn't see she still had a pretty good mental image of what was going on around her. Not in the same way we do (I asked her to explain it and she couldn't really, but I think it was mostly in sound and touch), but still it was pretty accurate. So basically if she kept Slenderman in her mental image of the world when she knew he was there she was ok."

I met a blind girl once. She's actually a good friend of mine. She was one of the Easter Seals candidates on PEI that visited my school a little while back, I think when I was still in elementary school (6th grade maybe?). Anyways, she ended up joining band, and I saw her again at band camp, when we both learned how to play the flute. Then, a few years later, we ended up in Honor's Band together as well. Considering she was blind, I was amazed that she could play the flute, and even more amazed that she made it into Honor's Band. She had to memorize all her music and fingerings for the flute.

So anyways, I got to guide her around quite a few times, and we soon became pretty good friends. I wanted to ask her how she had a mental image of the world, much like M had asked Mimi how she got the mental image as well, but I never got a chance to. I can't imagine how that would work, but maybe if I walked around my house for a bit with my eyes closed, I'd get a pretty good idea of what she would be referring to.

So those are the three rules, runners. I guess you didn't really need me to retype all this considering M and compileTRUTH has already gotten the message through to you, but I'm retyping it because I need something to write about and because there may still be a few of you runners out there who don't know the rules.

Just follow these rules, and you will hopefully survive.

There are three things that you do NOT want to do, and these things break those rules.

1. Not following the rules.
2. Hanging out with somebody being followed by Slender Man.
3. Hanging out in a forest.

Obviously, hanging out in the forest is possibly the stupidest thing you could ever do. The forest is His home. And also, spotting a human being in the middle of the woods is like spotting a drunk in the middle of a business meeting. To Him, you stick out like a sore thumb. You're easier to find when you're in the woods, and it just gives Him less work to do; He doesn't have to chase you because you've just walked straight into His home.

Hanging out with somebody being followed by Slender Man isn't all that bad, but it depends how far along they've 'gone', and how frequently they're haunted. M sometimes states that it's dangerous to team up, but he's starting to change his mind about teaming up a little now.

"It's dangerous walking around in groups. 2 people are dangerous, a whole group would make Him even stronger and you more of a target. Rereading this blog less then a month ago I wrote that I didn't want to team up with anybody. It was too dangerous and there was no reason to."

"Now I'm not so sure." -M

You can run with people, if it makes you feel safer. But if you travel in big groups, it's just like walking into the forest - it gives Him less work to do. Because killing a whole group of people on the spot is much easier than tracking each one of them down individually. It just makes Him stronger.

Wow, I was going to start talking about the effects of the (X) symbol, but now I'm not so sure. I'll cover it later, maybe today, maybe tomorrow. This post is excruciatingly long, and I don't want to burn your eyeballs out or drive you to madness of complete boredom.

Peace be with you, Runners.

-UZUKI