"We didn’t want to go, we didn’t want to kill them,

but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us  at the same time… "

-1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead.....

 

"One of two recovered photographs from the Stirling City Library blaze.

Notable for being taken the day which fourteen children vanished and for what is referred to as “The Slender Man”.

Deformities cited as film defects by officials. Fire at library occurred one week later. Actual photograph confiscated as evidence."

-1986, photographer: Mary Thomas, missing since June 13th, 1986.....

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"Stela," the mother said, "lie in the circle."

Stela, though she worried she might stain her clothes, did as her mother asked.

"Sorina," the mother said, and bid Sorina cut her sister open with the knife.

Sorina could not; would not.

"Please," her mother said. "If you don't, it will be worse. So much worse."

But Sorina could not, and she threw the knife away and ran home, crying. She hid under her bed, afraid for the first time in her life. She waited until her father came home from the fields, and told him of the terrible thing she had found in the woods. Her father comforted her, and told her she would be safe. He went to the woods, his axe in hand, and as he commanded, she stayed by the hearth, waiting for his return.

After some time she fell asleep. When she woke, it was to the sound of knocking on her door at the darkest hour of the night. "Who is there?" she said.

"It is your father," the knocker said.

"I don't believe you!" said Sorina.

"It is your sister," the knocker said.

"It cannot be!" said Sorina.

"I am your mother," said the knocker, "and I told you it would be worse." And the door, locked tight before her father left, fell open as if it had been left ajar. And her mother stepped in, her sister's head clutched in one bloody hand, her father's in the other.

"Why?" wept Sorina.

"Because," said her mother, "there is no reward for goodness; there is no respite for faith; there is nothing but cold steel teeth and scourging fire for all of us. And it's coming for you now."

And the tall man slid from the fire, and clenched Sorina in his burning embrace.

 

 

 

And that was the end of her.

 

From The Tall Man, a Romanian Fairy Tail.......