July 4, 2012 - Southern Louisiana

545

It still happened. I tried to change things, but it still happened.

When I had been Lisa, we’d gone together to stop the ritual. That obviously didn’t work, so this time, after parking our car and walking through the narrow muddy trail that ran between the swamp water, I told Lisa to stay where she was and wait for me to come back. She protested, but I reminded her that she’d agreed to do exactly as I told her.

Alone, I continued ahead. Didn’t take long before I started to hear the wild chanting and see the torches flickering over the water.

A clearing had been made among the trees there. In the center, a wooden stage had been built, around which the cultists danced to the pounding drums. Jacob Olmstead was on the stage, carefully chalking out sigils onto the floor. And next to him, overseeing his progress, was Grendel.

I walked toward the stage, and as the cultists saw me, they stopped their dance and stepped aside. Olmstead nearly dropped his chalk when he saw me. “How did you find us here-”

Grendel snapped his fingers and Olmstead’s mouth closed mid-sentence. “Sweetheart!” Grendel said. “How wonderful of you to join us here!”

Ignored him. Didn’t want to look at him if I didn’t have to. “You all need to get out of here right now. The Slender Man is going to be showing up any minute.”

That surprised most of them, but Grendel was unfazed. “Yes, I know.” He said. “Why do you think I chose this location for the ritual if not for that?”

Olmstead nervously approached Grendel. “My lord… what do you mean, you know?”

“Hm? Oh, yes.” Grendel addressed the cult. “By the way, you’re all going to die here.”

Stunned silence. Olmstead only managed to say “What-” before he arched back and screamed in pain. Then black branches erupted from his eyes and mouth. More branches tore out from under his skin, growing from him until, where Jacob Olmstead had stood, there was instead a black barked tree with bloody skin and organs hanging from its leafless branches.

Someone in the crowd screamed, but everyone fell silent as they felt a chill fall on them. The Slender Man stood in their midst, tentacles growing from its back in preparation to strike.

The cultists were massacred in seconds. Most were ripped to pieces where they stood, and none of those who tried running made it past the edge of the clearing before being killed. I tried shooting the Slender Man, but couldn’t focus on the timelines. With both the Slender Man and Grendel present, there were too many distortions, too many black patches along the lines. All my shots went wild.

Once the cultists were dead, the Slender Man withdrew its tentacles. Grendel jumped off the stage and walked toward it. “Finally you’ve arrived!” He said. “Truly, this is the moment I have waited for!”

“Stay out of my way, Grendel.” I said. “I don’t need your help.”

“Oh? So did you also happen to bring a weapon capable of harming gods?”

“….”

“Didn’t think so.” He flicked his wrist, and his flaming sword appeared. “Now if you’ll excuse me, dear…” Grendel vanished, reappearing right in front of Slender Man. He swung his sword, it blocked with a tentacle. The fight had begun.

Grendel warped all over the clearing, parrying, dodging, trying to attack. More Grendels appeared as he leapt up and down the timeline, two, three, four Grendels, swarming around the Slender Man. It stood perfectly still, lettings its tentacles block every attack.

No matter how hard Grendel pressed his assault, not one swing could break past the defense. He began attacking with greater ferocity, ignoring his own safety. One of the Grendels was impaled by a tentacle and thrown into the air. But by the time that Grendel hit the ground, the wound had healed and he was running back into the fight.

Seemed like a stalemate. Grendel couldn’t land a single hit on the Slender Man, but no matter how much the Slender Man tore Grendel apart, his body would reform in moments.

Maybe patience isn’t a virtue for eldritch creatures, because soon the Slender Man ended the fight. More tentacles than I could count came out of its body, faster than even Grendel could react. All present iterations of him were stabbed through, and all disappeared save one. That one was slammed into the ground, from which black hands rose and pinned him down.

Then the Slender Man looked at me. I fired the rest of my bullets at it, but to no effect. Looked down to pull a fresh clip out of my coat, and when I looked up it was standing only a foot away from me. It placed a hand over my face, and my entire body froze. I felt it inside my mind, pulling up and making me relive memories. And, well, let’s just say… I don’t have many pleasant memories.

Lisa must have heard me screaming, because she came running into the clearing, gun drawn. Dammit dammit dammit, I told her to stay back and wait for me!

Soon as she was in the clearing, the Slender Man’s arms turned into tentacles and shot towards her. No way she’d be able to avoid them. But then Grendel suddenly appeared behind her, and swung his sword. As the sword passed through the air, it left a trail behind it, forming a crack of nothing behind Lisa. When the swing was complete, Grendel hit the crack with his free hand. And shards of reality fell away, creating a gaping hole. Lisa barely could look back before she fell into it. The Slender Man’s tentacles continued onward, but Grendel grabbed the edges of the hole and slammed it close just as the tentacles reached it, causing them to hit Grendel instead.

But the Slender Man wasn’t interested in attacking Grendel anymore, and it withdrew its tentacle from him and vanished soon as it was clear Lisa was gone. Grendel started to talk to me, probably saying something smug, but I have no idea what the words were. I’d failed. I thought I could change things, but… she still was taken from me.

If there was any justice in this world, I’d have been given time to grieve. But there isn’t. The realization that I’d fucked up was only just going through my head when I felt two more Fears appear nearby. Man in a gas mask and a pillar of water rising from the swamp: the Archangel and EAT. Nothing to worry about, I thought. Given our past interactions, I didn’t believe we had any reason for conflict.

That turned out to be wrong. The water whipped at me like a giant tentacle, only stopped from smashing me when Grendel appeared in the way and cut through it with his sword. The whip lost form and dropped into a puddle, but more tendrils were rising from the swamp water.

Then the Archangel raised the palm of a hand toward me. The grass in front of it began to wither and rot, trees bent and died. This wave of death spread from that hand toward me, until Grendel appeared in front of me. The wave hit him and stopped; his skin cracked and melted, but he stood solidly between me and it.

“What the hell’s going on?” I shouted. “Why are they attacking me?”

“All part of Archangel’s machinations, dear.” Grendel grunted in reply. Most of his skin was gone, revealing the crawling black shadows underneath which were struggling to maintain human form. “For this universe to go down the timeline the Fears want, they’ve got exactly six minutes after the girl falls into the Quiet to kill you.”

“What happens in six minutes?”

“You’re going to make a very rash decision that screws everything up.”

No more conversation after that; the shadow thing that was Grendel couldn’t form a functioning mouth anymore. Hell, he was having a hard enough time with the rest of the body; as the Archangel continued its assault, Grendel less resembled a human and increasingly turned into a mass of shadowy tentacles covered in eyes and teeth.

I wasn’t paying any mind to that, though. Looked back at the place where Lisa had fallen away. Couldn’t believe I’d failed so easily. Am I really so powerless? I can do so much, but I can’t even change the flow of time a little bit? That can’t be. I can’t accept that. I’ll never accept that. I already said that the whole universe can go to hell, and I meant it. I’m not going to lose her.

Just then several of EAT’s tendrils swung toward me. Another Grendel, this one still in his human form, appeared and cut through them with his sword. Soon as he came near me, I said, “Grendel. Is there any way I can save her?”

He smiled that creepy predator grin at me. “Six minutes on the dot!” Grabbed my arm, and pulled me into the timelines, away from that swamp.

We ended up in a desert somewhere. No Fears or anything eldritch there. “Well? Are you going to answer my question?”

Grendel kept smiling. “There is a certain ritual. One which I’m sure you’re fairly familiar with.”

Then he explained. In hindsight… it’s a bit obvious. After all, it’s not as though I haven’t seen a ritual designed to pull something out of the Quiet before.

“Although,” Grendel continued, “you’ll need something much more powerful than the base ritual I gave to Lupine in order to accomplish your goal. But I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

Yeah thanks for the specificity there, Grendel.

That wasn’t the end of his lecture, unfortunately. Having gotten what I asked for, I was about to leave, when he started talking again. “You won’t be able to succeed as you are now.”

“Well thanks for the fucking vote of confidence, but I don’t need your opinion. I can handle myself.”

“Yes, you were doing such a wonderful job of it back there against the Fears.”

“Fuck you.” But he was right, damn him. So I listened.

“It’s about time you embraced your heritage.” The skin on his left hand peeled back, showing the shadows underneath. “There’s a very interesting archeological expedition happening in Egypt, circa 1910s. You’d recognize the name of its leader: Richard Walsh. Grandfather of Peter Walsh.”

“…I’ll look into it.”

“Wonderful!” He took a bow. “I’ll let Daddy know the prodigal daughter’s on her way home!” Then he was gone.

Getting advice from Grendel… thinking about it makes me feel sick. But I’ll do it for Lisa. If it means saving her, I’ll do anything. No matter how much it repulses me.

Don’t worry, Lisa. I’m going to save you.

I-330