There seems to be a constant trend of me never getting the chance to just sit down and process things. Writing in this journal seems to be the only opportunity I have to think, and even then it only comes in short bursts between disasters.

What I really wanted to do was lie down on that grey shore and stare at the burning sky. Three Fears, dead in seconds. We’d had all these plans, taking on the Slender Man’s Fears individually, trying to pick them off one by one while I regained this power I was told I should have, until we could afford a direct confrontation. But then the Slender Man just wiped them out, with barely any difficulty. How am I ever supposed to compare to that? I’ve only managed to kill one Fear so far, and that was on accident. It destroyed an entire pocket universe by creating and blowing up a fucking star!

I don’t know what I’m going to do next. Maybe if I actually got some time to sit down and try to plan a way out of this god damn mess, I’d figure something out. But I was only on that shoreline for a few minutes when I suddenly felt the ground shaking beneath me. Out in the ocean, that massive tree was appearing. Which meant the Slender Man wouldn’t be far behind.

Once, I might have tried to fight. But after seeing its power in action…. I just ran. Ran like a coward. A stupid coward, considering I had no idea where I was or where I could go. But you rarely think things through when you’re panicking.

Thing about that beach: no matter how far you run on it, you never seem to move. Every time I looked back, the tree was still the same distance from me. And its branches were growing outward, as if reaching for me. The sand beneath my feet started to give way as huge rifts opened up in the ground, and huge waves rose from the ocean. A rift appeared beneath me, and I started to fall into darkness.

And then, I felt something pulling me. An invisible force, grabbing me and ripping me away from that universe. Everything twisted around me, and I was flung through a chaos of space as the sound of a young girls’ laughter echoed in my mind.

When everything stopped, I was no longer on the beach. Instead, I was… wherever this is. It looks like I’m outside the most stereotypical Disney fairy tale palace imaginable, with gleaming white towers and vibrant gardens. Except it also happened to be floating in the middle of a howling void of darkness and screams.

The front gate is wide open. Honestly, it looks a little too inviting. Given the shrieks of terror coming from the whirling blackness all around the estate, I’m a little suspicious. Hence why I’m just sitting out here and writing instead of exploring.

But I’m going to have to go in and explore eventually. It’s just the sort of thing I do.