A Stranger In The Trees

## A Tall Stranger in the Trees by ReitannaSeishin

Some people say he's a myth, an urban legend, a made up story meant to scare people. However, I have seen him. I've seen what he is capable of, I've seen how frightening he really is... and I never want to see him again. I was around the age of eleven, and I lived in the country with my mom, dad, and eight year old sister. The entire town was surrounded by forests, and not very many people lived in it. It was a simple town; there were no big business chains or anything like that. All the shops were family owned. In fact, our family owned a small bakery that was actually the downstairs level of our home.

My sister, Abigail, and I would always go to the tiny park by the edge of the woods to play with the other children that lived in the town. There weren't very many, so we all knew each other. Sometimes my sister would go to the park by herself while I did my homework. One day she came into my room while I was working on some math problems.

"Sarah," she said to me excitedly. "I met someone new in the park. You should come meet him!" I turned to her with a smile.

"I can't, Abby," I said. "Mom said I couldn't go out and play until my homework was finished and my room clean."

"But he's not going to be there all day," said Abby. "He's probably already gone."

"I'm sure he'll come play another day," I said, turning back to my work. "I'll meet him next time."

I had quite a bit of homework for the next couple of days. Abby would always try to get me to play in the park with her and her new friend, who she didn't seem to know the name of, but I was too busy. Finally, it was Saturday, and I didn't have anything to do. We went to the park together and played on the seesaw.

"Where's your new friend?" I asked her.

"I guess he's not here yet," she replied. I was beginning to wonder if this "friend" was imaginary. After about fifteen minutes, a younger kid came up to us and tugged on Abby's sleeve.

"Abby," he said. "The tall stranger is back. Let's go play with him." Abby hopped off the seesaw and urged me to follow. I felt uneasy at hearing the boy call this friend "the tall stranger." All the same, my curiosity was too great, and I followed. All of the children headed into the forest and gathered around a dark tree. I stood by my sister and gasped, seeing that it wasn't a tree at all, but an unnaturally tall man. He had to be eight or nine feet tall, and he was so thin, I thought the wind was going to blow him away. He was wearing a black business suit, and his arms were too long to be proportional. I squinted, trying to see his chalk white face, but for some reason, I couldn't make it out. It was as if there was no face at all.

Something about the man unnerved me. Part of me was enticed to come closer, but the other part of me was screaming and telling me to run far away. There was a faint ringing in my ears. The children circled around him. For whatever reason, they were more drawn to him than I was. I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that I was older than all of them by a few years. They reached up to him, touching his thin, boney white hands.

Abby was trying to push through the other kids so that she could touch the man as well. I looked at her face; her eyes seemed almost hypnotized, as if the man's presence was luring her into some kind of trap. I looked back up to the man and gasped, seeing now multiple tentacle like arms coming from him, reaching slowly to the children. They cooed softly, reaching their hands up excitedly. The ringing in my ears was now painfully loud. I screamed and covered them, and I felt dazed. My mind was foggy and my vision was blurred. Abby was still trying to get closer to the man, but without thinking, I grabbed her hand and ran as quickly out of the woods as I could. I didn't even look back.

Once back in the park, Abby yanked her arm away from me, practically sobbing.

"Why did you do that!?" she yelled. "I wanted to play with the tall stranger!"

"Abby!" I said, panting. "That... thing... is bad! I don't even know what it is! Please don't ever go near it again!"

"You can't make me!" Abby screamed at me.

"I'll tell mom not to let you go," I said. "I'll say there's a creepy man always hanging around the park. She won't let us go anymore."

"Why don't you want to come here anymore?" said Abby.

"I don't want to be around that thing," I replied, and I took her hand, leading her home.

I had told mom about a stranger in the park, leaving out the details of how unnatural he was, but she didn't seem to think anything of it. She said it was probably just someone's father that we didn't know or something. I didn't want to argue. I just had to make sure Abby didn't go to the park myself.

Mom soon changed her mind, however. The next day on the news, there was a report of three missing children. They were all sibling, and Abby and I had just seen them at the park the day before, gazing up at that creature in the forest with the other children. According to the news story, they had gone to the park and had never returned home. Their parents were distraught. There was no sign of struggle though; they seemed to have simply vanished.

After seeing the story, mom seemed to have decided that the stranger I had told her about was probably not to be trusted, and she had forbidden us to go to the park without an adult.

The disappearences didn't stop other kids from going to the park, apparently, for each day, more children were disappearing. Again, there was no evidence as to where they could have gone. We wondered why parents kept letting their kids go, but then I thought, what if they're going without their parents knowing? I had to be careful; I needed to keep a close eye on Abby.

A week went by, and Abby and I were the only children left in the whole town. The police were searching everywhere for all of the missing children, but they hadn't come even close to solving the case. It all felt so unrealistic, like a dream. How could a dozen or so kids go missing without a trace?

Strange things started to happen to Abby as the next week rolled on. She started getting out of bed in the middle of the night and standing next to it, staring blankly at the wall and not moving for hours, and then she'd lay and sleep once more. When I caught her doing this, I told her the next morning, and she said she couldn't remember.

Abby had also stopped eating as much. Mom was getting worried and urged her to eat, but she always said she wasn't hungry. She was also drawing strange pictures obsessively, as if she was being controlled by something unseen. The pictures all had a very messy circle with a scribbled X drawn over it, and they said things like, "SEES ME," and "RUN," and other disturbing phrases and words. Sometimes I would watch her draw these pictures, her eyes glassy, and her hand moving abnormally fast across the paper.

Finally, one night, I heard her get out of bed again. I stood up and went into the hall and saw her leaving her room. This was a first; all the other times she just stood like a statue next to her bed. I tried calling to her, but she didn't respond. I followed her as she left the house and out into the night.

It was cold and slightly windy, and neither of us had shoes on. I walked closely behind her, but it seemed she was unaware that I was even there. I even tapped her on the shoulder, but she completely ignored me. Then I saw that we were headed into the park.

"Abby," I whispered urgently. "We shouldn't be here! Let's go home!" She didn't answer. I tried to grab her arm and pull her back, but for some odd reason, she seemed stronger than me. She continued to walk through the park and into the forest. I didn't want to go in there, but I wasn't going to leave Abby alone.

Our surroundings got darker as we headed deeper into the woods. I followed Abby much further into the trees than before when we had seen that tall creature. Again, I tried to tell her to come home with me, but she stayed silent. There was a very faint ringing in my ears again. Further and further we walked until finally we came to an area where the trees were less dense and was lit by moonlight.

Abby stopped walking. I stood next to her, hugging her arm and urging her to turn around. The ringing in my ears started growing louder, and my head began to hurt. I closed my eyes, holding my head in pain as the high pitched whine became too loud to withstand. Suddenly, it stopped. I opened my eyes, looking up slowly. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. He was standing right in front of me, towering above me like some kind of living tree. I looked to Abby and saw her staring up at him, her eyes blank, as if she was in a trance.

"Abby!" I gasped, but my voice was hoarse. "Please, let's go! Run!" Still, she didn't move. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "ABBY!!" She slowly tilted her head to the side, staring at me. It was eery, the look she was giving me. Still, she remained silent.

Just then, I saw a thin, tentacle like hand wrap around Abby's throat, and she was ripped out of my grasp. I screamed, watching as she was lifted into the air. I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn't move, and I couldn't look away. Abby was struggling, choking from the man's grip. He seemed to be staring at her with his nonexistant face. A fierce wind blew through the trees for a mere second, and then everything was still and silent... almost too silent. Abby was limp, her head hanging down, and I couldn't see her face. The man slowly set her down on the forest floor, and she stood next to him, seeming to be conscious. I wanted to approach her, but I was still glued to the spot.

Nothing prepared me for what happened next. Abby slowly lifted her head and stared at me. I gasped, horrified at her face. Her skin was pallid and clammy looking, and her eyes were sunken in and blank, sleepless shadows beneath her eyelids. Then, she began to cry blood. She wasn't sobbing or even moving in any way. She stood there, unblinking, blood running from her eyes and down her cheeks. I felt like I was going to be sick.

I was suddenly aware of many glowing eyes watching us, and I saw the shadows of children in the distance. They disappeared as soon as I had noticed them. I looked back to Abby and saw her body fading into darkness, becoming nothing but a silhouette of her former self. Then, she was gone. I felt tears running down my face, but I couldn't move a muscle or make a sound. I stared up at the tall, no-faced man, and he began to walk away, finally disappearing into the trees.

I stood there for maybe an hour before I was able to move. I fell to my knees and sobbed, continuously looking around to see if Abby would come back. I called out for her, but I knew she was gone. I lay on the wet and leafy ground, shivering and crying.

Hours later, a group of police men had found me in the forest. It seemed mom had called the police once she noticed Abby and I weren't in our beds. The men had to lift me off the ground and carry me home. When we got to my house, they questioned me about my sister and where she had gone.

"The man..." I said softly. "A tall, slender man in a black suit... took her and the other children away..."

"Can you describe the man?" said one of the policemen.

"He was as tall as a tree, and skinnier than me," I explained, shaking from the memory of the creature. "His skin was white, his arms were too long, and he had no face. At one point, he had more than two arms, but they looked like tentacles..." The police men looked at each other, and I wasn't sure if they believed me or not.

Shortly after the incident, mom started packing up the house. The police still searched for Abby and the other missing children, but still they found nothing. We ended up moving very far away from that town and into the city. She hoped it would be safer. I still didn't know if anyone believed me about the Slender Man.

Years had gone by, and I was in college. I moved away from my home and got an apartment of my own. I never told her, but I had continued to see the Slender Man periodically. I saw him outside in the streets at night, and I even saw him outside my house a few times. Sometimes, I had the strangest feeling that he was in my room when I was asleep, watching me...

I knew I couldn't run from it, but I didn't want mom around. I didn't know what he wanted... all I knew is that I didn't want him around anymore. Finally, my sightings of him decreased in number. I can't explain why or how, but I was relieved. However, it didn't chase away the nightmares I had every night. Always the same; my sister's bloody face fading into darkness...

Some say he's a myth, an urban legend, just a story... some say he eats the children he abducts, and others say he simply kills them. Only I know the truth. Many people claimed to have seen him, but I know they haven't. The Slender Man doesn't eat children... from what I saw, I can't exactly explain what he does with them. It almost seems like he steals their souls and seals them away in some other dimension... and I witnessed it.

People ask me if I've heard of the Slender man. You know what I say?

"No."