I could only stare at him in horror... Did he even HAVE a gender? Should I call him an "it"? I don't know... all I know is I saw him there, standing before me. The man with no face. The quiet gentleman. The silent stalker... Slenderman stood in front of me, seemingly blocking out the world; all I could focus on was him. What got to this point...? How did it come to this...? Let us rewind the gears of time and look back at just what happened.

It all started the day I'd first heard of him. I thought that Slenderman didn't exist. I thought that he was just someone made up from the internet or something like that, but... I was so wrong. I found out about him from one of my friends. They gave me a story of how he was existing. How he was. They said that he'd been entered in a photo-manipulation contest, and the manipulater won with Slenderman. Soon after the contest though, there began to be real, none-manipulated sightings of Slenderman.

All of this nonesense, all this talk about something that was fake coming into reality like that, all this talk about an idea gaining a physical form... rubbish! I thought nothing of it. Not at first, anyway. Soon after I heard of him, I decided, despite my belief that he didn't exist, to learn some more about him. I didn't know why I even bothered learning about something that didn't exist... I suppose I just wanted to read something because I was bored. I had nothing better to do at the time. So, I looked him up on the internet. I learned so much about him. Through every photo, through every video, through every comment... I learned so much about the one and only Slenderman. I learned about the symptoms one would get before Slenderman attacked, I learned about how one could defeat this creature, I learned why this "Slenderman" creature kidnapped people. I learned the truth of Slenderman.

The next day after I'd heard of Slenderman, I'd gotten sick. This was one of the symptoms, I knew it was! That only lead to paranoia, yet another symptom of him. That's all I got, though, but those two only worsened over time. Soon though, I got over my sickness, but my paranoia only continued to advance. I was always thinking that he'd come out to get me one day, and that I'd be a dead man in only a matter of weeks. Little did I know that, one day, he WOULD come out to get me. Little did I know that one day, Slenderman would be the end of me.

Eventually, I started to see him. I thought I did, anyway. He would always be there, just out of the corner of my eye. He would always be hiding in the bushes, just out of my sight of vision. He would always be there, stalking me, watching me. I was so shocked the first time I saw him. I was on my way to school, riding in my mother's car, when I saw him, attempting to blend in with the trees that constantly passed by. I gasped and pointed at him, and said, "It's Slenderman!" but nobody would bother to look. Nobody thought I was right... nobody thought he was real. My mother simply ignored me and continued to drive her way to my school, and my older brother payed no mind to me. He said that if Slenderman were real, Chuck Norris would have done something about him by now. Hah, I doubt that would be the case...

Slenderman began making his way closer and closer to me... and the closer he got, the less he was simply hiding in the trees. Another time I was on my way to school, I saw him standing outside, in front of someone's house. The poeple in front of the house acted like he wasn't there. Why didn't they see him? Was I simply hallucinating, or was this the real deal? I couldn't tell illusion from reality... I didn't know if that was the real Slenderman staring at me from afar, or if I was simply seeing things. I tried my best to ignore him, and turn to look ahead, ready to get to school, but there was a cold feeling on my heart that told me that someone was still watching me.

One day, there was a knock on my door. It knocked three times, and my dogs barked rapidly, but only for a moment. My chihuahua jumped into a frenzy of barking, ready to attack whatever it was that had knocked on the door, just as he always would, but suddenly, he just stood there in silence, his ears pricked up. This was strange; my chihuahua had never done that before. I thought that I was simply hearing things, so I shrugged it off, but then I thought about it again for a moment. If I were hearing things, then my dogs wouldn't have barked. That means that someone was knocking on the door... right? But if that was the case, then why did they just cut off their barking short like that...? A hesitant pause fell upon me as I simply sat there in the kitchen, contemplating if I should go off and answer the door. Should I answer the door and risk making myself look like an idiot, or should I just ignore the knocker, if there was one at all? Slowly, I forced my legs to move upward, out of my seat. I made my way to the door, saying, "Coming, coming, hold on!" As I walked to the door, fear struck my heart for some reason. Why was I so afraid? Once I got to the door, I simply stood there in front of it for a moment, that same cold feeling from when I was in the car consuming me... someone wanted me to open this door... someone wanted me to come outside. I could feel it. I decided that I'd better not keep this person waiting, so despite the eerie feeling in my bones, I put my hand on the door nosel. It felt colder than usual for some reason, sending a shiver down my spine. I slowly answered the door, creaking it open with a timid feeilng in my voice as I said, "H-Hello?" In a response, I saw absolutely no one out there. Just my front yard. I stood there in silence, wondering what on earth had knocked on my door... perhaps I WAS hearing things after all. I sighed, closing the door. I walked back to the kitchen to get on my computer, leaving the question of why my dogs barked for a few seconds unanswered.

Soon, I began to feel something calling me. Not hear, but FEEL. It was as if something or someone wanted me to come closer... like I needed to go somewhere. I didn't know where I needed to go, but I needed to go somewhere. Somewhere important.

Then I felt some strange urge to draw Slenderman. I didn't know why I'd need to draw him, but I decided that I had nothing better to do. While I was in school, I drew him on my free time. I was a smart student after all, so I usually had a lot of free time. The more I drew Slenderman, the more I realized that I rather liked it. I'd forgotten that drawing Slenderman was one of the symptoms that his victims get when he's stalking them, so it didn't really bother me that much. I simply drew him and drew him to my heart's content.

One day, while I was taking a walk in the woods, I heard someone call my name. It was as if the wind was whispering my name, urging me to come closer. It was rather hard to ignore... I decided that I'd better just try my best and ignore it. The more I tried not to think about this... THING calling my name, the louder the whispering seem to get. It called my name louder and louder, and it seemed as if my ears would explode at one point if I didn't come over there right now. Finally, I gave in. I stopped in my tracks and asked, "Where are you?"

In a response, I heard the wind whisper to me, "Here... Here..." The wind blew to the west of me, as if directing me towards my new destination. Its whispering died down due to the new current it was making by directing me toward where it wanted me to go. I simply let out a sigh and obeyed its command, walking westward. West. Why did it have to be west? I hate that direction. The wind's blowing died down so I could hear its whispering again. It called, "Closer... Closer..." I hesitantly moved forward, feeling myself begin to shake with fear. This was actually fairly creepy, now that I thought about it. Why was the wind calling me? HOW was the wind calling me? My pace began to slow as my fear began to rise. My legs were shaking as I took each step after frighteningly slow step, hearing the wind urge me more and more intently to keep going the direction I was going. I fearfully obliged, noticing that I was heading into the trees. It took me deeper and deeper into the woods, until I was completely surrounded by trees, the sun blocked out by the amount of leaves they had. I turned around and prepared to run back, ignoring the wind no matter how loud it got, when suddenly... HE stood before me... The man with no face. The quiet gentleman. The silent stalker... Slenderman.

I could only stare at him in horror. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move, I couldn't even produce my own thoughts. In place of thoughts of my own, which at this point would be of fear, were thoughts of... Slenderman. Sure, it would seem natural that I would be thinking about Slenderman, considering the fact that he was standing in front of me, looming over my head, but... I just couldn't think of anything on my own. Thoughts of Slenderman were bursting through my skull, giving me a headache. Was he forcing thoughts into my mind?

Slenderman tilted his head at me, his tenticles twitching in the air. He simply stared at me, just as I had stared at him. He still wanted something from me... I could feel it. He was expecting me to do something, and he was expecting me to do it now. What was it that he wanted me to do? What did Slenderman want from me? His tenticles twitched and immidiately decided to surround me. They wrapped me up tightly, attempting to squeeze the life out of me. Now I knew what Slenderman wanted... He wanted my blood. While it's true that I knew his weakness, that I should simply just ignore him and he'd go away, I couldn't simply ignore something that was choking me to death right in front of me. I especially couldn't ignore someone so disturbing.

I squirmed, trying to break free from his grasp, attempting to get out of this nightmare, but all of my efforts were in vain. Slenderman simply stared at me, watching me squirm, as if he enjoyed my suffering. My, what an evil thing Slenderman is... Suddenly, his tenticles twitched, squeezing me even tighter. His grip grew so tight that it broke my arms and damaged several of my ribs, making it so that I could no longer squirm in resistance without feeling a great amount of pain. I simply lay there limp in the air, feeling light-headed due to air loss. Things began to grow dark, and my surroundings began to spin about me. I couldn't tell what was the ground or what was the sky. They were spinning faster and faster to the point where I thought I was going to get sick. I felt nausious, and thought I was going to throw up. God, how embarrassing. The last thing I would have done was puke on the one and only Slenderman... Soon though, things began to stop spinning, although I couldn't concentrate on more than one thing... My gaze locked on Slenderman. His tenticles began to wrap further around me, not tighter, but cocooning me like a spider. I felt rather trapped... being caught in Slenderman's grip like this, feeling darkness sink closer and closer in on me. I wanted to scream in terror. I wanted to call out for help before I was completely enclosed in darkness, but I couldn't make a sound. All I could do was lay there helplessly in Slenderman's grip, feeling his tenticles wrap further and further around me as I moved deeper and deeper into the darkness. Soon, I could feel nothing. I could hear nothing. I could see nothing... only blood.

With a gasp, I jolted up from my bed, sweat drenching my shirt. I quickly placed a hand on my heart, making sure that I was still alive. I sighed with relief when I felt my pulse, and I collapsed on my bed. "Just a dream," I said to myself, glad that that nightmare wasn't a reality. I rolled over on my side to see my mirror, giving me access to also see the reflection of my window. The window... that reminded me! I wanted to go look outside to see if I could do something in the sun for once. I got out of my bed sloppily and walked over to my window. I pulled open the curtains, and saw birds chirping, trees out, and the sun shining. Ah, it was a beautiful day... Wait a minute. There was something that caught my eye... There, standing in front of the trees, rather than standing among them, was a tall, pale figure, his back facing me, so that I could not see his face. He wore a suit that was as black as the night sky. "In this weather?" I asked myself, surprised that there would be someone wearing such clothing in this heat. Slowly, as if he'd heard my words, the figure turned around to my direction, showing me his front side. My eyes widened in fear as a cold realization struck my heart. My blood went cold when I saw this man who was standing outside my window had no face.