Announcement

So obviously it’s been a while.

 

Andrew here, author of Wandering from Death and Facing my Fears. It’s with a heavy heart and a fair amount of shame and embarrassment that I’m announcing that the story is being axed.

 

I really didn’t want to let this just drop. Honestly, I didn’t. But life got in the way, time stretched on, and I just kind of lost interest. That’s always a risk with a project like this. Unlike my previous stories in the Slenderverse, my direction with this story got a bit muddled. Now I Shall Know You Again was basically my take on the “how to survive” character, with a “not even a clever person will survive forever” ending. Don’tShoot The Messenger was my take on proxies and how farcical the idea of a bureaucracy for them and had a plot direction fairly early into the run. Wandering from Death, on the other hand, shifted focus. It also grew less focused as I went along and it just made it hard to stay enthusiastic about.

 

The beginning of Wandering from Death was an attempt to troll the Slenderverse. More specifically, the main crowd of writers at the time, who I honestly wasn’t too fond of. But most of those writers stopped writing and a lot of the community started moving to the Fear Mythos. On top of that, my initial plan (start an out-of-game blog and interact with the community that way, do crossovers with everyone, then pull the plug on this blog because things were getting “too real” and shifting to the main blog) ended up falling through for various reasons. Then I decided to just do crossovers well and attempted to plan crossovers with everyone I could. Then I set up an epic story to kill off all the Fears and tried setting my protagonist as a hero figure for a community that I didn’t have the time to stay involved in and the whole thing just…kind of became a huge mess.

 

So instead of actually finishing the story (which would take quite a bit of time and effort), I’ll try to do the next best thing: walk you through my plans for the rest of the Wanderer Trilogy. Yes, this was slated to be a trilogy that continued on a blog called “Facing Death.” But anyway. On to the story.

 

The original plan with the crossover with Raggedy was to kill off the Black Dog. Canis probably would have gotten involved somehow, since that was his main Fear. As things dragged on, this was expanded to include the plan I ultimately had for the Empty City, so that I could use the City’s distortion of time and space to explain the absence. Oops.

 

I have no clue how we would have taken down the Black Dog without repeating what I did with the Rake. But the Empty City I had a plan for. The Empty City was to be the tomb for a lot of Fears.

 

I didn’t know how to kill all the “hivemind” Fears without concentrating them all in one place, since they could, in theory, just keep perpetuating. The way I was setting things up, they were all in one of two alliances: with the Choir and Red Cap or with the Intrusion and the rest of the Four Horsemen. And through EAT manipulating the followers, those factions were are war with each other. In theory, they would have met in the Empty City where they would be required to have the core of their hivemind due to how Domains worked. At that point, the Masks (probably with the aid of the Manufactured Newborn) would have blown the City up and narrowly escaped. Phones probably would have died in the process. I wanted for the Choir to consume him eventually. That way, the City would be destroyed and even if the other Fears weren’t dead, they’d be trapped inside with no escape. All the Horsemen apart from the Intrusion would escape, of course. They’re endgame players.

 

At about this time, the Magi (EAT, Blind Man, Manufactured Newborn) would turn on the Masks. And of course, at this point, the Manufactured Newborn would have upgraded itself to the point that it was practically unstoppable, constantly improving and reproducing itself. They’d still stop it, of course, by launching an attack on the Tower that was controlling all the iterations of the Newborn that were around. The other Magi would be easily dispatched.

 

There would also be a reveal sometime during this blog that Canis is one of the Timberwolves, serving the Archangel. Around this point, his interests cease to align with Kenny’s so he becomes a flat-out antagonist.

 

In one of the final conflicts, Kenny’s staff probably would have broken. The idea was to find someone in the ‘verse with more mystic powers to lead them to Yggdrasil, where Kenny would forge a new weapon out of wood from the tree. Why? Well, because my incarnation of the Slender Man was in fact one and the same as the Bleeding Tree, Yggdrasil’s opposite. If Yggdrasil is the world tree, the Bleeding Tree is its antithesis, breaking down worlds and causing them to meld together. Dimensional bleeding, y’know. So a weapon made from Yggdrasil would be the only thing capable of hurting it.

 

This is probably about the time that the final blog would have started, in which Kenny and the Masks begin their final assaults. I don’t know whether I would have tackled the Cold Boy/Wooden Girl/Masquerade or the Four Horsemen first, but they’d be the first to fall, with the Slender Man himself finally taking direct part in the action.

 

Then, of course, the final battle with the Slender Man. I have no clue how this would have ultimately gone down. Maybe Kenny would have succeeded. Maybe he wouldn’t have. I like to think that he at least cuts the Slender Man out of his version of reality and he and Maggie get to have a happy ending together. Because of course Kenny and Maggie get together at some point. Last dies, though. He was definitely going to die at some point.

 

And looking back on everything I’ve written, it sounds really stupid. That’s probably why I lost interest in it. Because it was a narrative of epic-length scope with far too many climaxes that I didn’t know how to execute and a setup I wasn’t particularly pleased with. We learn from our mistakes, I guess. At least Last, Kenny, and Maggie were really fun characters to write. Maybe I’ll revisit them in another project someday.

 

I’m incredibly sorry to everyone I’ve let down by not finishing this project (though by this point I suspect most people don’t care), especially Raggedy for essentially killing his own momentum. Maybe he’ll go back to his blog after this. We can handwave the absence easily enough. He probably escaped the Empty City after everyone else was killed or something. If he does something it's ultimately up to him.

 

So the Wanderer Trilogy has been officially abandoned, but if you really liked my writing, I have other projects! I’m rewriting Don’t Shoot The Messenger, which is being serialized in my school’s online paper and which I’ll probably convert to ebook once it’s finished and I’ve gone back and tweaked everything. And there’s one more project I’d like to write for the mythos before I decide to stop creating and become just a fan. It’ll take a while so that I can focus on some other projects and life events, but I’ll probably be posting about it when it’s ready, so keep an eye on this blog and/or DSTM for announcements regarding something called “Operation Stirling.”

 

Well, I guess this is goodbye, everybody. Thanks for reading. And again, I’m sorry.

 

~Andrew A. Koerner

Raggedy’s Return, Part 1: the Rescue

So we got word that Raggedy needed help. Last agreed to help me try to save him. His reasons for doing so were that he might be able to draw the Black Dog out, since he’s had issues with the Fear in the past. Always the pragmatist, I guess, but if it saves someone’s life, I’m not going to argue.

He was stuck in a Florida swamp, so we all went down there to pull him out of the muck. We managed to pinpoint his location and took one of those fan boats out to fetch him. When we found him, he was passed out in the back seat of his car. He was in pretty terrible shape. His injuries weren’t too bad, but they were starting to get infected, and he was covered with bug bites. In addition, he was pretty dehydrated.

Boston and Last went down to the car to try to pull him out, but the doors and windows were locked. “Shit,” Boston said. “Thought this might happen. Fang, spark plug.”

Fang tossed him a spark plug. Boston smashed it apart, grabbed a piece of it, and chucked it at a window. The whole thing shattered. They managed to get Raggedy out the window and pull him onto the boat. “Get him some water,” Last told us.

Raggedy was barely conscious. He looked up at me through unfocused eyes. “Oh, hey, It’s you. Thanks, kid,” he croaked.

“Quiet,” Crimson said. He screwed the cap off of a bottle of water and helped Raggedy get some down his throat. “Focus on saving your strength.”

“Should we try to keep him conscious?” Maggie asked.

“I…I’m not sure. I think so? We need to get him back to the safe house and the doctor we’ve got there ASAP, though.”

We heard a noise behind us and turned to see another fan boat coming after us. Last swore.

“We’ve got company. Proxies. Maybe some other Fear’s, but maybe we’ve just stepped on their toes. Let’s go, now.”

“Wait,” I said, “we’re in a swamp. Can’t we just let, like…EAT deal with them or something?”

Last laughed. “Like EAT cares about anything that won’t advance its own goals. We’re on our own here.”

Boston smirked. “Not entirely.” As their boat approached, he grabbed something out of a duffle bag. He chucked it at them, and as it arced through the air, I caught a glimpse of what it was: a grenade.

The other proxies saw it too. They dived out of the boat before the entire thing exploded.

“You—you just…you’re just leaving them there to die?”

He shrugged. “They might survive.”

Anyway, we got Raggedy back to the safe house. He recovered fairly quickly, fortunately, and I’ll be following up with the aftermath of that. But the Masks…I don’t know how comfortable I am with how casual they are with all this. I’ve had a lot of thinking to do lately.

Anyway, I’ll be back with more soon. Stay safe. Never quit.

An Old Friend

Hey, everyone. We've all been busy with the plan we're enacting in the aftermath of Operation Alice. "Attack Order Follow My Rainbow," I think he's calling it at the moment? But we've been trying to keep our operations under wraps right now.

Well, here's something I think we're good to share now: I've met up with an old friend. You remember Raggedy? He ran into some trouble and ended up in a Florida swamp. Long story short, we came in and rescued him. I'll have the details up a bit later.

He's not in great shape right now. He has a few stab wounds he hasn't been able to treat properly and he's fighting infection from that. He's also had to deal with a lot of bugs, and we're not sure if he's picked up something from them at this point. And on top of all that, he's unshaven, and, with all due respect to the guy, his beard-growing skills aren't particularly exceptional.

We've got him in one of the runner safehouses that Last and Rogue Shadow helped set up, being treated by one of our doctors. A runner one, not a doctor one. It's hard to tell where exactly the lines are anymore. Seems like he'll be okay, but I'm still worried. He's probably one of the closest things I have to a friend these days, and I don't like seeing him like this.

Like I said, we'll be providing more details of what exactly happened in a day or two. For our group at least, it seems like there's actually going to be something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Operation Alice

Last here, distinguishing myself with a lovely shade of brown. As you may have heard, Operation Alice was a rousing success. It’s been in motion for a while now, actually, but we’ve only just recently actually pulled it off.

So you’ve heard of the Mother of Snakes, right? The Fear of yourself, basically. Not liking what you see reflected in the mirror, all that. And I wasn’t really looking forward to facing off with her since we’re largely a self-loathing bunch. What’s more, Snakemom’s got these servants called “Lilim.” And we’d have to deal with them, as well.

So I started making plans. I started talking to Crimson, but he didn’t really know how to approach the situation. We tossed a few ideas around, but we were largely at a loss.

What’s more, we’ve gotten something of a target on our back. The Four Horsemen, the Fantasy Triad, and the Magi have all been fairly active. And it’s no secret that the Magi and the Slender Man have at least a tenuous alliance, since a group associated with two of them is responsible for the deaths of two Fears. The remaining Fears have started making alliances.

The Red Cap and Choir are already working together, if you’ll recall, and they’ve been recruiting. The Dying Man has joined with them as well, as he and the Red Cap go way back. There might even be some link between them. As with all this dimensional bleeding stuff, the details vary, but there’s evidence to suggest that they were once the same Fear. And on top of that, the Mother of Snakes and the Eye have both recently forged alliances with them.

Four groups of Fears. Tensions building. Everyone could feel that there was a huge, impending shitstorm. Something was about to break, and the biggest target was on our back.

That’s when the Lilim attacked the Drones, servants of the Intrusion.

You see, there are certain perks to being allied with EAT. Awhile ago, we (we meaning EAT, naturally) managed to infect the water supply of some Lilim groups. See, EAT has the ability to possess others into a sort of hivemind, slowly spreading through their systems. They’re generally unaware of the process and they still function as themselves, but once he takes them, they’re his whenever he wants them. It took a bit of time, but we finally reached a point where enough of the Lilim were happy Campers.

When we launched our attack on the Drones, or rather, when we made the Lilim launch our attack on the Drones, it was met with huge backlash. The Horsemen don’t like being attacked, especially when there was an unspoken agreement to go after the Magi and the Slender Man. Understandably, they retaliated, all four of them, wiping out a large portion of the Lilim.

I managed to make it there to see a lot of what happened, albeit from a distance. After most of the Lilim had been taken out, the Horsemen themselves came in, all riding on giant black horses. The Archangel in the lead, clad in duster, gas mask, and bowler hat. The Plague doctor behind him in his beaked mask, cloak, and wide-brimmed hat. The giant, muscle-bound Brute, face hidden beneath a helm, and his beautiful Burning Bride, red hair and dress seeming to flicker like flames, seated behind him. And finally, completely covered in a cloak, the Intrusion. The four rode into the middle of the encampment, where a giant mirror sat, the Mother of Snakes reflected in it. She’d probably be beautiful were it not for the vertical pupils and forked tongue. Oh, and the giant snake wrapped around her. I’m not really too fond of snakes.

“You misunderstand,” she said. “That attack was never my intention—”

The Intrusion’s horse stepped forward, and the cloak collapsed, empty, as a swarm of insects sped out and into the mirror. I’ve heard that the Mother of Snakes is generally pretty well-defended in there, but the Intrusion is, well, pretty good at getting into places it’s not wanted.

“Please, no!” she shrieked as the Intrusion pulled her out of the mirror. The Archangel rode forward and its horse trampled the mirror, crushing it. The swarm reentered the cloak, where it regained a humanoid shape.

“Nowhere to run now,” the Brute said in a deep voice. He dismounted and pulled a sword from its sheath. Flames danced along the blade’s edge. “Vengeance shall be ours.”

In one clean blow, he cleft the head from her neck. The body burst into flame and shriveled up. Laughing, he remounted his horse, giving his Bride a quick kiss, and the four Horsemen rode off.

And with that, Operation Alice came to an end. The Mother of Snakes is dead. The Horsemen have struck a blow to this newly-formed alliance. The Fears are on the brink of all-out war.

We have these fuckers exactly where we want them.

Last’s Lost It

So we’ve been sort of on hold for a while. Last has been keeping us in the dark, with just an occasional nod and wink and statement that he’s working on something big. So I’ve been playing board games with Phones and hanging out with Maggie. I guess Last’s insisting we’re dating now (not happy about that), but I wouldn’t call it that. I’m not going to say we won’t end up dating, but I don’t think we are right now.

He disappeared for a few days recently. Now, however, he’s returned, cackling madly.

“Everyone!” he announced. “Operation Alice was a huge success!”

“What happened?” I asked.

“It’s a surprise! You’ll have to read about it on my blog. C’mon, everyone of legal drinking age, we’re gonna celebrate tonight!”

“You don’t have a blog!” I called after him as he danced (not a metaphor—he was literally dancing) up the stairs.

“I meant your blog, obviously!”

I kind of slunk off to my room for the night, since I knew Last wasn’t going to give me any answers and, well, I’m still only 19 and I didn’t really want to be one of the only sober people in the room. I’m sure Last would have let me drink with them, and it’s not like I never tried alcohol in high school, but…I don’t know. It’d be weird drinking with these people. I’m not actually friends with most of them.

I guess that was a bad idea, since I ended up having another dream. One of those Cold Boy/Wooden Girl/Grotesque dreams. The details aren’t important, and I don’t remember them now, but it was a knock that woke me up and saved me from a potential dream death.

“Kenny? You okay in there?”

I went to the door and opened it to find Maggie, dressed in just an oversized t-shirt.

“What time is it?” was the question I finally decided on.

“I dunno, about 2 AM, I think? You okay? Sounded like you were having a bad dream.”

“Uh, yeah. It was, um…one of those. So thanks. Uh…what are you doing up?”

“Got thirsty. That and apparently it’s supposed to prevent hangovers or something.”

“Oh. Are you…drunk right now?”

“Hmm. Not sure.” She thoughtfully poked her cheek a few times. “Well that’s not doing anything for me. Guess I’m either just tired or a little tipsy. Can I come in?”

“I guess.”

She sat down in my desk chair and swiveled it back and forth. I sat down on my bed. “I thought you weren’t having these dreams anymore,” she said.

“Not very often. I have one every now and then, but…not like tonight.”

“You’d think the party Last threw would have helped with that some.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, really. I mean, you guys aren’t really my friends—”

“None taken.”

“—so it’s not like I really feel comfortable around all of you. I just feel…a bit on the outside, you know?”

“I think it goes deeper than that. You have problems trusting people, Kenny. When you’re alone, you see enemies everywhere, and when you trust people as allies, you don’t trust yourself. And I guess we’re kind of to blame for that.”

“That’s still only part of it, though. With the Cold Boy and Wooden Girl working together like this…I think the Wooden Girl might really be after me too. For her own reasons. I just…I don’t feel like I’m in control anymore. I’m supposed to be some sort of hero, but Last’s the one with the plan. And I just…do what he says. Because yeah, killing the Fears is probably a good idea, but what if I don’t want to be the one who has to do that? And what if I leave? What does Last do then?”

“Rock and a hard place,” she said, nodding. “Listen, Kenny…do you trust me?”

“I…I guess. Mostly, at least.”

“Good. Because the Masks? We’ve all got your back. And as long as you trust me, or Crimson, or even Phones, I guess, you should be able to rest easy knowing we’ve got your back. And hey, if you ever feel the need to take off, seize control of your own destiny or whatever—I’ll have your back then, too. We’re friends, if nothing else. That make it better?”

“I…guess, maybe…?”

“Of course it doesn’t. It’s a promise that’s a drop of piss in an ocean. But I hope it at least helps. Think you’ll at least be able to get back to sleep?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I think I might.”

There was a pause.

“You’re still scared, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

She sighed. “Here, scoot over.”

“What?”

“I’ll keep an eye on you. Make sure you’re not going cold.”

“Are you sure…I mean…is this appropriate?”

“Oh madre de dios, Kenny. It’s not like I’m naked under this.”

“Yeah, but—”

She snuggled up to me, and…I don’t know. I couldn’t really complain. I thought it’d make me feel uncomfortable, but it actually really helped me calm down. After the chilling (like, literally chilling) dream, her skin felt really warm. “Just shut up and let me have this much, okay Kenny?”

For the record, I slept fine for the rest of that night.

Dates and Updates

Last again.

We’re all on a bit of vacation at the moment. By which I mean everyone but Crimson and me are on vacation, but even we’re not doing too much. We would be doing a TON of dirty work at the moment, but the Magi are very useful allies to have. All the plans we had are being accomplished a lot more efficiently at a much lower risk to us.

Crimson and I have been hammering down our course of action, and I think we’ve got a good idea of what the plan of attack is now. With the help of EAT, we’re setting our next plan into motion, but also setting a really big plan a few plans from now into motion as well. Operation Alice, a name I just now made up, comes first, but “The Plan” is in motion. Well, not the “The Plan,” but a really big, really important move.

I need to start coming up with better names to call things. I sound like an ass over here.

Anyway, despite Kenny’s whining over the Waif-chan incident, he’s bounced back well enough. In fact, he’s actually out on a date with Magpie as we speak. Well, what Magpie and I consider to be a date, at least. Kenny will insist he’s just engaging in extracurricular activities with a person who happens to be a friend. I’m not sure he understands that that’s kind of what a date is. But hey, good for them. Make sure to congratulate Kenny for finally getting around to dating a chick who isn’t dead.

That’s all for the moment, really. Just to let those of you still invested in the people killing off the beings making your lives a living hell know what we’ve been up to.

-Last

Hmm.  I should maybe try a different font or color next time just to separate my posts from Kenny’s. Oh well. Too lazy to bother with doing it this time.

I’m Back

Hey, everyone. It’s Kenny again. And I’m…more than a little embarrassed.

It turns out that Waif-chan was the Unnamed Child. And I hadn’t even stopped to consider that possibility.

Last wasn’t happy. He’s barely spoken to me since he killed her. It’s not even like he’s mad at me. He’s mad at Crimson and Gabe. He says they should have known better. With me, he just seems…disappointed. And I think I know why. He’s worried that this might mean I can’t be this “Hero” he’s looking for.

I never asked for this, though. I never asked to be roped into a war against the Fears. I just wanted to survive. It was easier when I didn’t have people counting on me or expecting anything from me other than trying to save my own skin. I’d be angry at Last for being disappointed in me, if it weren’t for the fact that…I actually feel legitimately disappointed in myself.

“I don’t know why it bothers me,” I told Phones the other day as we played a game of chess.  He tapped the table once to let me know he had me in check. “I don’t want to do this, but…I feel like I have to, you know? It’s tough.” He never listens, but that’s maybe why I enjoy talking to him. It’s just easier to get my thoughts out that way, even if he can’t hear what I’m saying.

And that’s where I am right now. Hating myself. Hating Last. Unsure of what to do or where to go.