My Story

"Help me! Help me, someone!"

I was keeping myself in the dark, sticking to the side of the street with no streetlights. No cars were coming. One learns to stay away from people when one is on the run.

But then I heard her. She was younger than me, had to be twelve at the oldest. She was crying for help in a voice that had to be real; there was no way this was another one of them. It was coming from an alley nearby.

I ran over and couldn't believe my eyes. There she was, a pre-teen girl being surrounded by three... three... three of them.

I brandished my switchblade; every runner knows to carry a legal weapon with them. It's not for them; it's actually because we're on the run, out on the streets, where anyone could get to us. But it came in handy when they showed up as well.

They didn't even look at me. The girl did, however. She shouted again,

"Please! Oh god, please! HELP!"

That last word was more of an earpiercing shriek, and it cemented in my heart that she was just some poor bystander who happened to be interesting to these things.

They weren't looking at me. They were too busy looking at their prey. Perfect. It only took one stab to where their heart used to be to take the first one down, and then the other two looked at me.

And then I got a little afraid. The first one didn't care as it died. These two didn't even look surprised.

And the girl stopped screaming. Instead, she got up off the ground, pulled out a switchblade of her own, and jabbed it through her heart while grinning. No blood came out, and she did not die.

The one I had just 'slain' laughed and stood up as well.

I had walked right into their trap, and more were entering the alleyway.

I didn't even have the will to scream. I always thought a switchblade to the heart-area would kill them; I could have sworn, while not human anymore, they still relied on the old pump to keep them going. But no, it was all in the brain now. Everything else was just part of the goddamn facade.

As soon as it hits your brain, everything you were ceases to be. As soon as it hits your brain, you board the immortal train.

I was going to die. No, I wasn't even going to die; I was going to change, and it was going to happen in that dark and wet alleyway, surrounded by six of the goddamn things.

And then he showed up. His red scarf blew in the wind largely enough to obscure everyone's view. I mean, the guy had a huge scarf. He also had what looked like a walking stick, but he used it as a combat stick of sorts, and he had the things on the ground fast enough to.. well, shake a stick at!

He then told me to go. "I've got these."

I had no choice. I ran, but I wasn't out of hearing range by the time they got up again, and soon enough I was hearing deathly screams.

But I was alive. I am alive. He saved my life, a complete stranger saved my life.

But he wasn't just some stranger. He was another runner. Except he was a runner with nothing to lose. You could tell just by looking at him.

Anyway, I'm here now. I'm at an internet cafe. I'm still running, but now I don't care as much if I die or not. When that man saved my life, something changed in me. I felt like I had to tell people about what was going on. So here I am, telling people.

My name is Wendy, and I'm on the run from something that could be anything.

About Running

I know I said I'd blog, I said I'd tell about my story. Well, that's hard to when you have no home, when you have no computer. I just walked from one town to another between these posts.

Being on the run isn't too hard, really. You just have to know how to get food and what spots are safe for sleeping. ..and you have to know how to defend yourself, of course.

It's not really something people instantly know, of course. Some people taught themselves, but it took them a matter of weeks, months to do so. Myself, I learned from other runners. There are a lot of us out there, and we're not all running from the same things. Oh god no.

There are a lot of dangerous things out there trying to kill us. The name I hear the most from people is "the slender man." It doesn't have a name besides that; it's just the slender man. I haven't run into that thing yet, myself-- I consider myself very lucky-- but I know all about it. You kinda learn about everything when you go to the right places.

There was one spot, an abandoned shopping mall in a completely empty town. I stumbled upon it just a month ago, actually. In the back is a roaring campfire and a group of runners who've set up camp there. They let all other runners stay there-- no longer than three days each, though-- and have food, sleep, tell stories. You learn a lot from places like that.

I didn't stay there for much longer than about six hours, though. I already knew enough to know that places like that didn't stay for long. And the ones that did were never actually as safe as they seemed.

Hell, there's a reason people started calling them "Trips." After all, when you trip, you stop running.

Anyway, I've learned plenty about the slender man, about The Archangel, about The Wooden Girl-- she's a real nasty one, I'm scared I'll run into her some day--, and even about The Blind Man. But I rarely find people who know what I'm running from.

The closest thing I've heard of is something called EAT, which affects people's brains and turns them into horrid things, but no runner I've talked to thinks that's what I'm dealing with. "EAT's proxies are idiots."

Why We Run

I've spoken about running and a bit of how to do it, but I haven't mentioned why we do it.

All runners have something in common: We're running from something. Or multiple things, God bless. The things we run from are things that should not be, creatures that cannot honestly be called creatures anymore; I prefer to call them things.

Earlier, I mentioned the slender man. It looks like a really tall guy in a suit, but he has no face, and it's pretty much got cults surrounding itself. Runners run from it because the slender man ruins lives. It kills your loved ones, it possesses those you always and never knew, and it's even said to kidnap people. Where it takes them, nobody's sure. I've heard some people tell tall tales of the slender man's 'realm,' but I recognize these as being what they are: tall tales.

The Archangel is a man in a gas mask, and he does have cults surrounding himself. He can bring any dead person back to life to work as his slave-- basically, we have a necromancer here.

The Wooden Girl is a.. a fucking puppet. I hate puppets. What more, she puts her strings into us, and controls us and all this shit that I wish could never happen.

The Blind Man is a.. well, a blind man. It's said that, if you encounter him, you'll forget a lot of stuff. But that's really all people know for sure.

See, we know a lot about the slender man because it's been around for a really long time, but the other guys only just started showing their faces. We still don't know all of them, let alone what any one of them entirely does.

Except EAT. People know all about what that one does. It infects people and turns them into things called The Camper, which are always either brain-dead or obviously inhuman, and they rarely act very competent. Sometimes you might see a tentacle in a pond, but that's literally all you'll see.

As for why I'm running... well. That's a story I'll tell another day. For now, I see some of them outside the window. Praying they don't see me.

Seed

I had to sleep out in the street last night. I found a homeless man who was just the right amount of asshole to let me sleep near him in his makeshift shelter. If he was any less of an asshole, he wouldn't trust me. If he was any more of one, he'd have asked for 'something' in return. I got lucky. I seem to get lucky a lot. This guy even started asking me questions.

Sometimes I meet people on my travels who aren't quite runners, and they ask me questions. They're usually some philanthropist who offers to buy me a drink or is just curious as to why I'm out on the streets. Most of the time, I make something up like "Bank foreclosed my home" or "I'm with Occupy Wall Street" or something, but this guy was different. I could tell this guy had seen some tragic stuff in his day, but none of it was related to the stuff that spawns runners. On a whim, I decided to trust him.

I told him I was out here for revenge.

He asked if I'm sure I wasn't out here for redemption, instead.

I assured him I had nothing to redeem. I only had things to run from, not prove myself to.

"Yer a bit easy to read, now. Yer seem yer tryna prove things to yerself." Accent his.

I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I just changed the subject to him and my past was forgotten. But today, I'm left thinking about what he had to say. What if I am trying to prove something to myself? I don't know what I might be trying to prove, but.. it feels so right in my heart to say that. It makes my soul feel just a little less lost.

Administry for a Cause

When I first made this blog, I had only one thing on my mind. At the time, I thought this one thing was some combination of grief and desperation. I felt terrible for leaving that stranger to die by their hands, but I knew I had no choice. I felt desperate that these things were causing so much pain. Over the past few days, I discovered the truth to this.

Just a few days ago, I found one of them snooping into a public restroom. It just stood there, staring at the sink with a disgusting intent that made me all but certain it was crazy. I approached it, switchblade at the ready, when it spoke to me.

"I want to go down there. It will free me."

I didn't think. I just stabbed it. I didn't care about what it said, and I still don't give half a damn. All I know is, as soon as I stabbed it, I felt such a surge of joy deep within. I spent the rest of the day thinking about this joy, and yesterday I figured out exactly what was so strange about it: It replaced that odd desperate grief I had. It was then that I figured out what my feeling was, and I began to ponder on why I was feeling it.

I was feeling an urge for redemption, and killing that thing helped me with it. I think that stranger did this to me. Something about him inspired my deepest emotions and brought them out. He sacrificed his life to save me almost a whole month ago, and I want to repay him, to redeem myself for just letting him die. I want to get back at those things that took him away from me.

I didn't even know him, yet I feel such love for him.

Some kid, snooping on me in the last internet cafe, asked me why my blog was called Administry for a Cause. He asked if "administry" was even a word. I told him it wasn't, but "Words don't always have to exist to have a purpose."

An administry is something I made up, a ministry to be administered. This ministry is my own soul, lost without a cause. And I wanted to find that cause. I think it's redemption. My administry has a cause, and I have to sacrifice to succeed.

Redemption works both ways.

Computer Privileges Granted

Smarter than us Rats

They got to me, they finally found me, they cornered me and they dragged me away kicking and screaming. I didn't wake up until months later, and by then I was already in another continent. By then, I was already their lab rat.

They are the Camper, and they're getting smarter.

It used to be that the Camper was the laughingstock of the things to us runners; they were clumsy and stiff and clearly inhuman, and they were rarely very fast. You'd have to be an idiot to fall for them. But these Camper are smart. They disguise themselves uncannily well, and they are better at movement than we are, better at thought. It looks like they're better at science than us, too.

I'm in the Topography Genera Center North. I'd heard rumors of this place; I could've sworn this facility was abandoned long ago. It looks like the Camper got to it. And I guess they've been here, constantly learning.

Over the past few weeks, I've been solving test after test after test for this insane voice. A Camper stands, looking at me through a window, completely still with hands behind back, in every single room. I have been doing this for twenty-eight tests.

I don't know if I'll ever get out. I'm lucky enough that they gave me computer privileges.

Test 29

Insane Testing

I have done that exact same maze five times now. They're trying to drive me insane. They're doing really well.

When the testing started, I was constantly rebelling, refusing to solve their tests, flipping them off when I got the chance. But time went by, and they began rewarding me with food and rest, and I slipped into a comfortable state. And then they started slipping me into more and more dangerous situations. I've had to play a guessing game and pray I wasn't fed poison, I've had to run through a maze several times, I've had to get dangerously close to fire, and I've even had to inject a needle of an unknown substance into my arm. They never explained what that one was.

When the testing started, I wanted to dig my nails into their formerly-human skin. Now, I just want to dig my nails into my own eyeballs.

Test 30

Critical Mission Failure

Out!

Looks like I'm on the run again!

I was given a tempting puzzle: Either continue testing or go into the observation room where the Camper are watching me. I decided to fuck it all and go into the observation room.

The Camper who was just watching me attempted to apprehend me, but it turns out I still have some fight left in me. The door leading back into the test sealed shut, and the voice spoke to me, letting me know that I'm pretty much on the hunt now.

I'm not gonna let them catch me. I've come too far for that.

Backstreet Front Row

I've been looking through all the rooms I can find the time to look through. One room had, on the walls, "EAT" written over and over, like some sort of madness mantra. Another was a jail of sorts. I actually walked into the jail. There weren't many prisoners, and most of what I saw was dead anyway. But there was one man in there who was still alive.

He looked starved, thin, and tired. He looked like he just got front-row tickets to a show where everything you know and love is trashed and shat upon. I wanted to do all I could to help him, but there was nothing I could do. So I just left.

I see the only way to go now is to take the staff entrance to Test 31.

Test 31

Rooftops

The voice still played as I entered the test, though I get the feeling it's just automated.

This room was a really detailed and perfect recreation of the city of Reybiasovik. I entered a sort of hotel hallway on the 32nd floor and had to jump out a window onto some rooftops. It was just like being on the run again.

As I walked along, I got to thinking about my old life.

I wonder if I'll ever get to redeem myself.

Test 32

dammit

As if they thought I didn't get enough of these goddamn Camper, I'm given a room jampacked with them. So much for sneaking out unseen.

I am the one

I found the man again, the malnourished prisoner. He's no longer a prisoner, and you know what else? This is the man who saved my life that night. He was the one who gave me life, who beckoned me not to turn my back on paradise! He was the one who would not abandon me, even in death.

And here he is, standing right in front of me. Here he is, in Test 32. Is he the test? The voice wasn't clear. Am I imagining him? Am I dying? Has my blood turned clear, are my thoughts progressing into a state of flux vanilla, and is this but a symptom of a doctrine in camp?

I can't stand to feel like half of me is fading. Whether this figure before me is but my own creation, I have to push on. I mustn't be a burden to my soul any longer.

So I will call on you.

I know the way out of this chamber, friend. I will lead you. I will save your life, just as you had saved mine in a past life many months ago.

Who will lead me to redemption

The ruse has been lifted, and my muse has been drifted.

Shortly after we solved the test, the Camper announced we had both solved the Aquatarkus Course. We were apprehended. Several Camper surrounded us.

..and the stranger saved my life once again. He lifted me up by his shoulders and told me to enter the vent above me. I didn't want to go, I wanted to redeem myself. But I hadn't much choice; it was either leave or be killed.

I've been crawling around in dark vents for the past fifteen minutes. These vents feel claustrophobic and.. somewhat mushy. Something really feels wrong about them.

I was able to get out, though. I found a safe room, an empty laboratory. This computer is here.

In his eyes

I found a book written by a former test subject. It's a personal journal. This is how the Camper used to keep records on us, I suppose.

The book is mostly just of the test subject's struggles through the chambers, but he eventually is apprehended and thrown into "The Camper Velourium," where.. we're turned into Camper. That's what they've been doing all this time, they've been making us smarter so that we can be able Camper. This is fucking crazy.

But this test subject found a way to stop the process. In order to turn him into a Camper, he was injected in the finger. So he cut his finger off. I mean, he was found later and injected again, but the point is, if we can avoid being apprehended, we can fucking beat the system.

We can beat the system.

..I can save the man who's saved me.

I can finally redeem myself.

Tonight?

I'm ready for this. I'm completely ready for this.

I'm going to go out there and find a Camper. And then they're going to take me to the Velourium.

And I'm going to save my friend. I don't care if I'm apprehended again and killed or worse; I will save his life. Here goes nothing.

Drown with me.

The Camper Velourium

I don't want to think about the revelations, about how The Camper are all one creature, about this "evolutionary adverse trigger" and how its initials are EAT just like the madness mantra I saw earlier. I don't want to think about anything anymore but redemption.

I will redeem myself. I was injected in the leg, my leg is gone, I don't want to think about that. I don't want to think about anything but redemption.

I will redeem myself. Stewart, the man who has saved me so many times, is running around the room like a madman, but I don't want to think about that. I don't want to think about anything but redemption.

I will redeem myself. A door is forming in the wall, but I don't want to think about that. I don't want to think about anything but redemption.

I will redeem myself. A girl is coming out of the door, but I don't want to think about that. I don't want to think about anything but redemption.

I will redeem myself.

The girl is asking for Stewart, and the Camper are coming. This is his chance. This is his chance, I don't want to escape, I will do whatever I can. Escaping is his chance. This is my chance.

I will redeem myself.