Survive him, Thrive with him.

Chapter six

I stare at the man as he stares at me with his blank expression, nothing at all to show what he was thinking.

It wasn't normal, it wasn't correct. My mind spins to try and make sense to this, only a few things coming to mind.

"Is this a joke?" I ask, wondering if it was really just a person in costume.

"Claire!"

"You need to run!"

"He's going to kill you!"

Without taking my eyes off him, I grab my emergency ear phones from my back pocket and attach them to my phone, sticking one bud in my ear so the man doesn't hear their desperate cries.

I actually wasn't scared.

"Shut up, guys." I warn.

"How are you not dead yet?!" I hear Will loudly ask.

I didn't believe he was real, none of this was real. It must be a prank by the guys, or some other random dude who tries to scare people. Either a man in a mask is scaring them, or kidnapping them.

Now a sliver of fear stabs my heart, fear of being kidnapped. Except the fact that I had people who knew what happened, witnesses using the phone in my bra to catch the kidnapper on camera.

I grow bold suddenly and take a step towards the man, the voices playing in my ear getting frantic.

"Claire?"

"What are you doing?!"

"Other way!"

"You guys! She's in the hypnotic trance!"

"Are you trying to prank me?" I ask as I walk closer, the tall man looming a good two feet above me. He doesn't respond, just tilts his head downwards as I get closer, as if looking me in the eyes. When I'm three feet away, my phone starts to get a static noise and I stop.

"Who are you?" I ask, pulling the ear bud out of my ear so I can hear clearly.

"Slenderman." The man responds, voice dark and chilling. A shiver runs down my spine and I can hear the guys screaming from my static filled ear bud, sitting between my phone and my skin.

I narrow my eyes at his response, like he didn't know that the joke was up, that I figured him out. I raise my hand to his face slowly, having to get on my tip toes, and he almost flinches before it touches him, the voices in my ear bud turning into panicked demands again, heard slightly through the forest by the fence.

When my finger connects with his face, a cold sensation fills my hand, like he sucked the heat right out of it. As soon as the cold came, it turned into warmth that reheated my skin, the voices in the ear bud falling silent under the static produced from something odd.

I would have to fix my phone later.

I trace my finger over his cheek to where the dent in the mask would be for his mouth, feeling nothing but smooth skin. Taking my hand back, I step away a few steps and the static lessens.

"How do you do that?" I softly ask, wondering how he got such a good quality costume.

'Slenderman' suddenly disappears and I jump when he reappears a few more feet away, black tendrils escaping his back to make him look intimidating.

How...

How does he...

This doesn't make sense, none of this makes sense.

The screams continue from the ear bud.

"She's so dead!" Will cries.

"You took his place. You must play." The Slender man demands, raising a long arm and pointing behind me. I gulp and turn to look, pointing my flashlight at the scary tree again, seeing the note.