The Movement of a Hand

I have to say goodbye to Arienette; I've said goodbye to Arienette.

Haligh was right in telling me this the entire time, but I can't keep chasing after someone who does not actually want me. I can't fight against her, or this situation. I knew this entire time that she didn't love me,...why couldn't I just accept this?

Things are changing, and I'm changing.
The Fevers need to stop. I have to consider what I really see in the Mirrors this time.

This morning I found myself in another dream. I was in a hall, and I heard footsteps. I followed the steps, and discovered a ballroom. Sunlight stretched like ivy over the floor, pushing away the darkness. The Shadows, who desire to take away beauty, run away as well. There is music playing. In the center, a tiny painted, porcelain Doll danced gracefully, innocently, and the world suddenly seems so small.

There are two chairs in front of the Doll. I sit down on the left, and Arienette appears on the right.
The strings in her skin appear in the sunlight, and I feel sorry for her...but she chose this, didn't she?
I reach into my pocket for her necklace, and give it to her.
I wave my hand and I say goodbye.

The vision washes away to reveal the layout of a car. I'm driving down a road, and Haligh is resting her head against my shoulder. She's crying, and I'm telling her that it's fine, it's fine.

I'm here to stay this time. The trees rejoice as we pass by them.
I'm optimistic,...we're going to defeat the Monsters, the Darkness.
We're going to replace that damn broken mirror.
We're going to relieve that hot fever inside.
We're going to reset each and every clock.
This is an Attempt to Tip the Scales.

The Joy in Discovery

I'm hallucinating again, I'm dreaming again

i'm in a field of knee-high grass, I see Arienette

she was almost hidden in the thickness of it all

the sun burns above us in anger as i approach her

"Why are you laying in the grass, don't you want to be found?"

she looks up at me, and i see that she's crying

"No, I don't, go away before it's too late...." she moans.

the sun gets close, and the field around us starts to burn

"Please!" I say, "I can't let you go! Not just yet!!"

the sun burns away the invisible strings and the grass rots away

and I'm back in my room writing as fireworks go off

Something Vague

I'm living on my own now, in an apartment in the city.

I'm better, finally. I've spent the last week or so in a feverish nightmare, burning inside from what happened with Arienette. Every day, I spent it either in the bed, under the covers, trying to run away from the darkness, or with Haligh. When I was with Haligh, I felt better, but I still felt extremely empty....

Haligh took me away from one of the Monsters, who according to her, was trying to "merge" with my Key. Haligh doesn't know why she was trying to do that; probably for a power boost. If the Monster had succeeded in gaining the Key, it would have broken the Scales.

It was stupid of her to save me, really. Haligh has a "Key" inside of her too. She could have been assaulted by the Monster too. But she wasn't thinking ahead, just like how I never think ahead...

Haligh told me that she's been looking for me, just like how I have been looking for Arienette. She's been using the Key to look for me for almost up to 2 months...

She tells me there are 2 reasons why she's been looking for me.
1; she wants me to join this group that fights against The Fears.
2; she wants me.

She's apparently in love with me, and has been for a while.
This surprises me a bit; I don't know what to think, honestly.
Arienette's my one and only, but...I do feel some desire to be with Haligh.

Christ, it's so cold in this apartment.
Winter's back, and it's been snowing alot in this city.
I've been drinking alot again too.

I don't know what to do about Haligh. Furthermore, how do I save Arienette?

Haligh, with her tangled brown hair, her hazel eyes, her warm personality...

I'm so sick of writing in this journal.
Fevers, mirrors, scales; when I look into myself, I see these things.

I've been having this weird dream every night for the past few days.

It's more like a memory masquerading as a dream, though.

I'm on a bridge with my family, I'm standing on it, I'm looking down, I see a body in the water, I see my reflection, I see Padriac, I see a boy in a sailor suit, the bridge disappears, I'm falling and no one's there to catch me, I'm in the air like a fucking star, glowing in the dark, falling.

I see myself falling into Death's arms, and I find that it's Padriac, all grown up.
I say,

But now I'm confused. Is this death really you?
And do these dreams have any meaning?

He looks at me
and says,

No. 
No, I think it's more like a ghost, that's been following us both.
Something vague that we're not seeing; something more like a feeling.

 The dream ends there, but as it fades away, I always find his image in my mind.

Haligh told me she thinks there's something inside of us both, other than the Keys.

I got to go. She wants to meet up again.

The Calendar Hung Itself...

She's betrayed me. Arienette, I saw her today with another guy.

I followed the Key's instructions and infiltrated a local college campus. In one of the dorms, I saw her exiting, along with some tall blond fuck. I was about to yell her name out, but they kissed, and everything I had stood for fell apart.

All I could do was whisper "Arienette?...Why?"

She looked at me in that instant, and saw right past me. It was like I didn't even exist, or matter, to her! Turning her back, she led that random guy to a car, preparing to leave me alone.

My legs felt weak, but I tried running anyways. I was approaching the car, when I realized a shadow had fallen over me. I looked up, and saw the most famous of my monsters, ...The Slender Man.

Chances are, if you're actually reading this journal, then you are fully aware of this creature and its capabilities, so I will refrain from giving a description of it. I wouldn't be able to find accurate words for it anyway. Not this beast, not with how tall it is, not this Monster.

It grabbed onto me, and took me away from my world....my entire life, Arienette.

I drowned in darkness for five full minutes. Literally invading me, filling my body. It was agonizing torture.

Visions of my Arienette and that...that fucking fucker blasted inside of my mind as this happened.

I see him kissing her eyelids in the morning as she starts to raise her head, I see him singing incessantly from the space between the bed and the dorm wall, I saw him I saw him

I couldn't keep on with that. I tried swimming away from the visions. I start choking on the darkness inside of me. In the deep, I happen across a solid object.

I open my eyes in the darkness, and though they burn, I stare directly into the object without looking away.

A mirror. I see it, breaking. In between the cracks, I saw Arienette and I running, with the promise of death over our heads, screaming for our bodies. Running, running, running, but in love!

I sing to myself softly the lyrics to that classic song "You Are My Sunshine."

I remembered all the training I had been put through at the island at that moment. I remembered being able tap into the item inside of myself, being able to jump between dimensions. Wherever I was, I could escape.

A golden light flashed inside of the pit of darkness. I escaped the abyss, and was launched into the torrent in between dimensions. I was aiming for Arienette's location, but the strings...they pulled on me, and tugged me into some unknown location.

I fell onto a maroon colored bed. Beside me, there was that one girl....one of my Monsters. Her mask's jaw hung loosely from her face, and she reached towards me. I screamed, but I was silenced by her embracing and kissing me. I tried pushing her off of me, but she just wouldn't stop.

Her eyes resembled Arienette's as I delved back into me, trying to muster up enough energy to escape this place again...it was futile though, The Key was worn out. I couldn't do anything...

I felt like vomiting...the stench of the corpse on top of me was just unbearable. I couldn't move, I couldn't scream, I couldn't

She put her hands on my chest, and for a second, something began to happen due to the contact...I don't know what. It just felt like..

I saw gray skies, everywhere. We were in a field, where a secret was being held. She was getting so close to what she wanted, but it all ended when I was saved.

The girl I mentioned earlier; Haligh. She appeared and grabbed my wrist and we disappeared in a silver light. I'm currently staying with her, talking over things, will update in this journal later.

The deathwatches have stopped.

A Scale, a Mirror and Those Indifferent Clocks

I'm on the Eastern Seaboard now. Took a week, but I'm here, in the very same city Arienette resides in.

It's so strange, I've found myself in the same city that I stayed in so long ago, when I met a special friend of mine; her name was Haligh (pronounced Hai-lie). We spent most of our adolescence as friends. I haven't talked to her since The Lonely Hearts started to move me around at a faster pace, unfortunately.

Maybe I'll see her around, right?

I'm in a hotel room again, and like what had happened a year or so ago, the "fireworks" are back. Or rather, an advanced version of them. Instead of a flash of sparks, they're an explosions of all the colors in the rainbow. They paint over the hotel room, washing away at everything and swallowing the darkness that hungers for my key. Perhaps this is a defense mechanism?

The colors were being balanced upon a scale at one point. The scale was weighing my darkness and my soul, and the darkness was definitely heavier. The scale faded away, only to be replaced by the hotel bathroom mirror. In it, I saw a smeared version of someone watching me. This person had green eyes, just like someone I was missing at that very moment.

The gray blob appeared during the hallucinations too. They passed along this message:

"And language just happened, it was never planned."

The delivery of the line sounded like it was from some song. I was in the room of my old house when I saw them. I screamed at the Monster, which broke the vision, and dumped me back in my hotel room.

And then the clocks began. What I like to call the Deathwatches.

I can hear them sometimes, when all is completely quiet in the world.

They're getting louder. And closer.

I need to hurry up and save her...but I'm worried. What if she...what if she left?

Was she really taken? Why'd she leave that note?

A Spindle, a Darkness, a Fever, and a Necklace

"So long everything!" he shouted, then he ran next door to Margot's house.
"I'm moving," he said.
"Where?" asked Margot.
"Two weeks away," said Mitchell.
"Where is that?" asked Margot.
"It's everywhere I will be after I walk for two weeks," said Mitchell, "I have lived in the same place for a long time, it is time for me to go some place else."
"No." said Margot, "You have only lived next door for fifteen years."
"Sixteen," said Mitchell.
"Fifteen...sixteen, what's the difference?" said Margot, "I want you to stay next door forever."
"I can't," said Mitchell,"I do not want to go wake up in the same old bed and eat breakfast in the same old kitchen. Every room in my house is the same old room, because I have lived there too long. “

 The strings have been following us from the start. They keep catching onto dangers and tying around trees, tugging us right back to where we belong. And every now and then, the strings themselves pull on us.

I saw them in the moonlight some times, drifting out of my skin, glistening with tiny droplets of dew created from the tropical humidity. I tried cutting them, but the strings weren't actually there, and never were. The scissors would just cut at the air, leaving me tied to my fate.

Our ship crashed onto a forgotten island in early September. On this island, there was a small community of runners. We integrated with them, and life started to slow back down. I was finally with my love, in paradise. We danced in fields of clovers and looked into mirrors to see how beautiful we were standing together.

Too good to be true. Things were far too innocent. Things had to be broken; the mirrors had to be reversed.

Arienette changed as time went by on that island. She was, at first, always tense, nervous, and seemed to be waiting for something, constantly. Eventually, she relaxed for a while, and we settled down on that island.

The runners taught me amazing things. I've learned so many things about my enemies now, and I've learned so many things about myself through this. I understand, by a bit, just how important I really am to this War. But of course, it wasn't enough to stop the inevitable.

One night, I found Arienette on the beach, alone. She was crying, and grasping out into the thin air, towards the ocean. A locket, that she wore constantly around her neck, hung loosely and reflected bits of moonlight. I could see the Strings too at that time, but I hardly noticed.

I approached her, hugged, and asked her what was wrong. She pushed me away, and just pointed out into the ocean. "I've been here too long," she said then.

The very same locket from then sits next to my notebook as I write this down. I touch the pocketwatch with my left hand, and wonder just what secrets hide behind the clasp of it. I would never open it, even if I could.

Behind me, as I hugged her, I heard some other presence. I turned around, and saw the trees rotting away at a rapid pace as a man in a Plague Doctor costume stepping out from the shadows. No, actually, not a man; this was another Monster. It looked at me as if I was just an insect, that I just did not matter.

As soon as my eyes connected with...whatever were in the eyeholes of that mask, my body suddenly became feverish, and I began to sweat rapidly. I was weak, and fell to the sand. The Monster looked at my Arienette, and before I could say anything else, she was gone, and so was the island; so was everything. Everything turned black.

The very next morning, she was gone. She left behind a note telling me that the darkness had returned.



"And you look at me and think, same old face, same old tail, same old scale, same old walk, same old talk, same old Margot,"
"No," said Mitchell, "I like your face, tail, scale, walk, and talk.”
”I like you."
"I like you too," said Mitchell. He walked through the door.
"I must pack," he said.

When I awoke, I was in the hut of one of The Runners. Women around me were soaking my skin with cold rags. I was in a haze, and I can't remember hardly anything from the experience, but one particular lady singing the following to me:

“Don’t you do what you’ve wanted to. Yeah, don’t destroy yourself like those cowards do. And maybe the sun keeps coming up because it has gotten used to you and your constant need for proof.”

I couldn't understand why she was singing that to me. The ocean outside roared as the ringing from a gray cloud overhead watched. I drifted away again.


A week later, I was on a boat, heading back to the mainland. I was going to find her again.

I am going to find her again. It isn't like she's somewhere unreachable now.

I have the Key; I can find her, no matter what.

The problem in this situation is getting to her.

I know, I know; here we go again....

When get to her this time, I'm completely severing our stringed fates.