~~FLOM: Chapter Thirteen--Memories are Bad~~

My eyes were very, very wide. “You mean….You haven’t been living here full time?”

Slenderman shakes his head, frowning. Then, he spots what must be very evident in my face: Pure fear.

If he hadn’t been in the basement, who or what had been? When Slenderman heard my thoughts, he reached for me and pulled me tightly against him, whispering very softly: “Close your eyes.”

I obey instantly, and after a few moments I again hear the beating of his three hearts. He tilts my head up, and grazes his “lips,” across mine, the velvety material soft against my own lips. His arms elongate and wrap around me, petting my hair before he does something I will never forgive him for: His hands grab me under my arms, he picks me up, and he practically throws me into the air. Ignoring—or perhaps enjoying—when I scream at him to put me down, he lets out a laugh that echoes in my mind. My back grazes the ceiling of the room, and then I come down, landing in his arms deftly on my stomach. “Huh,” he says quietly, looking down at the now frightened lump of Mitchie. “I didn’t plan on making you land on your belly. One second, sweetheart.” Oh, I swear I could sense him smirking at me as he rolled me back over onto my back, now more comfortably carried in his arms. They stretch under me and bend impossibly to wrap around me, holding me tight and supporting me. “Relax, Mitchie. You know you can trust me.”

I nodded, swallowing. He sighed, shaking his head before he started walking with me towards the staircase downstairs. When I realized where we were going, I asked nervously, “Why are we going there? I’d….Rather not go down there ever again, even if you’re living there.”

He looks down at me, giving me a look. I’m pretty sure the damned bastard was laughing his ass off right now, but he wasn’t showing it. Instead, he remained as he always was: Quiet and paranoia causing. Hell, if I didn’t know him, I’d be scared to be so close to him….In fact, if I didn’t know him as well as I did, I would be dead right now.

Deciding I’d stop thinking about the kind of reputation my new love has for killing everything he gets close to, I do my best so snuggle up closer to him. He seems to sense the dark path my thoughts have taken, and he holds me tighter. He lifts me gently, moving me so my lips are near his face, and once again he gently kisses me.

Okay, so his kisses in Slenderman form are getting better. It feels somehow nice, the perfect smoothness brushing against my own lips. However, he really did kiss better in human form.

Sensing my insulting of his kissing skills, he tells me to close my eyes again, and when I reopen them he has regrown his lips. He kisses me softly, smiling, his teeth as white as the ‘skin’ of his face. I look at him blankly. His lips look very odd without having anything else, and he just shakes his head, pouting at me. “I don’t feel like making more of my face. It feels really odd for me, kiddo.”

I grinned, shrugging. “It’s alright, Slendy. Let’s get there and see exactly what we’re dealing with, okay?”

He nods. “I’m mainly taking you there because I’ve been sensing something, too. Creatures like me have a sense for each other—we know when others like us are nearby. And I can definitely sense something down there, even though it hasn’t yet showed itself.”

I nodded, biting my lip. He smiled very quietly, before telling me to close my eyes again. His lips were gone when I reopened them, and I got my arm free so I could run my hand across the skin where his lips had been.

NOTE: So….There really is something living in the basement. Something powerful. And, if Slenderman is hinting at what I think he is, chances are this won’t go very well…..END OF NOTE.

Slenderman carried me to the basement, his grip rather tight on me. He was careful so he wouldn’t hurt me, but he was definitely needing to make sure I was okay. I bit my lip, a little scared because he was scared. “I’m not scared,” he murmured to me in my head, “I just don’t want anyone, or anything, to hurt you. You mean way too much to me for anything—Dark One or not—to hurt you.”

NOTE: DARK ONE!?!? No! How about NO!!!! Dark Ones are REAL MONSTERS! *Shudders.* And there’s so many of them too….I hate them so much….I read too many stories on Reddit!!!! END OF NOTE.

“Dark Ones? What’re those?”

He stiffened faintly, shaking his head. “Creatures that go bump in the night. I’m one of them.”

“Are they uh…misunderstood like you?” I asked hopefully. I definitely wasn’t liking this right now.

Slenderman slowly shook his white face, and he seemed to tremble, tendrils rising from his shoulders. “Oh, I wish they were misunderstood….I’m the exception out of all of them. Needless to say, I’m not liked very much among them.”

“Will they…hurt you?” I asked carefully, biting my lip. He remained still, not walking forward for a few moments. He tightened his grip on me again, before muttering quietly in my head:

“No, they won’t hurt me. They can’t really hurt me.”

I didn’t ask the question that was resting so heavily on my head, but I am definitely sure he knew what it was: Will they hurt me?

In response to my worried mind, he pulled me up and kissed me again gently. “You are very, very safe with me. I am extremely powerful.”

I relaxed in his arms. He smiled at me, before he gently kissed my forehead. “I trust you, Slenderman.”

NOTE: Okay, did she really just say that? Did she really just say that she trusts SLENDERMAN, the thing that has been the subject of huge amounts of screams and nightmares for a long time now? This is….This is just TOO weird. I really can’t understand anything that is going on any more….END OF NOTE.

He smiled at me, and once again we’re off to the basement. Before long, we’re down in the basement, and I can hear…something. Above the sound of his heartbeats that echo against my ear and my own ragged breaths, I knew I could hear something….I heard the sound of gagging and choking.

And frightened meows.

“Do not look, little one….Please don’t look.”

I trembled, and he carried me up the stairs and left me in my room. “Stay here, Mitchie. I’ll go and do what I can.”

I hugged my knees to my chest. What was going on down there? I hadn’t seen anything but from what I had heard….Things didn’t sound good at all. He could do something, right? He’d help whatever was going on down there? He’d make everything okay?

Trembling, I bit my lip hard. I had to trust him. He was Slenderman. He was the amazingly powerful Slenderman.

And he was in love with me.

The house was very quiet for a long, long time. There were no sounds. There was no movement. You’d think that, if Slenderman was fighting something, there would be noise…...But there wasn’t. Not a single sound.

While I waited, I thought a lot about all the things that have happened. The fight with James, the relationships I’d gotten with many of my favorite characters…..Was I sad about everything that happened? If I hadn’t played Minecraft so much, nothing at all would have happened.

All in all, Minecraft had been the cause of every last one of my problems. It had caused me to lose the first guy that had ever liked me, made my parents mad at me…..

But I couldn’t deny that Minecraft had done something very good for me.

It had given me a reason to live.

Minecraft was creativity and life and love all rolled into one. It is everything I could ever want and everything I could ever love. It would always be my favorite game.

I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until I found myself back in Minecraft, alone in a room.