Summary of Events

I think I'm by myself here.

Skyler can finally get up here more often because summer's coming, which means Seth is completely distracted. Jerk.

Casers and Bran are done with school, but I don't know what's keeping them. Probably something with Todd. He was quiet for a while.

Actually they all were. After the freaky thing I saw, it was just...normal.

I hate when it's normal. Is that weird to say? But it's like they're doing it on purpose, giving us tastes of normalcy before throwing everything back into a hell twister.

But you know what that means...normalcy? While we couldn't access anything, there was no Rat. Or Crow. And no Todd. (That part was actually scary...)

No Morrigan...which also meant no Skye. None of our former friends defacing things for Mr. Tall Pale and Faceless. Either of the tall faceless guys. It doesn't matter who they're doing it for, It or Him, it's freaky and annoying.

I think what Bran basically wanted to say about what Rat had to say was...

- They have him.

- And them.

- We're not getting him back.

- They've been instructed not to get caught, unless on purpose.

- He sings because he's clinging.

And that all means...

- They've got Todd (duh)

- And our friends (duh x2)

- He doesn't intend to GIVE Todd to us. He's scheming...

- The proxies are all somehow avoiding the police, unless told to get caught. Probably to purposefully involve the feds. Yay.

- Todd spouts lyrics as a distraction from whatever they're doing to him. It annoys Rat.

The Morrigan is a Celtic war goddess. She's also called The Morgana. She's a triple goddess, associated with death, and her symbol is a crow.
Or...a raven.

Bran/Branwen are huge characters in Celtic myth too. Bran is a giant and a king and was Branwen's brother. His name means Blessed Raven. He gave Branwen's hand in marriage to the king of Ireland, who mistreats her. She sends for help and a huge war breaks out, nearly decimating Ireland and Wales. Branwen dies of a broken heart...

Those are the notes, in short.

Wanna hear about what freaked me out? Let's talk about what freaked me out. Okay! Reliving nightmares...whee!

I had it for a while...I wasn't saying anything about it. I was scared to admit how much it scared me and I also didn't want to break it.
It's like a series. It starts in a field. In the same spot, every time. It progresses. I see the same scenes over and over, but with a little more added at the end before I wake up.

Like I said, there's a field. The whole thing plays like a movie, but it looks old and scratched and grainy. There's these harsh shadows and everything looks grey or brown. It's in color, but that's how it looks. It's hard to make things out.

Three people are walking through this field. It's wheat, I think. They're heading for a forest. I took a few times running this scene, but they're all boys. One walks farther ahead of the other two. The last one is walking closely behind the one in the middle.

Did I mention it's like an old movie? You how bad the sound is on those things? Ugh...

I had to listen really hard, but the two guys in back are named Alexander and Lance. Like Todd was talking about in some of the texts he sent to Bran. I don't know which is which, or what the name of the guy in front is.

Alexander and Lance are whispering to each other. I can't hear what they're saying. The guy in front yells over his shoulder for them to hurry up. They run to catch up to him. They start to walk into the forest. And then there's this god awful droning screeching static sound while everything goes black and red.

And then I wake up. It's terrifying. It reminds me of when Crow was being a creepy stalker and trying to talk through me (and NO I DON'T want to talk about that right now).

I stopped having that dream. But I want to have the dream again. I want to find out what happens. I feel like we need to. It's like watching a show that has a huge cliffhanger and needing to find out what happens next season, only for the show to be canceled.

I keep trying to have it again. Bran's a huge nerd about dream stuff and I've been trying to get back into it...

Alexander and Lance...three guys...one's a leader and the other two follow...

Who does that sound like to you guys? I wonder which of them's trying to tell me this...

On a completely different note, hi Beast! I saw your comments when you were talking to Bran and I read through your blog. I like your poetry. It's so sad though. We'll try to help you find Beauty.

I'm gonna try Bran again and see if she's got anything on Todd...

HOLY SHIT

Google stopped being a piece of shit and actually fixed something! Now if I could have said what I wanted to say DAYS ago, that would have been GREAT.

Jesus...

Thanks for letting everyone know, Ai.

We're not dead or injured. Sammi was freaked out for a while but we'll get to that part.

I have to go soon. Today's the day. Casey and I will be free from the BL.

It's weird to think about...I won't be going back to high school.

I should have taken pictures...

Next time...next time I go down to EL, someone remind me to get pictures.

They've definitely been busy with the graffiti down there.

Rat was just nonchalantly standing around in an alley near the Jaycee Hall. Our filming spot. I promised Justin I'd be there for his movie...and with Rat there, I HAD to be.

He said, "Don't you miss him?" with a slight head tilt. His mask makes him look...so...it's...imagine this tall, lanky guy. He's got a full mask on, a grey, grinning rat. Buck teeth on the mask. Like a rat. Torn up coat, looks like it used to be nice. Greasy black hair...at least the parts you can see sticking out.

He smells. Even that night I had the sword. You can smell him several feet away.

He's a Rat. And not at all like the cute little white ones you see in pet stores.

"Yeah. You done toying with him? Because I don't know if you've noticed, but we kinda want Todd back." I said. I managed to slip into the alley by the Hall while Adam's makeup was being done. I was already finished, so I probably looked a tad ridiculous. I don't even care. I guarantee I look better than whatever's under that mask. I still have this crap on.

"Oh nononononono. Not even close. I suspect he'll attempt contact through your blogosphere again. I think I'll let him. Or not." And he giggles. The kind of giggle that makes you want to punch a man. Very hard. In the balls. And the face.

Simultaneously.

And did he seriously say the word 'blogosphere'?

"The hell are you even doing to him? Why do you need him? He's not even of use to you anymore...oh fu-" Me and my big mouth. I sat there hoping that didn't come out as, "You don't need him anymore so you can dispose of him."

It did sound like that to him. But...

Rat laughs. I want to vomit. "Oh my dear...we don't plan on killing Foxxie..."

I exhale deeply. But Rat trails at the end. "What?"

"It would be so much less fun!"

And I'm pissed again.

"Don't you like fixing broken things? Cleaning them up? Helping things?" He steps closer. I step back. There's a piece of pipe in my peripheral. I get ready to grab it if he makes a move. Hell, I think, if he attacks me, Jim would probably run out and make Rat piss himself and then he'd run away.

Jim's a big dude.

"...Yes. I do..." I say hesitantly. They're breaking him. They're hurting Todd and you can tell by how the texts are getting and he's saying something about...Alexander and...this looks like it says Lance. I don't know who those people are, but they relate to him somehow. He keeps texting song lyrics, no matter how frantic or messed up they are. He sings and I guess that helps, but I wonder how long he can keep it up...

"You'll have quite the project when we're done." I can feel the malice dripping from his words. He backs up out of the alley, runs across the street, and passes a small tree in a parking lot.

"Hey Bran! We're ready to shoot!"

That's Justin. I can hear Adam talking too. I turn around, look over my shoulder, spy a tentacle. I casually walk out of the alley, trying not to look afraid.

We shoot Jim's death scene at the diamond in EL. The cops show up (somebody compained? I don't know.) and chew out Eric and Jim. We walk back to Hall, because we got our final shot anyways (and with a neat clip in the end of the cops rolling up. Score.)

Filming's done. I go home.

And I still have to wash this crap off my face and neck.

So you know what I'm gonna do tomorrow? I'm going to tell you everything from memory as best as I can. Luckily, I remember the most important parts. I think.

And we'll talk about The Morrigan and my name of course.

I guess...we'll see if anything else happens with Frap...

Fuck Rat

That is the last time I EVER leave my window open.

He took all my stuff.

All of the notes and all of the scribblings from me trying to decode his riddle-speak monologue and why the hell didn't I see this coming? Am I an idiot?

After I had it all finished. For sure. I had time today to tell you what I thought I'd found out. In between the research paper and the book and illustrations.

I needed those papers.

I tore apart my room. The room I just cleaned and had to put back together again today. I even looked in ridiculous places to see if he was just being an ass and hiding them. Like under my pillow.

I found a note. From him.

"You have much to learn, mutt. How could you not foresee that this was going to happen?
 I would never give you that much information so openly. Oh no. And did you not think to check my information?"

Actually I did, jackass.

"Some of it was false."

Yeah, I know. Don't patronize me.

"I believe we need to meet again. Down at the shoppe, mayhaps? - Mr. Rat"

I feel very uncomfortable about that last bit. "Shoppe" refers to a place in EL. I'm helping Justin and Jim film their zombie movie there today.

Fuck Rat.

And what happened to Frap? Please don't be dead...

I'm sorry, guys. I have to leave soon. I'll come back when I've got more. And I'll have to write down as much as I remember from those notes...

Guess what?

Who passed his driver's test? THIS GUY.

So now we totally don't have to steal a car or anything if we have to leave! :D

I don't know what Casey and Bran are doing. But the last two texts I got from Bran said "SWEET JESUS SENIOR YEAR HOW DO I REMEMBER EVERYTHING" and "MY HAIR IS LIKE FIRE".

Which means she probably also really needs to get some sleep. All caps = Branwen going nuts.

So I guess it's just me, Skyler, and Sam right now. We're organizing our research and stuff. We've also got the spray bottles close by.

I really REALLY want to hit Rat in the face with the salt water. Just once.

The Missing Ones/New Trouble

I'm popping in here to say...

I'm really almost done transcribing Rat's babbling. Really. But I'm busy today and have to leave soon.

And I guess Crow is now with Aiden?

Giving the wheel to Casey.

Alright.

First off, all of the people that are missing are now being investigated along with Skye's case.

The problem here is that the police will never find Skye. But the people that were our friends and are now bumbling proxies aren't competent enough to stay completely out of sight.

So there's been sightings all over and we probably have to talk to the police again.

I'm more worried one of those kids is going to get caught. Words cannot describe how enormously terrible that would be.

Second, we have compiled information about The Morrigan and now we're looking into the history of Bran's name since Taben pointed that out. And then maybe the possibility that her parents did it on purpose. But probably not.

I think Seth and Skyler said they were going to go through Pete's blog and gather the most successful experiments. I think I love this Pete guy for having all of those.

Meanwhile, things have been heart attack inducing recently.

Danielle, my sister, has two children. Madden and Parker. My little nieces.

I got a call from Danielle yesterday that Madden's been talking about her new friend. An imaginary friend. She says his name is Gary and she refers to all of those inflatable tube men as Gary because they remind her of him.

She only sees "Gary" at grandma's.

My house.

My house that is surrounded by forest.

I don't want to think that it's what I think it is. I don't know what to do...

On The Defense

- Holy water.

- Salt mixed with holy water.

- More salt.

- Rosaries.

- We need more ideas.

We put the liquids into spray bottles. We're thinking that should be pretty effective, assuming they work at all.

I know the new proxies have been busy. You know, judging by the new graffitti down here.

Which is absolutely everywhere and I've taken into looking at circles of protection to maybe put around the house. It's not a strictly Christian or Catholic tactic, which is what we wanted to test first, but I think I'd rather worry about being safe in my own house than the order of all thi-

Oh wait. They're human. That won't do anything at all will it?

I think I should invest in more than baseball bats...

Branwen's been fielding all of Rat's communications since Monday. She found him, but he probably hasn't given her any free time to say anything. On the plus side, that might mean he's not keeping as close of an eye on Todd as he probably should be.

Here's hoping Todd finds an escape route.

I have to call Seth. He wants to talk about The Morrigan.

The Initiation

First off, I don't have a lot of time. Dad wants me to take Ace sooner than I thought. But there's still daylight. So we're good on that front. I prefer to work in the light if it's going to be with the Agents.

Second, the entire reason I couldn't say specifically what was going on was because I didn't want ANYTHING to get back to Rat. Which ended up not even mattering. At all. All it maybe did was prevent me from getting abducted...so...sweet. Great.

Alright.

These animal names...the ones we haven't used in a while I've realized...they have to do with not only our favorites. They're the ones that speak to us and basically say how we view ourselves. Skyler and Seth were still ambiguous to the Agents. Rat wanted to give Skyler the identity of a prey animal, which she rebelled against, going with a Panda. Because it's a bear, but it's still cute. Skyler...

Seth didn't want to end up as a wuss animal either and wound up as the Buck or the Stag.

Our friend Skye loves owls. Which is how we instantly knew they meant her the first time they said Owl. And when they said "Soon the storm will darken your sky," all those weeks ago, they meant this event. And this Skye.

Todd already had a notion of what was going to happen to Skye, but he didn't know specifics. They were appearing to her in her sleep and doing work during REM sleep. She'd been having nightmares about It and Them and never said a word. Possibly out of pride.

We wouldn't have laughed, Skye...

Over time, they were...Hallowing her (wow that's a word that's needs dusting off). Which is why she would disappear from home and act irritated a lot. And then Rat took her. And she disappeared for good.

I never told you what the other search party found. There was another one. All they found was a bloody scrap of her flannel hoodie. Called it?

Todd and I had been making plans to figure out exactly what they were doing with her. We were going to infiltrate this meeting and we were going to find out. And then we were going to leave. That was supposed to be it. Get in and get out.

I suppose we never thought of Murphy's Law but oh I'm skipping ahead aren't I...

We worked on costumes to get us in. Todd had to look different because every proxy there would be on alert for him. I couldn't wear the Wolf on the off chance that they might be looking for me too, or that someone would recognize it. We ended up unintentionally doing a yin yang sort of thing. It was cool. You should have seen it.

He had to take me through their parallel realm thing to get us there. Kind of a clearing in the wood. Rat had Skye in an Owl mask at the base of a large tree. There were torches for light. Otherwise it was pitch black. And the crowd. Huge number of people, at least more than I thought there would be. Masks we didn't know. And then all of our infected friends were standing at the front of the crowd.

Rat's speech is a jumbled mess to me now...but he went off about crows and ravens. About unifying and an army...

And then It shows up. And all hell breaks loose. Some of the infected snap out of it and turn to run. Screaming. They're the ones that died.

Wes and Sarah and...

Skye is clutching the Owl mask. It looks like she's crying or reeling or...It picks her up and Rat rushes at us...

Nick and Jess and...

Rat grabs the black fox mask and tears it off of Todd. The entire time my view of his face is obscured. I remember being highly annoyed about this instead of initially running like I SHOULD have been. The other proxies started advancing towards me now and Todd had shoved Rat off. He was screaming for me to run. I didn't. Not at first.

Because I wanted to see. And there was blood. And the bodies and ohmygod where was Logan or Connie or no. They were they. They were standing and they were left with the others and It picked them up and stared and set them down and they spread their arms out and the crows flew out of nowhere and landed. Perching on their arms. Crowscrowscrows.

Skye's mask is black now. It's not even an Owl anymore. It's a Crow and there are blood red feathers on the mask and she screaming in a loud voice, "I AM THE MORRIGAN."

And NOW I run because there are bodies and crows and the proxies are withing grasping distance. And I'm not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of It. I'm scared of The Morrigan.

And somehow I managed to get away.

I crawled in the window me and Todd left open. I tore everything off, got a shower, made the post, curled up on the couch facing the living room window. I did not sleep. I just stared out the window waiting for It or Them to catch up to me.

Nothing happened. I ended up feeling more bitter than sad for a while. I saw what Rat said on Todd's blog. I snapped at him, but he never responded.

And that's all. That's the story.

Now I've gotta take Ace and run. See if I can catch either one of them. Toodles.

Cracking Down

I don't have time to be sad for everyone that I watched die. I don't have time to be pulling my hair out over the fact that they still have Todd.

My pit percussion section didn't get to be one of the best sections in band, a better example than the drum line, by pissing around. Jonnie and I led that operation like it was our fucking job. We worked our asses off handling a section of five pit percussionists, taught three drummers that weren't even ours, and directed a slew of eighth graders just to make everything run smoothly.

It's time I be that person again. Yeah I've talked about how I'm apparently the leader before. Some great fucking job I'm doing.

No. We aren't stupid. Two of us are almost adults, almost out on our own. The other three are very close to that stage.

We can research. We can learn to solve the riddles and the codes. We aren't helpless. And we aren't going to flop around like idiots waiting to be slaughtered by It.

We're a force against It, together. It's time we take full advantage of that and use the time we have to get the information we need and get the hell out of here.

Skyler has a collection of mixtures she and Seth were working on. Sammi and Seth had about seven or eight windows up each researching The Morrigan today. I'm having Sammi keep a journal of her hourly life to figure out the black outs.

Casey's keeping track of everyone that came back after The Initiation.

Soon, I'm going to gear up and go out there to fine me a dirty bird or an overgrown mouse. I have pads to go underneath my clothes this time. And my brother's katana.

And also a handy little pocket knife.

Somebody's going to talk.

But first I have a story to tell you, don't I? Let me get that ready...

I'm not upset.

Not with them. Or about what happened.

I'm angry with us. I'm angry that we're stupid. That we're moronic teenagers and what the hell are we doing?

And where the fuck is Todd? He was there. Taben doesn't know where he went but I saw.

Rat led him off on a leash noose before they fucking disappeared. Does anyone remember this?

"He had a little fox plushie. He was playing with it while I was in math, looking out the window. Then he pulls out a rope. And he ties a noose around the fox."

Because I do. It was in one of Skyler's posts.

I have so much to say and not enough time to say it right now.

Except for one last thing.

No more fucking around. We get our ideas down. We run those experiments. We collect our research. We get this shit down. Because we're running out of time.

And we have to get the hell out of dodge.