He's her best friend.

That guy Madden sees. I talked to her about it a long time ago, and she swore up and down that she had no imaginary friend, despite what I told her her mom said.

Her little kid mind must have forgotten that she was supposed to be pretending she didn't have one, because she recently brought him back up. Or Him. It must be Him. She only sees her friend at my house. She says he's a tall skinny man.

My niece...my toddler niece...is seeing Slenderman.

I am not the only one having problems regarding family on this matter. Whelan just went up to her brother's art show yesterday. He said he tried getting into the whole Marble Hornets thing (you already know where this is going) and based his recent sculpture on that. As she described it, it was basically a small, creepy, two level room in this warehouse with rickety stairs and a bunch of PVC pipes wired to speakers. The pipes emerged at the top and were blaring all kinds of distorted noise. Also there were copious amounts of our favorite symbol.

We're hoping he doesn't get any further into it. I mean, watching that shouldn't be enough to draw His attention, right?

She had something else to say about the art show. I'll just copy and paste it.

I now know full well the amount of creepy a warehouse possesses. And it wasn't even just that room. That room was terrible, but the whole thing is like this old, dirty, scary building. It's not abandoned or anything. They still use it for shipping. But it's like...imagine that while in a labyrinth of sorts, and then you sort of understand how Zeke felt.

I think there's pictures somewhere...

I'm also here to tell you that we'll all be busy with life and Slenderp, and Whelan won't be back until Wednesday. She'll be with her sister in Pittsburgh doing something with a house.

Meanwhile, what am I going to do with my niece...

Grumblegrumblegrumble

I miss my dashboard...and I hate Google...why isn't this fixed yet?

For anybody that I haven't talked to in weeks, it's probably because I've been checking blogs based on memory and I honestly cannot recall everything I'm following. I'm really sorry, but every time I try to go to my dashboard it looks like this.

And I can't really ask for help, because you know...Google's proven SO effective at fixing these things for other people. I'm going to try anyways. What else can I do...

Stormecho and Joce. And Elizabeth. You popped back into my memory and I'm going to be catching up on you today. I've been following Beast and trying to understand the poetry...

Who else am I missing...I don't know...help me out here.

And of course I'd have an encounter today just a couple hours after Aiden says Its been stalking around more.

Dad trimmed some tree branches today and had me pick them up, put them in a wheelbarrow and dump them in the woods. In. The woods.

I have never been so close to It. And I never want to be ever again.

I threw some branches into the part we made a compost pile and suddenly It was in front of me. Three feet away from me. It wasn't even that close at The Initiation. I let go of the wheel barrow and heard it topple behind me. I took a step back. It wrapped a tentacle around my wrist and suddenly any defiance I had felt moments before was replaced with sheer terror.

...M was right when he said it burns. Or maybe it's just because I think it's supposed to burn. It hurt.

A shrill voice echoed through my head screaming something largely incoherent to me about Alexander. It sounded like It was angry about losing Its toy. I needed something to help me put on a brave face, so I took that and ran with it.

"Are you pissed about losing your toy?" I said in the most taunting voice I could muster, which sounded ineffective being half mingled with fear. My shaky voice was apparently enough to offend It though. Because It did more of the shrill, incoherent yelling. And that sound...is so piercing...

And then it did something that surprised me. It let me go. And then It held up a mask.

Not a Fox mask. Or Crow mask.

A Rat mask. Torn and covered in blood. I was going to assume that Rat...or...Jared...was just injured. But I saw hair glued to the mask with blood. And some pieces of white and...it's like his head just exploded. I actually felt slightly angry for him. Rat was a bastard, but he didn't deserve his skull getting blown to pieces.

Meanwhile, Ace was running up to the woods from the front yard and stood defensively by my side, growling. It made a move towards him, but Ace snapped his jaws and I flicked at Its torso with a branch that fell out of the wheelbarrow.

And then It was gone. Ace got a huge hug, I threw the rest of the branches on the pile, and we went back inside so I could have a mini panic attack and process what just happened.

In something mildly related to that, I've been talking to Alex since he's been at Aiden's and I've resolved to get him horribly addicted to some of the stuff I listen to too. He mentioned that Todd still sings Panic! songs. A lot. So I've been sending Alex to Lapfox. And now they're annoying each other with their songs. Teehee.

He's also having a hard time understand all of what Todd does, but I think he's been filled in thus far and now he's just trying to practice. I'm not sure how that's working out for him, other than he said he wanted to punt a baby squirrel yesterday.

Seth, Sammi, and Skyler are gathering supplies. Casey and I holding the fort with It around.

Zeke is with Celeste, Vi, Ava, and Wren. It almost sounds like a sitcom to me. I shouldn't laugh, but the combination of people is hilarious. And Zeke had a good moment. Good for him. He deserves it.

I guess M's still dealing with that kid? I don't know?

Where is Ygg?

And Malkin is with Aiden.

And now to see what the rest of you guys have been up to...I hope you're all okay...

Well then...

Evidently the kid fell unconscious at some point because he was sitting in my basement looking very confused. Good thing mom's on vacation and Harry's in Florida for the summer. House to myseeeeelf.

He said Todd couldn't hear anything and got lost. He also said he doesn't know what means. I told him I don't really know either and Todd's a cryptic bastard so good luck trying to figure out anything he does.

Then we ate sandwiches and we had a Sims marathon.

I like Alexander. I think I might deck Todd in the face every time he's conscious just so I can hang out with this kid.

He Split

I hate myself for making that joke.

Uhm...Todd's gone. I called everyone else and he wasn't near them, so I'm assuming that he headed for Aiden's while he was still him.

It's like something out of Artemis Fowl, I swear.

Todd's calm, snarky, and cunning. And the other one is uh...

Alexander? He's like...well I haven't seen enough of him to make proper judgment so I'll just say he isn't stupid or delusional like Orion was to Artemis. But he's not really Todd.

I just realized this isn't making much sense...

So I was sitting in the basement last night, waiting for Todd to wake up and trying to think of ways to hide him if he didn't wake up before my parents. I was reading 1984 because I'm weird and I like that book. Ace was laying down there with me. I could have watched TV or something but again, Todd was asleep and he was also on my couch. The entire couch. Jerk.

As I'm reading, somewhere at the point where Winston is talking to O'Brien about the church bell rhyme, there's a shuffling noise and a voice says, "Why the hell am I wearing a suit jacket?"

It's not Todd's voice. He has a distinct tone and a very slight accent.

"You're a model," I say, not looking up from the book. Because taking sarcastic shots at each other is what Todd and I do best.

"I'm doing a terrible job at it," he says, sitting up and brushing some dirt off of his sleeve.

"The torn, dirty look is a new style."

"It looks terrible."

"I'm sure it'll catch on."

He snorted. I looked up at the VCR clock. It was a little past 3:00 AM.

"Really though, what is this?" I turn to look at him, because finally I can see his whole face. He's pale, his hair's grown out to be a little shaggy and is currently more unkempt than usual. He has a cut on his forehead that's still bleeding slightly and has stuck a few strands of hair together in the clotted blood. His eyes are olive green and they look tired, but curious.

"I don't know," I lied. Sort of. I didn't really know why he was on my basement couch either. "Who are you?"

"Alexander? I think?"

Oh good. I thought he decided his name WASN'T Alexander. Who's this guy?

"Are you like Dennis?" I asked him. I've been thinking about Yggy a lot. It looks like he disappeared...

"Who?"

"Do you know who Todd is?"

"You mean the jackass sharing my head space?"

"Now we're getting somewhere," I clapped a little. He wasn't amused. He looked kind of annoyed.

"Well damn it..." he sighed.

"What?"

"Oh nothing...I'm just crazy."

I laughed. He smirked. Ace picked his head up, looked at us, then laid back down and sighed.

"He's kind of a jackass, yeah. But...I mean...I think he's the other you. Or you're the other him. Are you?" I asked.

"Am I what? I don't understand what you're talking about..."

"You were captured by Rat. And then you ran away...somehow. And now you're on my couch. Except I don't really know who you are, because I've only ever spoken to Todd."

"Rat? You mean Jared?"

"Is that his name?"

"I guess."

"What do you, as YOU, last remember?"

"I was with Lance. We were following Jared into the woods because-" he stopped talking abruptly, looked horrified for a second, then extremely depressed.

"Because?"

"Hey...what day is it?"

"Wednes...well no. Technically it's now Thursday."

"No I mean...I mean what's the date?"

"Thursday, June 16th. 2011."

There was a really long, uncomfortable pause here.

"I made the deal."

I remembered Sammi's dream.

"If I'm following correctly, you and your friends went into the woods and somehow became Agents through Him."

"Yes, how did you know that? Wait...Agents?"

"Not important right now. It sounds like I'm talking to the you before you made the deal, whatever that is. And Todd is the you afterwards. I'm being surprisingly deductive for 3:00 in the morning. Go me."

"Oh...okay..."

"Yeah...uhm...what do remember most recently? If you already assumed you had a split personality or something, that means you had to be conscious instead of Todd at some recent point."

"Jared had me in a chair..."

"Rat."

"Okay. Rat had me in a chair. I was tied. And cut. A lot. And my head hurt. He was babbling about stripping me of something and that I was clinging too much. Lance was in the corner with about eight billion birds and some weird people I don't know. They both had masks on. The other people just had hoods pulled over their faces. Rat inject me with something. Then I blacked out."

"Okay...and then?"

"Then I was running through a forest and people were chasing me and they kept appearing by trees in front of me. I don't know how. Something kept yelling at me to hit the parallel world and I kept shouting back that I didn't know what it was talking about. Then I realized it was in my own head. Then I ran into a tree branch and hit the ground head first. Hard. And uh...now I'm on this couch."

I just stared blankly for a few seconds because this entire thing is insane.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Uhm...no. I think you trade places whenever one of you goes to sleep or is unconscious...which means if you go back to sleep now you should wake up as Todd. Which is good, because he can get you out of here and to Aiden's."

"Who's Aiden? And sorry if I sound rude, but who are you?" He rolled back onto his back. The suit jacket was on the floor. He took it off at some point, which is good because that thing looked terrible and reeked of Rat/Jared/Jerkface.

"He's our friend. Listen, I'm going to get my alarm clock. I'll set it for 5:00. I'm going to leave a note here for Todd. If you wake and you're you and not Todd, I need you to find a way out of here and you need to hide. Okay?"

He nodded.

"And my name's Branwen. 'Night, Alexander."

"'Night, Branwen."

And that's how my night went.

If he's not Todd he's hiding and if he's Todd then he's on his way, Ai. If he turns to Alexander at any point, be careful with him, okay? He's already incredibly confused.

I need to head out soon. Be careful out there you guys...

What is going on?

I still can't see my dashboard. I didn't realize what deep shit Malkin and Chastin were but seriously Ai and Tab, good job on getting Chas. I hope he calms down soon.

Hang in there, Malkin. You're doing pretty damn awesome so far.

Now on my end of the spectrum of "What the fuck is going on?".

There is a strange man on my couch.

Mom and Dad are both asleep. This guy's downstairs. On the basement couch. I found just like five minutes ago, sleeping, and I crept upstairs to the computer and wait a minute.

...I'll be back.

Guys. He has a strawberry blonde hair. He's beaten and cut and further examination of the suit jacket (why is he wearing a suit jacket...) shows tearing and thorns and...dirt. And blood.

Lucky he's dead asleep so I can creep on him.

I found a paper in his pocket. All it says is "I AM NOT ALEXANDER" in really frantic writing over and over again.

Oh...my...holy shit.

This is Todd.

thisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistoddthisistodd

Alive. And unmasked.

Fugitive

Hi.

Were you wondering what the hell happened to the conversation here after Sammi commented?

I have news. So are we.

It's been dead silent. And by dead silent, none of the three have said anything. A few of our old friends have been sent to harass us, but compared to the trio, they aren't anything. I personally mostly just try to hold conversation, especially with Connie.

Spoiler alert: Conversing doesn't work and it will just make you sad for them.

Also It. But that's not news.

I actively try to spot It now. Everything's green and blue and brown now instead of white and black and grey and heads up Mr. Tall Pale and Faceless.

I know you can see me. And now I can see you. Fucker.

There's a reason I remember so many useless things. It's because I have good eyes. It's because I'm good at detail. It's because I WOULD be a female Spencer Reid if I could find a way to organize it all.

What were we talking about?

It's quiet.

It's like the eye of a hurricane.

I think I know why.

He ran away.

Crow and Rat are gone with most of our former friends because he ran away.

It's probably pissed as all hell about it too, which would be why Rat's looking for Todd instead of being an arrogant bastard to the rest of us. Which is why It is turning It's attention to us. Which is never not absolutely terrifying, but we can't afford to let It distract us.

We are planning and plotting and we have our way out, we think. It's getting too dangerous for everyone around us here.

I did go to that concert on Tuesday. With Casey and Skyler and Seth. 1.) Brendon Urie is the most beautiful human being on the planet and 2.) I called Todd for every single song.

I don't know if he was the one listening, but if he was, that was a morale booster, pal. Wherever you are right now. If I'm right, please come back here. You're part of the 'us' and 'we' and 'our'.

Sammi was by herself because she couldn't get up there, and because she's been working on that dream almost constantly with my help.

And now I have a message for Rat.

His name's not Alexander.

His name is Todd.