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Unafraid and filled with determination (perhaps because they never ceased to hold each other tightly by the hand—not even once), the Mystery Kids plus Detoby started to approach the Slender Man. They wound their way around clusters of abducted children seated and crying on the cold, hard ground. Up close, where the fog could no longer obscure their view of finer details, they couldn’t help but notice just how haggard and drawn they appeared. And that was the best among them; some were worse—some were downright emaciated.
Shaking her head, Mabel observed, “Fancy Moses, they look like haven’t eaten in days . . . Heck, some look like they haven’t eaten in weeks!”
“Yeah,” her brother concurred grimly. “Probably the ones who disappeared earlier. But I guess they’re lucky they don’t look worse—don’t look like they haven’t eaten in the years they’ve been gone.”
“They’d be c-corpses if they looked like that,” Norman pointed out.
“Exactly.”
They reached the Slender Man then. However, like the children they had just passed, it seemed not to notice their presence; its blank face did not turn in their direction, nor did it stir in the slightest from its cross-legged position. Not even when they stood right beside it.
NEED STOP CRYING
Subtly, the atmosphere changed again. Desperation seemed to hang in it now, not just despair.
“Um . . .” Norman looked to his friends uncertainly, as if to ask who should actually speak first or what they should actually say.
Dipper shrugged. In a low voice, he pointed out, “You’re the Medium here.”
“Y-yeah, but I’m also terrible at t-talking to people.”
Perfectly in sync, both Dipper and Detoby argued, “No, you’re not. You’re great at it. We talk all the time.”
“We also kn-know each other already. I don’t have to, like, st-start from introductions with you. I hate those; I never know what to say, and I always s-sound like an idiot. Don’t have to worry about that with you. M-most of the time, at least.”
“I thought cross-plane communication was supposed to be your area of expertise.”
{Area of—he’s not even fourteen yet!} Detoby scoffed, indignant on the Medium’s behalf. {He’s not old enough to have an area of expertise yet!}
NEED STOP LONELINESS
“Er, l-look,” Norman began bracingly. “Why don’t we—”
“HELLO! MY NAME’S MABEL!”
“Gah!” both boys plus the Jokergeist jolted in surprise.
She then cheerily shouted, “LET’S BE FRIENDS! WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”
The Slender Man still gave no indication of having heard them. Not even her, in all her volume.
Clearing his throat, the Medium then tried, “H-hello? Can you hear me? I’m N-Norman . . . And, um, I’m a Medium. Which means I’m supposed to be, like, the b-bridge between the physical and the spiritual worlds . . . I guess? So, uh, anyway, I th-think we can help you!”
Still nothing. Not even a twitch.
{Hmm?} Detoby cocked a spectral ear, then gravely said, {Don’t know if this is a good sign or not, but the voice . . . the voice is being real insistent that this is futile. So . . . keep trying, I reckon? If it discourages what you’re doing, then you must be doing something right.}
With a nod, the Medium raised his voice, “H-HELLO? WHATEVER YOU’RE FEELING—”
TELL HOW
Behind the faceless blank, another expression seemed to be pushing out. Stretching it upward, features wide and open . . . A hopeful expression? But not towards them—not because of them . . . Listening or looking upward, it seemed, to something or someone else . . .
“The voice!” Norman realized. “DON’T LISTEN TO IT! IT’S NOT TRYING TO HELP YOU! WE ARE!”
MORE FRIENDS
“NO!” Mabel shouted desperately. “THAT WON’T HELP! THAT’LL DO THE OPPOSITE OF HELP!”
Dipper added his voice to his sister’s. “THAT’LL JUST MAKE MORE LONELINESS!”
“AND YOU DON’T WANT THAT, REMEMBER?! YOU WANNA TAKE LONELINESS AWAY!”
BUT ALWAYS FRIENDS HERE CRYING
“Exactly!” Dipper affirmed. “Which is why you should let them all go home—let us all go home!”
“Then we can help you, too! We can help you resolve your unfinished business and move on!” Norman insisted. “We can—”
TELL HOW MORE FRIENDS HERE HELP STOP LONELINESS
“For the love of—THEY WON’T!” Norman yelled. “Fricative! Just . . . JUST LISTEN TO US!”
“THE VOICE IS JUST USING YOU, MAN!”
“SLENDY, THE VOICE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND!”
“THE VOICE IS WHAT’S CAUSING THE LONELINESS!”
KEEP TRYING
{It’s not getting through, Bugaboo!}
“Not helpful, Detoby! I know it’s not getting through! I can clearly deduce that from context!” the Medium snapped.
{And the voice keeps saying it won’t get through—it can’t get through—because he’s blind and deaf to us . . . And, uh, the voice is laughing about that, now,} Detoby added heavily.
TRY AGAIN
“Gah! Bull . . . sheep!” Norman cussed in frustration. He even kicked at the cold, hard ground. “How am I supposed to communicate with someone who’s deaf and blind to me?! I can’t be a Medium for someone who can’t even tell I’m standing right freakin’ next to him!”
“What if . . . Okay, new idea: If we can’t talk to the Slender Man, what if we tried to follow him?” Dipper proposed. “Like, next time it goes through the Cursed Door back there to go grab another kid, uh, we follow it. Even if that doesn’t lead us to the voice, we might at least be able to sneak past it and out.”
Exasperated, Mabel face-palmed. “Bro-Bro, your solution is always to stalk things! Just ‘cause that happened to work in Norm-Norm’s case—”
Both Detoby and Norman looked over in unison. “Wait, what?”
“—doesn’t mean it’ll work in this case.”
“What else are we supposed to do?” Dipper retorted impatiently. “If you’ve got a better idea—”
TRY AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN
“I . . . do have a different idea, though I don’t know if it’s better per se,” Mabel said slowly. “Though I do know you’re not gonna like it; it’s more coocoo-bananas than my last one.”
Guardedly, her brother asked, “. . . And what is it?”
Straightening her back and straightening her backpack, she answered, “This.” And then she reached out her free hand towards the Slender Man.
Dipper’s and Norman’s and Detoby’s eyes all went wide. They cried out as one, “No!”
But too late to stop her; the besweatered girl laid a hand on the Slender Man’s knee.
HOPE WORKS THIS TI—
At her touch, the Slender Man finally reacted to their presence; slowly, the blankness of its face turned in their direction—turned in her direction. Had eyes been in that faceless stretch of bone-white, they might have even come to meet hers.
WHO THERE
“Moses!” Dipper squeaked. His hand tightened around his sister’s.
But, though her heart hammered in her chest, Mabel’s gaze did not falter. Her bright, brown eyes looked up unflinchingly at the Slender Man featurelessness—as close to eye contact as she could make between them. Then, with a gulp, she answered. “. . . Hiya. I’m Mabel.”
No response was made. After a tense moment of silence, Detoby exhaled heavily. {I think that just took a few years off my death. Didn’t even reckon that was possible, but now I’m half-aliv—}
CAN’T SEE
{Jeepers H. Creepers! I wish it would stop doing that!}
Mabel gave the Slender Man’s knee a reassuring little squeeze. “Maybe not. But I’m still here. Just the same, I’m still here. We are still here. To help you.”
CAN’T HEAR
“But . . . he c-can feel, though,” Norman stammered. “So we . . . we got a way to communicate with him now . . . Thanks, for that Mabel. Even if you d-did almost give me a frackin’ heart atta—jeez!”
Slowly, the Slender Man leaned down towards the besweatered girl, as if to get a better look. Bowing that tall, thin body sideways into an unnatural arc from waist to neck, until they were almost nose-to-no-nose.
Sweating bullets, her brother tried to draw her back. “Mabel . . .” he squeaked. “Be careful . . .”
But she did not move—she did not breathe, either, but she did not move. She stood her ground.
BUT CAN’T SENSE LONELINESS
Breathing deep, Mabel let go of the Slender Man’s knee . . . then laid her hand on his shoulder. Gently. Warmly. Firmly enough that he should feel it, and she could feel the bones beneath his ragged, black suit. So emaciated . . . So glacial . . . Like he truly had received no food in years, and no warmth at all, either . . . “You prob’ly haven’t in here . . .” she realized, pityingly, under her breath.
“Oh my gosh! That’s how it can track us without being able to see or hear us!” Dipper suddenly burst out, but quietly. “It can literally sense loneliness! Man, figuring that out’s been driving me nuts . . . And you know what that means?” he asked sidelong at his friend. “It really does have a ‘Sixth Sense’!”
Norman groaned, as if in pain, “Seriously? How many t-times are you gonna tell that joke?”
“However many it takes to get someone to laugh, because—dang it—that’s a funny joke!”
“Fine. Ha ha, very clever,” Norman retorted in a completely monotone voice. “Satisfied now?”
“In that regard, yes,” Dipper stated. “So now we can . . . Wait, what’s it doing?”
Cautiously, as if afraid a sudden movement would frighten away whoever had finally reached out to touch that lonely knee and that lonely shoulder, the Slender Man reached across towards Mabel. With reciprocal gentleness, a long and skeletal hand came down on her besweatered shoulder.
HOW
Ignoring the boys, Mabel answered, “Because I’ve got my brother and my friend and my ghost.”
{I rather resent that. I’m my own ghost,} Detoby grumbled.
“We’ve all got each other,” she continued sincerely. “We didn’t let the voice, like, pulls us away from each other and isolate us. Like it’s done to you and everyone else here. But we can help fix that.”
WHO
“I told you, my name is Mabel. This is my brother, Dipper, and our friend, Norman. And Detoby is prob’ly still there, but I can’t actually see him and I’m guessing you can’t either. What’s your name?”
The Slender Man did not answer.
Whispering into Norman’s ear, the Jokergeist reported worriedly, {The voice isn’t laughing now. Definitely not laughing. I figure we must have stumbled onto something crackerjack here—the bearcat figured out something major with her gamble—but . . . Let’s just say the house might try to come end this poker game afore we can collect our winnings and get out of dodge if we don’t hurry.}
With a fearful little gulp, the Medium nodded.
Mabel asked again, “What’s your name?”
WISH COULD HEAR AGAIN
A subtle change once again spread throughout the mist-saturated atmosphere, but this one was of a deep sadness. A sorrow beyond the comprehension of the Mystery Kids or Detoby.
WISH COULD SEE AGAIN
Now, perhaps more than ever before, loneliness hung over that gray waste. Colder and harder than the ground on which the abducted children sat and cried. The kind of loneliness that one might know in the deepest depths of the ocean, or on the dark side of the moon.
Throatily, Dipper intruded on the silence. “Does this mean . . . we can’t talk to it after all?”
“N-not even touching is getting through,” Norman sighed hopelessly.
“Bu there’s got to be some other way to communicate, though,” the behatted boy insisted.
“B-but I . . . I don’t know what we could even t-try next . . .”
The Jokergeist shook his head so hard that his spectral hat nearly fell off. {We try again. We keep flapping our gums with the Slender Man until that gets results or we think of something better. Because that voice? It’s taunting us again. And you know what that means? It wants us to give up on that. Before, when stable Mabel was talking, it was not pleased—not by a country mile. You know what that means? She was doing something right. So keep. Talking. To. The Slender Man.}
“Deotby, what good does it do to talk to someone who can’t even hear us?” the Medium asked in exasperation. “All he can sense from us is touch, and that’s just not enough!”
{I don’t know. But what I can tell you, Bugaboo, is that sometimes even a useless gesture means the world to someone. Like laughing, even though we all know death is inevitable. Don’t give up.}
“Maybe, but—”
LONELINESS
“Well . . . What if you guys touched him, too?” Mabel suggested. “Like, okay, I know guys think they aren’t supposed to be all touchy-feely and such, but . . . I mean, you have been holding hands since we got here, so—”
Norman blushed as red and as sweet as the most perfect of autumn apples. Dipper, for his part, sputtered in embarrassment, “Sh-shut up! We’re only still doing it ‘cause you told us we had to in here!”
“Suuuuure,” she said with a mischievous grin. The kind she knew would really aggravate him, simply because it always did. “But, anyway, since the ‘no being all touchy-feely’ ship has already sailed, why not get aboard the ‘yes being all touchy-feely’ ship? Why not try showing Slendy some of your love, too? Maybe if we all try doing it together . . .”
“Gahragrahda . . .” her brother grumbled. “How are we even supposed to do that and hold onto each other at the same time? I’m holding both of you, and Norman’s also holding Detoby.”
The brace-faced grin only got bigger and shinier. “Well, Detoby could just, like, hug Norm-Norm from behind. He’s a ghost, so there’d be no problem—wouldn’t get uncomfortable or, like, cumbersome at all (not physically). And as for you, Bro-Bro, well . . . You could just swing a foot up onto Slendy’s knee. If he can’t see anyway, he won’t know. Might as well use that. Besides, it’s the thought that counts.”
STILL SO MUCH LONELINESS
With a groan, Dipper hung his head and shook it. “Why is my life like this? How did it happen?”
{Not a terrible strategy, I reckon. Er, logistically speaking. For her own, er, particular battle plan,} the Jokergeist conceded. Then, being careful to place a ghostly hand on Norman’s arm as he floated up and around behind him—never breaking the almost-physical contact that kept the voice and the despair at bay—he awkwardly put his arms around Norman’s shoulders. {Er . . . What say you, Bugaboo?}
“This is . . . h-honestly kinda weird.”
{Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s kind of cozy,} the Jokergeist reminisced, though whether sincerely or in teasing jest was anybody’s guess. {Reminds me of some of my nights in the trenches, where me and the other soldier boys, for warmth, had to snuggle up real close and cozy with each other.}
“Not. Helping. To make this. Less. Weird. Detoby,” the Medium retorted curtly. Then, turning to his behatted friend, he reported, “G-guess we’re doing it. I got a free hand again, at least.” And, to accentuate the point, he waved it unenthusiastically.
“Good, then do me a favor first before we implement anymore of Mabel’s bat-crap craziness,” Dipper requested in a defeated monotone. “Rub the bridge of my nose for me, would ya?”
Norman blinked in surprise. Then he blinked in surprise again. “Uh . . . O-okay?” With a few jerky and tentative movements, he then reached over until he was touching the behatted boy’s beautiful, perfect, beautiful face. Something he now realized he had longed to do since first meeting him—and was now actually doing!—even if this was not exactly a way he would have ever expected to do so, nor the way he would have ideally preferred . . .
Dipper, characteristically oblivious, closed his eyes for a moment to just . . . enjoy the sensation, it seemed. “Ah, yeah . . .” he breathed luxuriously—which only gave his friend some confusing feelings he was not yet adequately equipped to identify, let alone deal with. “That right there is the stuff—really expresses all of the exasperation I am currently feeling towards my bat-crap crazy sister . . .”
Coolly, Mabel asked, “You done yet?”
“One . . . more . . . sec—”
NEED TRY AGAIN BRING MORE FRIENDS
Dipper instantly snapped out of his melodramatic gesture. “You can stop, Norm. Let’s do this.” And, never loosening his grip on his sister’s nor his best friend’s hands, he shuffled forward to swing his foot up and onto the Slender Man’s knee. Right where Mabel had first placed her hand.
Slowly, the Slender Man now turned in his direction. Even cocked its head at him, as if curious.
ANOTHER CAN’T SEE
“Moses, that’s still terrifying as folk . . .” Dipper muttered, balancing on his one leg. “Well . . . Hi, Mister Slender Man. Er . . . Hello and howdy.”
WHO
“Dipper. Like my sister told you.”
{The turn is to you, Bugaboo,} Detoby prompted. {And you had best get a wiggle on, because that voice is back to sounding less than pleased with what you kids are doing. Makes me really antsy—makes me wonder if it might try something soon . . .}
“R-right . . .” Before he was even aware of it, the Medium’s free hand was rubbing his ear and running through his hair. The Jokergeist’s close proximity (that bushy, spectral moustache was practically inside his ear) was not helping him feel more comfortable, and neither was his nervousness; the Medium felt he had quite enough of his own without more brushing directly inside his ear.
A second later, Mabel said, “Now you, Norm-Norm.”
“R-Right!” Norman repeated, inching closer. “Guess this is . . . w-worth a shot, at least. Not like we’ve got any better ideas . . . Um, again, my n-name is Norman.” He reached towards the skeletal hand still resting—almost desperately, as if afraid to lose this first, unexpected, and all too tenuous contact with someone not consumed by loneliness—on the besweatered girl’s shoulder. “Can you hear us at all? We’re here to—”
The second his hand touched the Slender Man’s, everything fell away from the Medium—everything except his own self and the Slender Man . . . Gone was the roiling fog, the wan and weak light surrounded by darkness, the cold, hard ground . . . the sight and the sound of the crying children . . . Even the presence of Dipper and Mabel and Detoby; only a vague sense of them, like a distant warmth—that of starlight on his skin—that hinted where heat and life could be found, remained to him . . . It was like he only had the vaguest sense that he still stood beside them, still held Dipper’s hand even now . . .
Looking around himself and the Slender Man, he now saw utter nothingness. As if they were in the deepest, darkest depths to ever exist before, during, or after time. Only his own body seemed to exist, standing upon the nothingness, with the tall, thin form of the Slender Man sitting cross-legged thereupon, too . . . A strangely familiar feeling to Norman . . .
“Oh. A vision . . . A vision of your past? Then sh-show me, please. Show me who you are . . . and show me what . . . what happened to you. Show me how to help.”
Lights switched on overhead. Fluorescent bulbs in a ceiling made of tiles from mineral fiber pulp. Beneath them, some kind of bland linoleum, easy to clean and resistant to scarring from high traffic use. And ahead of them was a bed of sterilized sheets, pillows, blankets. A metal frame on well-oiled wheels.
“A hospital room. Or a room in a clinic of some kind . . . You stayed here, didn’t you?”
A boy entered. Older than Norman, but not by much. Taller than Norman, too, but not by much. His face looked strangely familiar, too, as if Norman had seen it somewhere before, though he couldn’t place when or where or why . . . The boy climbed into the bed. And there he remained, barely moving, as people came and went. Orderlies, nurses, doctors, regular people—family and friends, with other kids being the most frequent at first, other teens . . . the boy’s best friends when first admitted here?—blurred around him, they came and went so fast, but the boy remained in the middle of it all. In the bed, barely moving, while what was practically a haze of people swirled around him. Or a fog of people, perhaps. With them, a distant babble and chatter. The sound of people talking—the sound of all those orderlies, nurses, doctors, regular people, family and friends as they came and went . . .
“That’s you in the bed, isn’t it?”
It was like watching a time-lapse of the boy’s stay in that hospital (or clinic or whatever it was). His skin grew paler and paler while the other teens gradually came less and less . . . until they no longer came at all . . . Then his hair fell out. His body grew gaunter and gaunter while the regular people’s visits diminished, too, until they hardly came at all either . . . Even the orderlies and nurses and doctors weren’t swirling around the boy as much anymore . . . He was left more and more alone, it seemed . . .
{Bugaboo?}
All throughout, the distant babble and chatter would crescendo and decrescendo without rhyme or reason, though over time it tended to grow quieter and quieter . . . as if harder to hear . . . Likewise, the fluorescence from above and the visual sharpness of the people who came and went tended over time to grow hazier and hazier . . . as if harder to see . . .
{You think of something, Bugaboo?}
And the boys eyes? That was the hardest part for Norman to watch. All throughout, they grew dimmer and dimmer . . . It was like watching a time-lapse of someone slowly dying on the inside . . . someone cut off first from friends, then from family, and then finally even from passing contact with those professionals engaged to provide him with medical care . . . A time-lapse of someone succumbing to the slow poison that is isolation . . . Then the boy rolled onto his side, away from Norman.
“No wonder you’re so lonely . . . But I don’t understand what was wrong? Why were you there?”
Two forms stood before the bed and the boy now, barely discernable as hospital or clinical staff. They worked and they talked, and though their voices were muddled, they could clearly be understood.
“You sure it’s okay to work with him in bed? Aren’t we disturbing him?”
“Oh, right. You’re new here, so you don’t know about him.”
“Know what?”
“He’s got some mystery disorder. The doctors aren’t sure what it is—they think it might be some rapid nerve degeneration in his brain, kinda similar to Alzheimer’s, but not effecting the memory. Least, not as far as anyone can tell. Anyway, he’s been going deaf and blind for a while, and probably has no idea we’re even here.”
“Jeez. Both deaf and blind? Poor kid.”
“You don’t know the half of it. He’s got good days where he can see or hear or both well enough for normal interaction. Or close enough. I mean, he has fallen out of practice with talking as a result. But he also has very bad days where he can barely do either. And those are getting more frequent.”
“So he knows what he’s missing, then? He knows what he’s losing?”
“Norman? Norman, you listening?”
“Oh, yeah. Poor kid knows. And still having his memory probably makes it a lot worse. I mean, two years ago? He was fine. Completely normal kid. Loved basketball and was pretty good at it, I hear. You can see how tall and lanky he was for his age, right? Probably would’ve done it through middle and high school, been power guard or center. Not anymore, though.”
“And learning Sign Language wouldn’t help him much because he can’t see half the time.”
“Yep. And he can’t talk with people or listen to music because he can’t hear. I mean, it’s sad. He’s alive, but not really living anymore. His friends don’t come by, even his family does less and less.”
“That’s terrible. How could they abandon him like that?”
“I know, but I can’t really blame them. It breaks my heart, and I didn’t even know him before. Imagine what it must be like to come and visit him, knowing more than half the time he can’t even tell that you’re there—knowing that he’s just, like, a shadow or a shell of his former self. I mean, it must be unbearably painful for them. Wouldn’t be able to go through that, either. I’m not strong enough.”
“Norm-Norm? Earth—or wherever we are—to Norm-Norm? Come in, Norm-Norm?”
“I guess. How long do they think he has before he loses all sight and hearing?”
“Hard to say, but I overheard some of them say it probably won’t even be another four months. And they’re not sure how much longer he’ll live after that, either. I mean, it is a mystery disorder.”
“If it were me, I don’t think I would want it to be very long after that.”
“If it were me, honestly, I’d have ended it all months ago. I mean, why stay alive at this point? C’mon, it’s time to get to the next room.”
And then, the two forms were gone from the room. They boy sat up and hung his head, and Norman wished he could do something to comfort him . . . But he knew he could not, for this was merely a vision of things past. That boy was long gone . . . Or rather, that boy was the Slender Man seated beside him now; he had somehow become the Slender Man. Still, out of reflexive compassion, Norman squeezed the pale, skeletal hand under his own.
“You heard it all, didn’t you? That was a quote-unquote good day, and you heard. I’m s-so sorry; that must have hurt you terribly. What happened after that, please?”
A ways behind the boy’s bed, a door appeared in the nothingness. No, Norman realized, not just a door, but the Cursed Door. It looked different—different color, different design, different placement of the #13 placard—but Norman could tell it was the same Cursed Door. Whether in that hospital or clinic, or in Gravity Falls, or in any of the different towns where it had appeared and children had disappeared, it was always the same Cursed Door. With the same voice, and Norman heard it now.
They can’t get through to you, so they’ve stopped trying. They’ve stopped caring about you.
But I can get through to you, and I’ll never stop caring about you.
They’ve left you alone. But I never will leave you.
I’ll be your friend forever.
Come to me.
Uneasily, Norman watched as the boy turned his head in the direction of the Cursed Door. Listening to the voice from beyond it, as he himself had done. As Mabel had done.
Your pain grows worse with every passing day. You ache and you hurt, and you do it all alone.
But I understand. I can share your pain with you. I can take it all away.
I can make it so you won’t be alone or hurt ever again.
I’ll be your friend forever.
Come to me.
Though still in bed, the boy was turned entirely in the direction of the Cursed Door. And Norman could not blame him, not when he knew all too well what it was like to find no comfort among the living. To be so desperate for companionship, because it seemed that all friends and all family had left you, that anything would be latched onto without hesitation. Anything was better than nothing, right?
“How long did it work on you? How long was it the only voice you could always hear? The only voice still trying to speak to you? It must . . . must have been so hard for you. So lonely . . .”
Regular people arrived all of a sudden, though their features were eroded into near anonymity by the boy’s advancing blindness; through his deafness, their voices were nearly too muffled to hear. Norman suddenly realized—like the boy’s own realization had been a sudden surprise, perhaps?—that they were the parents and siblings of the boy. His family. They had brought him a suit: simple and black, rumpled and ill-fitting on a body now emaciated from chemical treatments. They helped him put it on and pose in the middle of them. A family portrait taken in a hospital room. Forced and sad smiles.
“You think he’s having another vision? He’s not freaking out like last time.”
It was familiar to Norman, this posed image of one final instance of family togetherness. Yes, Norman had seen it somewhere before. Or part of it. He had seen the boy before, at least, like this. When and where and why, though? What had his name been?
“Gotta be that. He’s, like, in a trance or something.”
Then, just as suddenly, the regular people—the infrequent family members—were gone again. Alone again, the boy did not even bother to sit back on his bed, nor remove that simple, black, rumpled, and ill-fitting suit. Instead, he turned completely towards the Cursed Door.
They brought a funerary suit and left it here to save themselves time preparing you for burial.
But I won’t leave you to wither and die here all alone. I haven’t given up on you.
They took a final photo to remember you. This was farewell for them.
But not for me. I’ll be your friend forever.
Come to me.
From the boy, there seemed to be no hesitation at all. He shambled weakly beyond the bed and towards the Cursed Door. The passage of distance seemed compressed, yet Norman still felt the boy crossing it, though every mark of it—doorways, hallways, stairways—was as fleeting and insubstantial as a sign on a highway. The boy tottered unsteadily but determinedly onwards, all while Norman watched. Without any impediment. Without meeting another soul to stop him. The Cursed Door’s work, as well?
“Should we . . . try to wake him up, you think? Snap him out of it?”
Finally, the boy was there. He swayed wearily, eyes turned upward hopefully to the #13 placard. “Cccah . . . Can youuu . . . rrreal-ly make . . . evvv’ry th-thing . . . bet-ter?” he asked laboriously.
Inside me, all your suffering will be over. The ache, the hurt, and the loneliness will be gone.
I will take it away from you. Your body will not fail you ever again.
What you truly want now, I will give to you inside.
I’ll be your friend forever.
Come to me.
“Wwwha-tuh I . . . trul-ly wan-tuh? Tha’s . . . mmmy frien-ds back . . . Play with ‘em . . . ‘gain . . . Beee well ‘nuff ‘gain . . .” the boy insisted. “Dashhh . . . Paul-ina . . . Sssam . . . Tuck-er . . . an’ Danny . . .”
“I . . . I don’t know. What if he’s seeing something important—something we need to know?”
Norman felt his breath catch in his chest. Those names! He knew those names! The first children who had disappeared, taken by the Slender Man—taken by the boy and this voice! From that small town called . . . Something Park? it started with an M, maybe? or an “em” sound? or an “ahm”? or an “am”? Norman had its name on the tip of his tongue . . . And he’d recognize it the second he heard it, but . . . Well, no matter; Norman knew it was that really haunted town in Connecticut. He was absolutely sure! Which meant . . . the boy—the Slender Man—had to be the kid who the children of . . . Something Park (or whatever) were sure was stalking them even though he had already died!
“That’s it! That’s who you are! But—gah!—I can’t remember what your name was!”
So . . . You want to bring others to me? Bring them to join you inside me? That’s . . . an idea . . .
“Fff tha-tuh . . . mmmeans we’ll . . . all be . . . frien-ds ‘gain . . .” the boy struggled to articulate. “All be ab-ul . . . play to . . . gether ‘gain . . . hhhan-guh out . . . I’ll do . . . nnny th-thing!”
Even go in search of your friends and bring them back to me?
“Yyyeh, but . . . hhhow? Mmm so . . . ti-erd . . . Can-nnn bare-ly . . . stan-duh . . .”
I suppose . . . I can spare you a portion of my sustenance. Some of my own energy to power you.
“Wwwill tha-tuh . . . hhhel-puh me . . . sssee ‘n’ hear ‘gain all the tuh-time?”
I can make it so you can sense where they are. I am sure I should be able to, especially with the extra sustenance you shall bring me . . . Yes, more than worth giving you a few scraps.
“Wha?”
Don’t worry. It will be fine. And fun, too. It will be like . . . a game of Blind and Deaf Man’s Bluff.
“Heh heh! ‘s funny . . . Nnno one mmmakes . . . jjjo-kuhs ‘round me . . . nnny-more . . .”
Then come inside. It is time.
Before Norman’s eyes, the boy opened the Cursed Door and walked forward into the gray waste and the roiling fog. A slam followed . . . and the boy was lost. Norman swore he heard the voice laugh.
This may hurt a lot . . . but I promise it will be well worth it when you have more friends in here with you than you can count. Stuffing me full.
In a great rush of compressed time as fleeting and insubstantial as gusts of wind, the boy fell and he rose up simultaneously. A lifeless corpse upon the cold, hard ground . . . and a confused ghost above what had been his own living body just seconds ago . . . A trapped ghost, there beyond the Cursed Door. A ghost who could not move on—could not escape—because he was somewhere that did not connect to the world of spirits; or, if it did, the way was blocked by the voice. Then, suddenly, a portion of the fog and the cold and even the light of that gray waste rushed into the boy’s ghost. Spectral luminescence filled him . . . and he began to change, to morph into something . . . different . . .
{Bugaboo? Buga—hell’s bells! Norman, what’s wrong?!}
Norman wanted to look away. But he just couldn’t tear his gaze from this nauseating transformation, no matter how much horror or sorrow it filled him with. His Medium’s eyes saw it all.
“Bro-Bro, do something!”
Taller and taller, the boy’s ghost grew; thinner and thinner, paler and paler, lonelier and lonelier, though the voice was always with him . . . Perhaps lonelier and lonelier because the voice was always with him . . . Becoming something inhuman, the boy’s ghost tried to scream, but he had become something unseeing, unhearing, and especially unspeaking. His voice so unused he had lost his mouth, his eyes so dim they had faded away completely . . . Faceless. Nameless. Hopeless . . . The boy had forgotten who he was, so possessed was he of loneliness . . . so void of everything but loneliness . . .
“So you basically became loneliness itself. Like an incarnation of loneliness . . . I’m so sorry . . . Those’re st-stupid words for something like this, b-but . . . I am so, so sorry that you’ve suffered like this. But th-thank you for showing me this. I can help you now; I know how to hel—”
A yell of “C’mon, man, snap out of it!” in the Medium’s ear and a strong shake of his whole arm (both from Dipper) brought the vision to an end. His other hand still rested on the Slender Man’s, but now they were no longer alone in utter nothingness while buried memories became apparitions to swirl around them. Only the roiling fog swirled around them now.
“S-sorry. I’m back now. Sorry,” Norman apologized automatically.
{Oh, thank the Saints . . .} Detoby breathed in the Medium’s ear, relief in every syllable.
WAS WHAT
Dipper shook his head. “Geez, man, you gotta stop doing that to me.”
“Why . . . Why is my face wet?” Norman asked, even as he blinked to clear his eyes.
“Um, you went all faraway stare on us—having a vision, I guess?—and then you started crying all of a sudden,” Mabel explained, though her voice revealed she herself was hoping for an explanation of events in return. “Was it . . . really sad, what you saw?
Unable to rub his eyes since he still needed to hold the Slender Man’s hand and Dipper’s hand, Norman tried to make do with his shoulder. It was mostly able to wipe the tears away. “Uh . . . Y-yeah. Yeah, it was p-pretty bad.”
ANOTHER CAN’T SEE
{Well, spill the beans! What was revealed to you, Bugaboo?} Detoby asked excitedly in his ear.
Dipper, as part of the Unspoken Bro Code, looked away until his friend had regained composure. Pretended not to see his friend had been crying (and, conveniently enough, pretended that he himself had not so been worried). “W-what . . . ahem . . . What was it you saw? Anything that can help us?”
BUT DIFFERENT
Norman swallowed thickly. Tried to swallow down all the emotions stirring within him, threatening to come spilling out some more. All the pain he had just felt vicariously . . . The sadness, yes, but also the fear of the voice he felt in himself now . . . And the indignation—the anger, even the rage—that boiled up at the knowledge of what lay just a little deeper in the fog! He thought he could sense where it lay . . . Looking in that direction, he wondered if he could even see it between the shifting wisps of fog—a boy, now an emaciated corpse in an ill-fitting black suit, who had been older than Norman . . . but not by much—or if it was just his imagination . . . Too many emotions to process all at once . . .
“Norm?” Dipper prompted him.
WHO
The Medium nodded at that question. “Y-yeah, it can help us. A lot.” Turning to meet the brown eyes of his friends, he stated, “I know who the Slender Man is now.”

Description
Unafraid and filled with determination (perhaps because they never ceased to hold each other tightly by the hand—not even once), the Mystery Kids plus Detoby started to approach the Slender Man. They wound their way around clusters of abducted children seated and crying on the cold, hard ground. Up close, where the fog could no longer obscure their view of finer details, they couldn’t help but notice just how haggard and drawn they appeared. And that was the best among them; some were worse—some were downright emaciated.
Shaking her head, Mabel observed, “Fancy Moses, they look like haven’t eaten in days . . . Heck, some look like they haven’t eaten in weeks!”
“Yeah,” her brother concurred grimly. “Probably the ones who disappeared earlier. But I guess they’re lucky they don’t look worse—don’t look like they haven’t eaten in the years they’ve been gone.”
“They’d be c-corpses if they looked like that,” Norman pointed out.
“Exactly.”
They reached the Slender Man then. However, like the children they had just passed, it seemed not to notice their presence; its blank face did not turn in their direction, nor did it stir in the slightest from its cross-legged position. Not even when they stood right beside it.
NEED STOP CRYING
Subtly, the atmosphere changed again. Desperation seemed to hang in it now, not just despair.
“Um . . .” Norman looked to his friends uncertainly, as if to ask who should actually speak first or what they should actually say.
Dipper shrugged. In a low voice, he pointed out, “You’re the Medium here.”
“Y-yeah, but I’m also terrible at t-talking to people.”
Perfectly in sync, both Dipper and Detoby argued, “No, you’re not. You’re great at it. We talk all the time.”
“We also kn-know each other already. I don’t have to, like, st-start from introductions with you. I hate those; I never know what to say, and I always s-sound like an idiot. Don’t have to worry about that with you. M-most of the time, at least.”
“I thought cross-plane communication was supposed to be your area of expertise.”
{Area of—he’s not even fourteen yet!} Detoby scoffed, indignant on the Medium’s behalf. {He’s not old enough to have an area of expertise yet!}
NEED STOP LONELINESS
“Er, l-look,” Norman began bracingly. “Why don’t we—”
“HELLO! MY NAME’S MABEL!”
“Gah!” both boys plus the Jokergeist jolted in surprise.
She then cheerily shouted, “LET’S BE FRIENDS! WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”
The Slender Man still gave no indication of having heard them. Not even her, in all her volume.
Clearing his throat, the Medium then tried, “H-hello? Can you hear me? I’m N-Norman . . . And, um, I’m a Medium. Which means I’m supposed to be, like, the b-bridge between the physical and the spiritual worlds . . . I guess? So, uh, anyway, I th-think we can help you!”
Still nothing. Not even a twitch.
{Hmm?} Detoby cocked a spectral ear, then gravely said, {Don’t know if this is a good sign or not, but the voice . . . the voice is being real insistent that this is futile. So . . . keep trying, I reckon? If it discourages what you’re doing, then you must be doing something right.}
With a nod, the Medium raised his voice, “H-HELLO? WHATEVER YOU’RE FEELING—”
TELL HOW
Behind the faceless blank, another expression seemed to be pushing out. Stretching it upward, features wide and open . . . A hopeful expression? But not towards them—not because of them . . . Listening or looking upward, it seemed, to something or someone else . . .
“The voice!” Norman realized. “DON’T LISTEN TO IT! IT’S NOT TRYING TO HELP YOU! WE ARE!”
MORE FRIENDS
“NO!” Mabel shouted desperately. “THAT WON’T HELP! THAT’LL DO THE OPPOSITE OF HELP!”
Dipper added his voice to his sister’s. “THAT’LL JUST MAKE MORE LONELINESS!”
“AND YOU DON’T WANT THAT, REMEMBER?! YOU WANNA TAKE LONELINESS AWAY!”
BUT ALWAYS FRIENDS HERE CRYING
“Exactly!” Dipper affirmed. “Which is why you should let them all go home—let us all go home!”
“Then we can help you, too! We can help you resolve your unfinished business and move on!” Norman insisted. “We can—”
TELL HOW MORE FRIENDS HERE HELP STOP LONELINESS
“For the love of—THEY WON’T!” Norman yelled. “Fricative! Just . . . JUST LISTEN TO US!”
“THE VOICE IS JUST USING YOU, MAN!”
“SLENDY, THE VOICE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND!”
“THE VOICE IS WHAT’S CAUSING THE LONELINESS!”
KEEP TRYING
{It’s not getting through, Bugaboo!}
“Not helpful, Detoby! I know it’s not getting through! I can clearly deduce that from context!” the Medium snapped.
{And the voice keeps saying it won’t get through—it can’t get through—because he’s blind and deaf to us . . . And, uh, the voice is laughing about that, now,} Detoby added heavily.
TRY AGAIN
“Gah! Bull . . . sheep!” Norman cussed in frustration. He even kicked at the cold, hard ground. “How am I supposed to communicate with someone who’s deaf and blind to me?! I can’t be a Medium for someone who can’t even tell I’m standing right freakin’ next to him!”
“What if . . . Okay, new idea: If we can’t talk to the Slender Man, what if we tried to follow him?” Dipper proposed. “Like, next time it goes through the Cursed Door back there to go grab another kid, uh, we follow it. Even if that doesn’t lead us to the voice, we might at least be able to sneak past it and out.”
Exasperated, Mabel face-palmed. “Bro-Bro, your solution is always to stalk things! Just ‘cause that happened to work in Norm-Norm’s case—”
Both Detoby and Norman looked over in unison. “Wait, what?”
“—doesn’t mean it’ll work in this case.”
“What else are we supposed to do?” Dipper retorted impatiently. “If you’ve got a better idea—”
TRY AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN
“I . . . do have a different idea, though I don’t know if it’s better per se,” Mabel said slowly. “Though I do know you’re not gonna like it; it’s more coocoo-bananas than my last one.”
Guardedly, her brother asked, “. . . And what is it?”
Straightening her back and straightening her backpack, she answered, “This.” And then she reached out her free hand towards the Slender Man.
Dipper’s and Norman’s and Detoby’s eyes all went wide. They cried out as one, “No!”
But too late to stop her; the besweatered girl laid a hand on the Slender Man’s knee.
HOPE WORKS THIS TI—
At her touch, the Slender Man finally reacted to their presence; slowly, the blankness of its face turned in their direction—turned in her direction. Had eyes been in that faceless stretch of bone-white, they might have even come to meet hers.
WHO THERE
“Moses!” Dipper squeaked. His hand tightened around his sister’s.
But, though her heart hammered in her chest, Mabel’s gaze did not falter. Her bright, brown eyes looked up unflinchingly at the Slender Man featurelessness—as close to eye contact as she could make between them. Then, with a gulp, she answered. “. . . Hiya. I’m Mabel.”
No response was made. After a tense moment of silence, Detoby exhaled heavily. {I think that just took a few years off my death. Didn’t even reckon that was possible, but now I’m half-aliv—}
CAN’T SEE
{Jeepers H. Creepers! I wish it would stop doing that!}
Mabel gave the Slender Man’s knee a reassuring little squeeze. “Maybe not. But I’m still here. Just the same, I’m still here. We are still here. To help you.”
CAN’T HEAR
“But . . . he c-can feel, though,” Norman stammered. “So we . . . we got a way to communicate with him now . . . Thanks, for that Mabel. Even if you d-did almost give me a frackin’ heart atta—jeez!”
Slowly, the Slender Man leaned down towards the besweatered girl, as if to get a better look. Bowing that tall, thin body sideways into an unnatural arc from waist to neck, until they were almost nose-to-no-nose.
Sweating bullets, her brother tried to draw her back. “Mabel . . .” he squeaked. “Be careful . . .”
But she did not move—she did not breathe, either, but she did not move. She stood her ground.
BUT CAN’T SENSE LONELINESS
Breathing deep, Mabel let go of the Slender Man’s knee . . . then laid her hand on his shoulder. Gently. Warmly. Firmly enough that he should feel it, and she could feel the bones beneath his ragged, black suit. So emaciated . . . So glacial . . . Like he truly had received no food in years, and no warmth at all, either . . . “You prob’ly haven’t in here . . .” she realized, pityingly, under her breath.
“Oh my gosh! That’s how it can track us without being able to see or hear us!” Dipper suddenly burst out, but quietly. “It can literally sense loneliness! Man, figuring that out’s been driving me nuts . . . And you know what that means?” he asked sidelong at his friend. “It really does have a ‘Sixth Sense’!”
Norman groaned, as if in pain, “Seriously? How many t-times are you gonna tell that joke?”
“However many it takes to get someone to laugh, because—dang it—that’s a funny joke!”
“Fine. Ha ha, very clever,” Norman retorted in a completely monotone voice. “Satisfied now?”
“In that regard, yes,” Dipper stated. “So now we can . . . Wait, what’s it doing?”
Cautiously, as if afraid a sudden movement would frighten away whoever had finally reached out to touch that lonely knee and that lonely shoulder, the Slender Man reached across towards Mabel. With reciprocal gentleness, a long and skeletal hand came down on her besweatered shoulder.
HOW
Ignoring the boys, Mabel answered, “Because I’ve got my brother and my friend and my ghost.”
{I rather resent that. I’m my own ghost,} Detoby grumbled.
“We’ve all got each other,” she continued sincerely. “We didn’t let the voice, like, pulls us away from each other and isolate us. Like it’s done to you and everyone else here. But we can help fix that.”
WHO
“I told you, my name is Mabel. This is my brother, Dipper, and our friend, Norman. And Detoby is prob’ly still there, but I can’t actually see him and I’m guessing you can’t either. What’s your name?”
The Slender Man did not answer.
Whispering into Norman’s ear, the Jokergeist reported worriedly, {The voice isn’t laughing now. Definitely not laughing. I figure we must have stumbled onto something crackerjack here—the bearcat figured out something major with her gamble—but . . . Let’s just say the house might try to come end this poker game afore we can collect our winnings and get out of dodge if we don’t hurry.}
With a fearful little gulp, the Medium nodded.
Mabel asked again, “What’s your name?”
WISH COULD HEAR AGAIN
A subtle change once again spread throughout the mist-saturated atmosphere, but this one was of a deep sadness. A sorrow beyond the comprehension of the Mystery Kids or Detoby.
WISH COULD SEE AGAIN
Now, perhaps more than ever before, loneliness hung over that gray waste. Colder and harder than the ground on which the abducted children sat and cried. The kind of loneliness that one might know in the deepest depths of the ocean, or on the dark side of the moon.
Throatily, Dipper intruded on the silence. “Does this mean . . . we can’t talk to it after all?”
“N-not even touching is getting through,” Norman sighed hopelessly.
“Bu there’s got to be some other way to communicate, though,” the behatted boy insisted.
“B-but I . . . I don’t know what we could even t-try next . . .”
The Jokergeist shook his head so hard that his spectral hat nearly fell off. {We try again. We keep flapping our gums with the Slender Man until that gets results or we think of something better. Because that voice? It’s taunting us again. And you know what that means? It wants us to give up on that. Before, when stable Mabel was talking, it was not pleased—not by a country mile. You know what that means? She was doing something right. So keep. Talking. To. The Slender Man.}
“Deotby, what good does it do to talk to someone who can’t even hear us?” the Medium asked in exasperation. “All he can sense from us is touch, and that’s just not enough!”
{I don’t know. But what I can tell you, Bugaboo, is that sometimes even a useless gesture means the world to someone. Like laughing, even though we all know death is inevitable. Don’t give up.}
“Maybe, but—”
LONELINESS
“Well . . . What if you guys touched him, too?” Mabel suggested. “Like, okay, I know guys think they aren’t supposed to be all touchy-feely and such, but . . . I mean, you have been holding hands since we got here, so—”
Norman blushed as red and as sweet as the most perfect of autumn apples. Dipper, for his part, sputtered in embarrassment, “Sh-shut up! We’re only still doing it ‘cause you told us we had to in here!”
“Suuuuure,” she said with a mischievous grin. The kind she knew would really aggravate him, simply because it always did. “But, anyway, since the ‘no being all touchy-feely’ ship has already sailed, why not get aboard the ‘yes being all touchy-feely’ ship? Why not try showing Slendy some of your love, too? Maybe if we all try doing it together . . .”
“Gahragrahda . . .” her brother grumbled. “How are we even supposed to do that and hold onto each other at the same time? I’m holding both of you, and Norman’s also holding Detoby.”
The brace-faced grin only got bigger and shinier. “Well, Detoby could just, like, hug Norm-Norm from behind. He’s a ghost, so there’d be no problem—wouldn’t get uncomfortable or, like, cumbersome at all (not physically). And as for you, Bro-Bro, well . . . You could just swing a foot up onto Slendy’s knee. If he can’t see anyway, he won’t know. Might as well use that. Besides, it’s the thought that counts.”
STILL SO MUCH LONELINESS
With a groan, Dipper hung his head and shook it. “Why is my life like this? How did it happen?”
{Not a terrible strategy, I reckon. Er, logistically speaking. For her own, er, particular battle plan,} the Jokergeist conceded. Then, being careful to place a ghostly hand on Norman’s arm as he floated up and around behind him—never breaking the almost-physical contact that kept the voice and the despair at bay—he awkwardly put his arms around Norman’s shoulders. {Er . . . What say you, Bugaboo?}
“This is . . . h-honestly kinda weird.”
{Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s kind of cozy,} the Jokergeist reminisced, though whether sincerely or in teasing jest was anybody’s guess. {Reminds me of some of my nights in the trenches, where me and the other soldier boys, for warmth, had to snuggle up real close and cozy with each other.}
“Not. Helping. To make this. Less. Weird. Detoby,” the Medium retorted curtly. Then, turning to his behatted friend, he reported, “G-guess we’re doing it. I got a free hand again, at least.” And, to accentuate the point, he waved it unenthusiastically.
“Good, then do me a favor first before we implement anymore of Mabel’s bat-crap craziness,” Dipper requested in a defeated monotone. “Rub the bridge of my nose for me, would ya?”
Norman blinked in surprise. Then he blinked in surprise again. “Uh . . . O-okay?” With a few jerky and tentative movements, he then reached over until he was touching the behatted boy’s beautiful, perfect, beautiful face. Something he now realized he had longed to do since first meeting him—and was now actually doing!—even if this was not exactly a way he would have ever expected to do so, nor the way he would have ideally preferred . . .
Dipper, characteristically oblivious, closed his eyes for a moment to just . . . enjoy the sensation, it seemed. “Ah, yeah . . .” he breathed luxuriously—which only gave his friend some confusing feelings he was not yet adequately equipped to identify, let alone deal with. “That right there is the stuff—really expresses all of the exasperation I am currently feeling towards my bat-crap crazy sister . . .”
Coolly, Mabel asked, “You done yet?”
“One . . . more . . . sec—”
NEED TRY AGAIN BRING MORE FRIENDS
Dipper instantly snapped out of his melodramatic gesture. “You can stop, Norm. Let’s do this.” And, never loosening his grip on his sister’s nor his best friend’s hands, he shuffled forward to swing his foot up and onto the Slender Man’s knee. Right where Mabel had first placed her hand.
Slowly, the Slender Man now turned in his direction. Even cocked its head at him, as if curious.
ANOTHER CAN’T SEE
“Moses, that’s still terrifying as folk . . .” Dipper muttered, balancing on his one leg. “Well . . . Hi, Mister Slender Man. Er . . . Hello and howdy.”
WHO
“Dipper. Like my sister told you.”
{The turn is to you, Bugaboo,} Detoby prompted. {And you had best get a wiggle on, because that voice is back to sounding less than pleased with what you kids are doing. Makes me really antsy—makes me wonder if it might try something soon . . .}
“R-right . . .” Before he was even aware of it, the Medium’s free hand was rubbing his ear and running through his hair. The Jokergeist’s close proximity (that bushy, spectral moustache was practically inside his ear) was not helping him feel more comfortable, and neither was his nervousness; the Medium felt he had quite enough of his own without more brushing directly inside his ear.
A second later, Mabel said, “Now you, Norm-Norm.”
“R-Right!” Norman repeated, inching closer. “Guess this is . . . w-worth a shot, at least. Not like we’ve got any better ideas . . . Um, again, my n-name is Norman.” He reached towards the skeletal hand still resting—almost desperately, as if afraid to lose this first, unexpected, and all too tenuous contact with someone not consumed by loneliness—on the besweatered girl’s shoulder. “Can you hear us at all? We’re here to—”
The second his hand touched the Slender Man’s, everything fell away from the Medium—everything except his own self and the Slender Man . . . Gone was the roiling fog, the wan and weak light surrounded by darkness, the cold, hard ground . . . the sight and the sound of the crying children . . . Even the presence of Dipper and Mabel and Detoby; only a vague sense of them, like a distant warmth—that of starlight on his skin—that hinted where heat and life could be found, remained to him . . . It was like he only had the vaguest sense that he still stood beside them, still held Dipper’s hand even now . . .
Looking around himself and the Slender Man, he now saw utter nothingness. As if they were in the deepest, darkest depths to ever exist before, during, or after time. Only his own body seemed to exist, standing upon the nothingness, with the tall, thin form of the Slender Man sitting cross-legged thereupon, too . . . A strangely familiar feeling to Norman . . .
“Oh. A vision . . . A vision of your past? Then sh-show me, please. Show me who you are . . . and show me what . . . what happened to you. Show me how to help.”
Lights switched on overhead. Fluorescent bulbs in a ceiling made of tiles from mineral fiber pulp. Beneath them, some kind of bland linoleum, easy to clean and resistant to scarring from high traffic use. And ahead of them was a bed of sterilized sheets, pillows, blankets. A metal frame on well-oiled wheels.
“A hospital room. Or a room in a clinic of some kind . . . You stayed here, didn’t you?”
A boy entered. Older than Norman, but not by much. Taller than Norman, too, but not by much. His face looked strangely familiar, too, as if Norman had seen it somewhere before, though he couldn’t place when or where or why . . . The boy climbed into the bed. And there he remained, barely moving, as people came and went. Orderlies, nurses, doctors, regular people—family and friends, with other kids being the most frequent at first, other teens . . . the boy’s best friends when first admitted here?—blurred around him, they came and went so fast, but the boy remained in the middle of it all. In the bed, barely moving, while what was practically a haze of people swirled around him. Or a fog of people, perhaps. With them, a distant babble and chatter. The sound of people talking—the sound of all those orderlies, nurses, doctors, regular people, family and friends as they came and went . . .
“That’s you in the bed, isn’t it?”
It was like watching a time-lapse of the boy’s stay in that hospital (or clinic or whatever it was). His skin grew paler and paler while the other teens gradually came less and less . . . until they no longer came at all . . . Then his hair fell out. His body grew gaunter and gaunter while the regular people’s visits diminished, too, until they hardly came at all either . . . Even the orderlies and nurses and doctors weren’t swirling around the boy as much anymore . . . He was left more and more alone, it seemed . . .
{Bugaboo?}
All throughout, the distant babble and chatter would crescendo and decrescendo without rhyme or reason, though over time it tended to grow quieter and quieter . . . as if harder to hear . . . Likewise, the fluorescence from above and the visual sharpness of the people who came and went tended over time to grow hazier and hazier . . . as if harder to see . . .
{You think of something, Bugaboo?}
And the boys eyes? That was the hardest part for Norman to watch. All throughout, they grew dimmer and dimmer . . . It was like watching a time-lapse of someone slowly dying on the inside . . . someone cut off first from friends, then from family, and then finally even from passing contact with those professionals engaged to provide him with medical care . . . A time-lapse of someone succumbing to the slow poison that is isolation . . . Then the boy rolled onto his side, away from Norman.
“No wonder you’re so lonely . . . But I don’t understand what was wrong? Why were you there?”
Two forms stood before the bed and the boy now, barely discernable as hospital or clinical staff. They worked and they talked, and though their voices were muddled, they could clearly be understood.
“You sure it’s okay to work with him in bed? Aren’t we disturbing him?”
“Oh, right. You’re new here, so you don’t know about him.”
“Know what?”
“He’s got some mystery disorder. The doctors aren’t sure what it is—they think it might be some rapid nerve degeneration in his brain, kinda similar to Alzheimer’s, but not effecting the memory. Least, not as far as anyone can tell. Anyway, he’s been going deaf and blind for a while, and probably has no idea we’re even here.”
“Jeez. Both deaf and blind? Poor kid.”
“You don’t know the half of it. He’s got good days where he can see or hear or both well enough for normal interaction. Or close enough. I mean, he has fallen out of practice with talking as a result. But he also has very bad days where he can barely do either. And those are getting more frequent.”
“So he knows what he’s missing, then? He knows what he’s losing?”
“Norman? Norman, you listening?”
“Oh, yeah. Poor kid knows. And still having his memory probably makes it a lot worse. I mean, two years ago? He was fine. Completely normal kid. Loved basketball and was pretty good at it, I hear. You can see how tall and lanky he was for his age, right? Probably would’ve done it through middle and high school, been power guard or center. Not anymore, though.”
“And learning Sign Language wouldn’t help him much because he can’t see half the time.”
“Yep. And he can’t talk with people or listen to music because he can’t hear. I mean, it’s sad. He’s alive, but not really living anymore. His friends don’t come by, even his family does less and less.”
“That’s terrible. How could they abandon him like that?”
“I know, but I can’t really blame them. It breaks my heart, and I didn’t even know him before. Imagine what it must be like to come and visit him, knowing more than half the time he can’t even tell that you’re there—knowing that he’s just, like, a shadow or a shell of his former self. I mean, it must be unbearably painful for them. Wouldn’t be able to go through that, either. I’m not strong enough.”
“Norm-Norm? Earth—or wherever we are—to Norm-Norm? Come in, Norm-Norm?”
“I guess. How long do they think he has before he loses all sight and hearing?”
“Hard to say, but I overheard some of them say it probably won’t even be another four months. And they’re not sure how much longer he’ll live after that, either. I mean, it is a mystery disorder.”
“If it were me, I don’t think I would want it to be very long after that.”
“If it were me, honestly, I’d have ended it all months ago. I mean, why stay alive at this point? C’mon, it’s time to get to the next room.”
And then, the two forms were gone from the room. They boy sat up and hung his head, and Norman wished he could do something to comfort him . . . But he knew he could not, for this was merely a vision of things past. That boy was long gone . . . Or rather, that boy was the Slender Man seated beside him now; he had somehow become the Slender Man. Still, out of reflexive compassion, Norman squeezed the pale, skeletal hand under his own.
“You heard it all, didn’t you? That was a quote-unquote good day, and you heard. I’m s-so sorry; that must have hurt you terribly. What happened after that, please?”
A ways behind the boy’s bed, a door appeared in the nothingness. No, Norman realized, not just a door, but the Cursed Door. It looked different—different color, different design, different placement of the #13 placard—but Norman could tell it was the same Cursed Door. Whether in that hospital or clinic, or in Gravity Falls, or in any of the different towns where it had appeared and children had disappeared, it was always the same Cursed Door. With the same voice, and Norman heard it now.
They can’t get through to you, so they’ve stopped trying. They’ve stopped caring about you.
But I can get through to you, and I’ll never stop caring about you.
They’ve left you alone. But I never will leave you.
I’ll be your friend forever.
Come to me.
Uneasily, Norman watched as the boy turned his head in the direction of the Cursed Door. Listening to the voice from beyond it, as he himself had done. As Mabel had done.
Your pain grows worse with every passing day. You ache and you hurt, and you do it all alone.
But I understand. I can share your pain with you. I can take it all away.
I can make it so you won’t be alone or hurt ever again.
I’ll be your friend forever.
Come to me.
Though still in bed, the boy was turned entirely in the direction of the Cursed Door. And Norman could not blame him, not when he knew all too well what it was like to find no comfort among the living. To be so desperate for companionship, because it seemed that all friends and all family had left you, that anything would be latched onto without hesitation. Anything was better than nothing, right?
“How long did it work on you? How long was it the only voice you could always hear? The only voice still trying to speak to you? It must . . . must have been so hard for you. So lonely . . .”
Regular people arrived all of a sudden, though their features were eroded into near anonymity by the boy’s advancing blindness; through his deafness, their voices were nearly too muffled to hear. Norman suddenly realized—like the boy’s own realization had been a sudden surprise, perhaps?—that they were the parents and siblings of the boy. His family. They had brought him a suit: simple and black, rumpled and ill-fitting on a body now emaciated from chemical treatments. They helped him put it on and pose in the middle of them. A family portrait taken in a hospital room. Forced and sad smiles.
“You think he’s having another vision? He’s not freaking out like last time.”
It was familiar to Norman, this posed image of one final instance of family togetherness. Yes, Norman had seen it somewhere before. Or part of it. He had seen the boy before, at least, like this. When and where and why, though? What had his name been?
“Gotta be that. He’s, like, in a trance or something.”
Then, just as suddenly, the regular people—the infrequent family members—were gone again. Alone again, the boy did not even bother to sit back on his bed, nor remove that simple, black, rumpled, and ill-fitting suit. Instead, he turned completely towards the Cursed Door.
They brought a funerary suit and left it here to save themselves time preparing you for burial.
But I won’t leave you to wither and die here all alone. I haven’t given up on you.
They took a final photo to remember you. This was farewell for them.
But not for me. I’ll be your friend forever.
Come to me.
From the boy, there seemed to be no hesitation at all. He shambled weakly beyond the bed and towards the Cursed Door. The passage of distance seemed compressed, yet Norman still felt the boy crossing it, though every mark of it—doorways, hallways, stairways—was as fleeting and insubstantial as a sign on a highway. The boy tottered unsteadily but determinedly onwards, all while Norman watched. Without any impediment. Without meeting another soul to stop him. The Cursed Door’s work, as well?
“Should we . . . try to wake him up, you think? Snap him out of it?”
Finally, the boy was there. He swayed wearily, eyes turned upward hopefully to the #13 placard. “Cccah . . . Can youuu . . . rrreal-ly make . . . evvv’ry th-thing . . . bet-ter?” he asked laboriously.
Inside me, all your suffering will be over. The ache, the hurt, and the loneliness will be gone.
I will take it away from you. Your body will not fail you ever again.
What you truly want now, I will give to you inside.
I’ll be your friend forever.
Come to me.
“Wwwha-tuh I . . . trul-ly wan-tuh? Tha’s . . . mmmy frien-ds back . . . Play with ‘em . . . ‘gain . . . Beee well ‘nuff ‘gain . . .” the boy insisted. “Dashhh . . . Paul-ina . . . Sssam . . . Tuck-er . . . an’ Danny . . .”
“I . . . I don’t know. What if he’s seeing something important—something we need to know?”
Norman felt his breath catch in his chest. Those names! He knew those names! The first children who had disappeared, taken by the Slender Man—taken by the boy and this voice! From that small town called . . . Something Park? it started with an M, maybe? or an “em” sound? or an “ahm”? or an “am”? Norman had its name on the tip of his tongue . . . And he’d recognize it the second he heard it, but . . . Well, no matter; Norman knew it was that really haunted town in Connecticut. He was absolutely sure! Which meant . . . the boy—the Slender Man—had to be the kid who the children of . . . Something Park (or whatever) were sure was stalking them even though he had already died!
“That’s it! That’s who you are! But—gah!—I can’t remember what your name was!”
So . . . You want to bring others to me? Bring them to join you inside me? That’s . . . an idea . . .
“Fff tha-tuh . . . mmmeans we’ll . . . all be . . . frien-ds ‘gain . . .” the boy struggled to articulate. “All be ab-ul . . . play to . . . gether ‘gain . . . hhhan-guh out . . . I’ll do . . . nnny th-thing!”
Even go in search of your friends and bring them back to me?
“Yyyeh, but . . . hhhow? Mmm so . . . ti-erd . . . Can-nnn bare-ly . . . stan-duh . . .”
I suppose . . . I can spare you a portion of my sustenance. Some of my own energy to power you.
“Wwwill tha-tuh . . . hhhel-puh me . . . sssee ‘n’ hear ‘gain all the tuh-time?”
I can make it so you can sense where they are. I am sure I should be able to, especially with the extra sustenance you shall bring me . . . Yes, more than worth giving you a few scraps.
“Wha?”
Don’t worry. It will be fine. And fun, too. It will be like . . . a game of Blind and Deaf Man’s Bluff.
“Heh heh! ‘s funny . . . Nnno one mmmakes . . . jjjo-kuhs ‘round me . . . nnny-more . . .”
Then come inside. It is time.
Before Norman’s eyes, the boy opened the Cursed Door and walked forward into the gray waste and the roiling fog. A slam followed . . . and the boy was lost. Norman swore he heard the voice laugh.
This may hurt a lot . . . but I promise it will be well worth it when you have more friends in here with you than you can count. Stuffing me full.
In a great rush of compressed time as fleeting and insubstantial as gusts of wind, the boy fell and he rose up simultaneously. A lifeless corpse upon the cold, hard ground . . . and a confused ghost above what had been his own living body just seconds ago . . . A trapped ghost, there beyond the Cursed Door. A ghost who could not move on—could not escape—because he was somewhere that did not connect to the world of spirits; or, if it did, the way was blocked by the voice. Then, suddenly, a portion of the fog and the cold and even the light of that gray waste rushed into the boy’s ghost. Spectral luminescence filled him . . . and he began to change, to morph into something . . . different . . .
{Bugaboo? Buga—hell’s bells! Norman, what’s wrong?!}
Norman wanted to look away. But he just couldn’t tear his gaze from this nauseating transformation, no matter how much horror or sorrow it filled him with. His Medium’s eyes saw it all.
“Bro-Bro, do something!”
Taller and taller, the boy’s ghost grew; thinner and thinner, paler and paler, lonelier and lonelier, though the voice was always with him . . . Perhaps lonelier and lonelier because the voice was always with him . . . Becoming something inhuman, the boy’s ghost tried to scream, but he had become something unseeing, unhearing, and especially unspeaking. His voice so unused he had lost his mouth, his eyes so dim they had faded away completely . . . Faceless. Nameless. Hopeless . . . The boy had forgotten who he was, so possessed was he of loneliness . . . so void of everything but loneliness . . .
“So you basically became loneliness itself. Like an incarnation of loneliness . . . I’m so sorry . . . Those’re st-stupid words for something like this, b-but . . . I am so, so sorry that you’ve suffered like this. But th-thank you for showing me this. I can help you now; I know how to hel—”
A yell of “C’mon, man, snap out of it!” in the Medium’s ear and a strong shake of his whole arm (both from Dipper) brought the vision to an end. His other hand still rested on the Slender Man’s, but now they were no longer alone in utter nothingness while buried memories became apparitions to swirl around them. Only the roiling fog swirled around them now.
“S-sorry. I’m back now. Sorry,” Norman apologized automatically.
{Oh, thank the Saints . . .} Detoby breathed in the Medium’s ear, relief in every syllable.
WAS WHAT
Dipper shook his head. “Geez, man, you gotta stop doing that to me.”
“Why . . . Why is my face wet?” Norman asked, even as he blinked to clear his eyes.
“Um, you went all faraway stare on us—having a vision, I guess?—and then you started crying all of a sudden,” Mabel explained, though her voice revealed she herself was hoping for an explanation of events in return. “Was it . . . really sad, what you saw?
Unable to rub his eyes since he still needed to hold the Slender Man’s hand and Dipper’s hand, Norman tried to make do with his shoulder. It was mostly able to wipe the tears away. “Uh . . . Y-yeah. Yeah, it was p-pretty bad.”
ANOTHER CAN’T SEE
{Well, spill the beans! What was revealed to you, Bugaboo?} Detoby asked excitedly in his ear.
Dipper, as part of the Unspoken Bro Code, looked away until his friend had regained composure. Pretended not to see his friend had been crying (and, conveniently enough, pretended that he himself had not so been worried). “W-what . . . ahem . . . What was it you saw? Anything that can help us?”
BUT DIFFERENT
Norman swallowed thickly. Tried to swallow down all the emotions stirring within him, threatening to come spilling out some more. All the pain he had just felt vicariously . . . The sadness, yes, but also the fear of the voice he felt in himself now . . . And the indignation—the anger, even the rage—that boiled up at the knowledge of what lay just a little deeper in the fog! He thought he could sense where it lay . . . Looking in that direction, he wondered if he could even see it between the shifting wisps of fog—a boy, now an emaciated corpse in an ill-fitting black suit, who had been older than Norman . . . but not by much—or if it was just his imagination . . . Too many emotions to process all at once . . .
“Norm?” Dipper prompted him.
WHO
The Medium nodded at that question. “Y-yeah, it can help us. A lot.” Turning to meet the brown eyes of his friends, he stated, “I know who the Slender Man is now.”