The slenderman I created when I was young, was set loose upon the world.

I had no idea if the horrors created stopped exiting once they were far enough away.

The next time I brought him out, he was different.

Still slender of tall stature, yet no longer a beast that my cousin told me about to scare me.

"He comes in the night, like the lot," he said. He was five years older than me. "But him, see, he comes for children. They don't fear him like older ones. On a foggy dawn or in the blackest night, you might turn and find the tall man dressed in black gazing at you with a blank face. He stands motionless, only moving when you avert your gaze unless he's close enough to strike."

Gorgi loved to tell me of new creatures others brought into existence, but the fears of his family got him in the end. They became afraid that he was turning into one of them, so he did. If someone feared you were something you weren't, you became it.

The worst thing about our world was the fear that spread by word of mouth.

I decided to put a stop to it by befriending that which terrified me, but I had no way of knowing that was the solution to the whole thing.

The next time I saw slenderman, he was not wearing a suit like before, only a black hoodie and sweatpants that bundled at his feet, if he even had those.

I was sixteen, and Dad was still alive at the time.

My room had no decoration, only boards nailed over windows to keep the fear hungering beyond. There was no limit to those created by fear, but everyone felt a bit safer without being able to see them.

I blinked to find him in the corner of my room, hanging by fingers pierced into the wood. The feet were hidden behind the cloth of his pants, but held him in the top corner of the room only lit by a candle.

"Hi, again," I said with a smile. He was still, eerily so. If he was to let out another shrieking howl, Dad would rush into my room to fight him off. After a minute of stillness, slenderman's head ticked ninety degrees and extended toward me.

"I'm Ruben," I continued. "Your friend. Do you remember?"

Again no response, only another ninety degree tick of his head in the same direction to the sound of bone crunching.

I stood up and approached to make sure he was alright, but a slender hand extended from the wall to push me away, this time careful not to use the sharp points.

I watched him drop to his fingers and the hidden feet. He filled the room with his stature, but could not stand tall like in the forest so many years ago.

"You're quiet this time," I said scrambling up from the push back. "You used to click and twitch your neck the last time. Oh, wait, are you not the one from before? I'm not sure how it works."

His body walked on finger points toward me, empty face nearing my smile. I breathed a sigh and decided to hug him again, or for the first time if he wasn't the same one.

In turn, this slenderman wrapped his giant hands of long fingers around my body. It felt like a snake filled with bones not yet digested wrapping itself around me, but I felt no fear at the sensation.

"Dad says you're bad, that you just want to kill things," I said. "I don't think that's true. It's easy to be afraid of the dark, of what could exist within, the unknown parts that the mind can create. In a way, we're your parents. You come from us, and only want to be with us."

"Nooooooooot yooooooooouursssss," a voice growled out of nowhere. It had to be him, but he had no mouth, nothing to use to create voice. It was a deep growl, quiet and choked. It set my heart racing, but only from excitement. 

Could it have been his vocal chord worked without access to a throat and mouth?

"Not ours?" I asked. "You mean the things we fear don't create them, you?"

"Nooooooooot feeeeeaaaaaaaar," the rumbling voice growled in the room. The wood shook with it. It wasn't his vocal chords stifled by lack of path, slenderman was using vibrations to speak, somehow altering them to the language I spoke. "Sssssssstraaaaaaay thooooouuuughtsssssss. Loooooonelllly thoooooooouuuuughtsssss. Eviiiiiiillllll thooooouuuuughtssssss."

"That still sounds like you're created by humans," I said. Slenderman sprung on me with fingers piercing only cloth to thrown me down. His figure crumpled over me so that the empty face could lower to mine.

"Caaaaaalllleeeed heeeeeeeereeeeeee," he vibrated loudly into my mind. I could hear the footsteps below. Dad was coming to help, but would not understand this. "Nooooooo choooooooiiiiiiiceeeeee."

I felt a strange giddiness at being so close to his face. Before the door burst open, and before slenderman could escape through the cracks in the boards of the window, I extended my lips to the cold surface that only bent inward to avoid me until it collapsed like a wave around my head.

I could see nothing, but felt Dad's hands on my ankles. A gunshot exploded in the room, then two more, but I was still lost in the darkness of the empty face, starting to suffocate.

I couldn't breathe, and clawed at the edge to find none.

The flesh around my head was mine.

I had no face.