Everyone's First Time is Different

And don't go letting your minds wander too far into the gutter; I'm talking about none other than Tall, Dark and Slender.

More specifically, meeting none other than Tall, Dark and Slender.

In the woods.

At night.

Alone.

At first you can't believe it. You can't comprehend this ... this figure, this presence standing before you. You blink and suddenly you get a face full of what looks like a suit from afar, but up close seems to be something all together more alive, restless, shifting, breathing below an oily, black skin. It's only after you crane your neck that you can fully realize just how tall this creature is, how his head rests on his shoulder, bent like it's crafted of plastic, seemingly broken because this figure is just so ... so ... human and yet wrong in so many unfathomable ways that it fills you with a sense of an almost ancient recognition and the even more ancient fear that comes along with it striking your very core.

And then it hits you.

It hits you like a fucking semi.

And suddenly everything around you is screaming and the trees are screaming and the wind is screaming and those inky tendrils are screaming from his back and you wonder, when did those get there? - and your mind is screaming and you're screaming and run, run, oh god you've got to run but your feet are stuck in place because you can't get past the sheer wrongness and yet alien beauty of that perfectly blank face - like porcelain, maybe, you wonder if it'd be smooth and cool under your hand and -

nononononosuzeyou'renotallowedtothinklikethat!

And so you run.

You run so fast that the soles of your shoes rip off and you trip in the undergrowth and crawl the remaining fifty feet back to camp, praying to god that everybody is asleep and you can inch your way on your knees back to your tent without having to answer any questions.

And that's why I haven't been sleeping.