Well, at least he kept his promise

If by promise you mean "LET'S TWIST EVERY FUCKING HOPE AND DREAM YOU HAVE, SMASH IT INTO THE GROUND, AND THEN SET IT ON FIRE."

Calm, Lyle, focus.

Nick came back.

Now he's dead.

And a whole lot of shit happened in the middle. fuck, my hands are shaking, I'm covered in blood, and I have to wonder if you're insane if you know you're going insane.

Sometimes I log onto the blog and can't see posts. We all used to tell each other when we'd put something up; for praise? Peer editing? I don't know. But lately everyone has been trying to keep things secret.

...I think they're trying to keep it from me.

... He didn't lie. Nick stumbled into camp in the dead of night, not that any of us heard him. We heard this from Richard, who happened upon him first, or did he, no, i'm the one that found him first, it's hard to remember...

But he didn't lie, didn't lie, didn't lie.

Do I blame them....? Can... I blame them? Somewhere in my head I know it's possible. I'm not so sure what they're afraid of, or at least I tell myself that, but I used to share my tent with Zach and now everything so quiet at night and you can hear everything

and I mean everything

And they're talking about me these days in harsh whispers and sideways glances. And this is SO out of character for me but I'm just going to spit it out;

I'm scared.

He had never been quiet or stealthy, but somehow, he made no sound as he moved. It was a voice that woke me up, not a scream or even a grunt, but I heard him, I heard HIM but that should be impossible

Sometimes... something just comes over me and I throw all one hundred and thirty pounds of my lanky body into doing things I... I don't want to talk about. Richard keeps looking at me, oh god, he's not looking at me, he's guarding me and my head is pounding

Just because you let it slip that you heard ONE whisper from Slender in your head, and it wasn't even cool enough to be directed at you, oh jeeze, just KNEW that William was in trouble and now they're guarding me like a fucking prisoner.

Got up, noticed a dark, moving shadow near the fire. Noticed the body. And another. And another. More people dead. It didn't matter, not at that second. Did it ever matter? Not your body on the ground. The dark figure moved over to Suze's tent.

I followed.

I am not Number Four.

It'll pass. It'll pass and either they'll forget or all go nuts or IT WON'T BE SO FUN WHEN IT HAPPENS TO THEM, WILL IT? I'm the only one that can remember everything.

Nick. Nick was back with that knife and that sick grin on his face and he was standing over Suze and I could see her chest move slowly up and down as she struggled to breath and his hand moved over his belt buckle and suddenly I understood

And split his neck open from ear to ear.

He didn't make a sound.

Then they'll know I'm not crazy.

Maybe it's just a matter of me convincing myself of that first.

I really have to get over myself

If I want to live.

You all saw what happened. Walter... fuck. Walter left.

And we all know what he is now.

But me, I couldn't leave it at that, oh no. Suze is smart. She fought back in words.

(Not that it did anything)

But me, for some reason I thought, I don't know. Was I even thinking?

So I followed him.

It doesn't get less genre-savvy than this, folks. But Walter had changed. In the moment that he had reached... some sort of realization, something turned into something else.

(I know I'm not making a lot of sense, sorrysorrysorry)

Either way. He knew. And not like my tripping and stumbling in the undergrowth made it any better.

"I assume you're not here to come with me."

He gave me a sad smile and his eyes positively shone in the moonlight and for some reason he didn't seem human anymore-

"Walter. Walter, you don't have to do this. You're being stupid."

I'm a genius, you know that? He took one step towards me, then two, and I instinctively stepped away.

Well fuck.

"I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby. The irony is so great. A whole city gets burned down, and thousands of thousands of people are killed. And this one American solider is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot. And he's given a regular trial, and then he's shot by a firing squad..." He looks down at the ground, still smiling softly.

"Um."

"Don't you think, Lyle, that's really where the climax should come?"

Slaughter-House Five. One of Zach's favorites. I'd read it the day after he...

"You don't have to do this, Walter, this isn't your fault!"

He tilts his head at me, and for a second I panic because I seem to have a two phrase vocabulary.

"Just because it isn't my fault doesn't mean I can't do something. You're all afraid."

Guilty.

"And I'm not a madman because I accept my fear."

And I try and look up at him, accept what he is saying.(IwillrunfrommyfearIwilloutdistancemyfearthenIwillhidefrommyfearIwillwaitformyfearIwillletmyfearrunpastmethenIwillfollowmyfearIwilltrackmyfearuntilIcanapproachmyfearincompletesilencethenIwillstrikeatmyfearIwillchargemyfearIwillgrabholdofmyfearIwillsinkmyfingersintomyfearthenIwillbitemyfearIwilltearthethroatofmyfearIwillbreaktheneckofmyfearIwilldrinkthebloodofmyfearIwillgulpthefleshofmyfearIwillcrushthebonesofmyfearandIwillsavormyfearIwillswallowmyfearandthenIwilldigestmyfearuntilIcandonothingelsebutshitoutmyfearIn this way I will be made stronger.)

"You ARE a madman, Walter. What happened to saying that you weren't giving up? That you weren't going to let anyone else give up?" And he turned away from me and muttered

"I said I wasn't a madman. I never said I was a person."

And he left me standing there. Standing there until I was so cold and numb that it didn't hurt anymore to look at the blank space that he had been standing in. I came back to camp empty handed. Richard was busy staring into space, and when he saw me, he put his head into his hands.

Everyone else was asleep.

Everyone else was awake, waiting.

And I didn't say a thing.

Need Sleep.

Still haven't gotten any since wednesday and now it's really starting to show.

Well the Collector was right about one thing it's that he's pretty good at predicting who is and who isn't going to survive. But out here is anybody really surprised when we're already short supplies and Alex and Richard come back with nothing. Not that I'm blaming them but they'd be REALLY, REALLY USEFUL right about now.

Actually.

They'd always be useful because if you haven't caught on by now it's an almost certain that we're all pretty much boned.

Three of them were lucky enough to get sick from the infections, fall asleep and just never wake up. I'm envious of them in one way but in another I guess I'm thankful I'm alive.

(I look across the camp and someone is on the ground, screaming. There are five hundred black trees surrounding the camp and I can count the leaves on every last one of them. They're twisting and writhing and they're picked up by Everyone's Favourite Faceless Bastard and torn to shreds and the blood pours like a fountain and I'm covered in it the tents are covered in and the trees are painted red, red, red and there's enough of it to put out the fire and what's left of them hangs from the once-black-now-red branches.)

One of them just managed to disappear when we weren't looking. I was with Lyle talking about what we were going to do now that we're going to run dangerously low on supplies, and Suze popped in and asked where Opal was.

(She's another one of those 'peroxide blondes' i told you about way before all of THIS happened. Cute girl with a pretty smile and sparkling blue eyes. Her boyfriend was a total douche and he didn't deserve her at all. Well now nobody has her.)

The only thing I could think about was how she would have managed to stumble out of camp with a shredded muscles in one leg and a fractured femur in the other, where she shouldn't be able to PUT WEIGHT on her foot without SCREAMING in pain let alone get out of camp unnoticed.

Then again who said she had to walk?

I heard people coughing.

(And I look at Suze and when I blink it looks like she's been literally hit by the metaphorical semi that she's mentioned. Pieces of bone jut out from where the bridge of her nose used to be and there are two empty sockets where her eyes should be with cheeks caked in wet over dried over wet blood that forms like mountains around what's left of her dimples. What used to be her scalp has been completely removed and there's grayish pink matter - as if we don't know what THAT is - dripping down the sides and her ears are bleeding heavily as well and she lets out this long moan of pain and I blink again and she's fine.)

But if there's anything good to be said about the situation it's the Nick seems to be healing nicely.

His broken ribs are slowly healing and his arms are both back in place, and other than a hair-line fracture that's already healed and a ton of ripped muscle tendons he looks like he'll be okay. He's managed to fight off the bacteria and feels like enough of his old self to be A TOTAL ASSHOLE to the classmate trying to save his life.

He's lucky I put professional practice before my OUTRAGEOUS EGO.

But the fact that his name is still crossed off worries me. I guess if I expect us all to die (OH WOW IS THAT EVER DEPRESSING) I shouldn't be bothered by it but there's something so foreboding about seeing that 1 pixel line through a name that gives it an air of foreboding.

What's that Suze says?

On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.


I don't think I've seen a shorter timeline or a lower survival rate.

Short

We don't have enough of anything around here and at times like this it really shows. Alex n' Richard were lucky enough to come back in one piece but with no supplies so I guess we're back to giving and inch and hoping we get a mile.

So far this hasn't worked.

Anybody with half a brain's looked at the class list and noticed that a ton of names have been removed. I'll tell you right now half of the people who have been marked as garbage bag stuffing aren't actually dead yet and they're in my care.

Not that that really delays the inevitable.

The kit we've got is supposed to provide for about a half dozen people with non-lethal injuries and so far we've got five with life-threatening ones hanging by a thread and we've already lost one. Don't get me started on the ones who aren't in critical condition. My policy for the last three days has basically been 'no blood no bandage' and everybody will just have to deal until we figure out what to do.

I haven't slept since wednesday or so and believe me it's beginning to show. I don't really feel tired but if Richard is good for one thing it's honesty, and when he says 'Chase, man, you look like shit' I'm inclined to believe him. I know I can't sleep until everybody's been stitched up and tended to because the last time I took a couple hours off for shut-eye Opal slipped into a horrible fever that left her completely robbed of any will to continue.

She was gone by the end of the night.

The other four aren't doing any better. While Nick is starting to recover it's pretty clear he's not in good shape and won't be doing anything for a long, long time. He's freezing cold and won't stop shaking. The others seem to have horrible cases of the shakes as well, but they're all absolutely burning to the touch. Call it fever or whatever but with supplies sparse and me not trusting herbal remedies (but sooner or later I may not have a choice) infections are common and the only thing we can do is drain the puss from wound x and pray that their bodies fix themselves overnight.

One of them is sitting next to me now. I just need a break from this for a few minutes. It's gotten to the point where I'll look around the camp, blink, and suddenly everything is a mess of blood and gibs and silent as death, like I'm the only one left and those garbage bags that seem to show up A LOT MORE THAN THEY SHOULD are hung from the trees and I know EXACTLY what's in them because there are 27 of them all strung like paper lanterns.

And I blink again.

And camp's back to normal.

I think I need to rest for a bit.

Goddammit!

Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK.

We couldn't find him. We couldn't find him, goddammit, didn't find him before The goddamn FUCKING Collector got to him, shit shit shit. What the fuck was that last post about? And we stumbled on the clearing and we looked at that damn bastard in that goddamn fucking hoodie and he just didn't even say a FUCKING word, just stood there over the body, and Lyle went FUCKING INSANE and nearly beat the shit out of that asshole because he was just caught by motherfucking surprise and then Slender showed up and dear god, you idiot, what the hell did you do? I can't stop seeing the leaves now, you fucking douchebag, Lyle, god, at least I think before I do something stupid but now you've gone and.... fuck. William's dead. Fuck.

He was a good kid, too, probably followed a long time and he never cracked, took a shine to White Elephants and was constantly lurking on there. God. He was quiet and didn't say much until he found his voice this year and shit why did he run off, and why did Lyle know to go after him and fuck my head is fucking pounding. Elliot has been on the ground moaning for what seems like hours and I have to stop typing every two seconds to puke this really nasty looking black shit and our little enigmatic friend can speak for his fucking self.

Fucking hell. I'll post later when we're not all in such a mess. All quiet on the home front, at least for now.

We're going to burn the body tonight.

Rest in peace, Will. God knows you deserve some sleep.

Fight 'till the end,

Richard Battle

Role reversals

Because it seems that being the bearer of bad news no longer falls exclusivly on one person. I have mentioned to some others that I am no longer sure if I exist outside of my own mind; something rather strange for someone like me, (Maybe it is more normal for me than I realize. It is hard to judge oneself, and even harder to realize what oneself truely is. "Self" is a whole concept that I'm not currently willing to delve into). But what would spark such a strange concept?

It would be easy for me to assume that I /had/ proof of my continual existance. My friends, now my allies, the blog itself, the responses from others. But it's come to the point that I'm not even sure that this proves much of /anything/. Strange.

I decided a short while ago that it was time to try and contact the outside world. Sure, it was obvious that the cellphones would not work; obviously the result of some sort of jamming signal (Emitted by what?). Yet there are other was to contact the outside world.

"Cogito ergo sum." I think, therefore I am. Despite the terror we had been subjected to, I was determined to prove that, above all, logic would prevail.

Now, this held a few problems. There's many possible reasons for our continual inability to navigate this place; hallucinagetic gasses, strange fauna, even medications being introduced to our enviroment. Regardless, it's impossible to get out of here by ourselves. So I tried for more... conventional help. Police, the campus, and, more importantly... our families, my family, in fact. My Mother; a good, strong woman, intellgent and kind. My Father. Tall and giant and loving and who instilled my love of philosophy and logic. And my younger sister. Innocent.

....

I digress.

Using a jury-rigged system, I managed to make contact with the outside world.

Of course, I may be lying. It's easy to garner sympathy, isn't it? Logic is useless. Especially when I'm keeping secrets~

The Police, I presume, only looked up from their poker game for a few seconds before writing me off as a hoodlum. The campus denied any such trip, in fact, the campus denied that Class 123 ever existed. And as for my family?

My sister answered the phone. She's fairly young and my parents don't tend to leave her alone, so this troubled me, even moreso than the previous responses.

I could barely even hear her voice over the downright /incredible/ static, but it was apparent what she was saying.

"Wally, they're saying that you were never here, that you're never comming home, that you'll keep The Tall Man away. It doesn't make any sense..."

Over. And over and over and over.

Getting into contact with other people's parents was very much the same. Either they refused to take me seriously, voices high with denial and... fear; or whispered something cryptic regarding Tall, Dark, and Slender and then hung up, quite rudely, if I may add.

[REDACTED]

He's... following my sister. Or maybe he's stopped. Here's my only problem....

If //it// thinks, does //it// exist as well?

...I'd rather not get into that one.

There have been some other things troubling me as well. A strange comment in the post by Lyle, by me... a comment regarding something about health...
That post. The one describing Zach's death in all the gory detail. Why would I berate him for getting it all out? Another point; our location is clearly stated in the subtitle of this blog. Why has nobody mentioned it or noticed?

The only hypothesis I can provide is that we are being censored. Someone is watching our ever move.

Well, I can play mental chess as well, good sir.

Your turn.

Because he's been quite naughty, hasn't he? Going behind my back, collaborating. Don't you see, Sir Bishop? I only want this for your own good.

Just kidding~

You have no idea what I can do, and I look forward to the day that it dawns on you. Sleep well, Subject.

To Whoever Managed To...

Hack into Zach's account?

I have no idea what you're trying to pull or achieve or... whatever. But congratulations. Because you know what? Suze flew out of her tent like a bat out of hell and started interrogating everyone and now everyone is more terrified than they already are. So well done, you fucking jackass.

And as for your little poem? I don't know how YOU fucking know this, but we have no choice but to wait. We can't seem to navigate the forest and now everyone is turning up dead-

But you would know about that, wouldn't you, Lyle? Isn't it downright easy to fool yourself? You know me, but I know YOU more. Because, you see, I'm watching. And waiting. While you try and save your own hide.

Then again, am I really one to talk?

You never found his body, did you?

Status Report

Bearer of Bad News, reporting.

It's late. Why am I up? Why am I posting?

Hayden's gone. Slipped right out from under our noses. During the meeting, we think. Or maybe after Richard ordered us all to go to sleep.

I have this horrible headache.


Nobody argued because nobody was willing to fight him. I think we were all too tired to care anyways.

Suze and Lyle were hiding something from us. Slenderman. I think that's what they called him? Lyle mentioned something about blogs and video series. It's too late for me to recall everything, but I'll do what I can.

I'm sure anybody reading this by now has either been scared away or knows what's going on.

Help us.


Please.


Lyle doesn't know how to talk to people and Suze is... well, Suze is helpful at least, but if anybody even dares to mention Zach's name it's like she's suddenly gotten blue screened, and has to sit down for a little bit.

She was one of five people to not completely flip out when Zach died, so it doesn't really surprise me that her facade of normalcy and perkiness is just that - a facade.

Not that that surprises me.

It's hard to surprise me right now.

Ughhhhhh it's like a thousand buzzing bees trying to occupy the space inside my skull


And here I go sounding like Elliott when I say you could tell me the world was flat and that Lyle was secretly a reptilliod from planet Zekrom 5 (wait, isn't that a pokemon?) and I would formally congratulate you on your amazing discovery.

After faceless men with tentacles, it's hard to be shaken.

Well, the good news is we've got a fairly comprehensive list of who to read and what to watch thanks to Lyle's knack for memorizing URLs.  Now if only our tech would stop bugging out we could maybe get some solid research done. What Suze and Lyle know might do us for now, it's not going to help us against... against... whateverthehellheis.

It's late. I should sleep. Or stay awake. Richard says we should be sleeping more. Suze concurs. Like either of them have the moral high ground. Both of them look like hell. Suze especially. She's cracking and won't admit it. Worse than her boyfriend was.

She's going to kill me for this when she wakes up.

Hayden's at least calmed down a bit...

... But it's been a long, long night.
The meeting explained a... lot to the others, but it was hard to multi-task with the whole Hayden situation being on the down-low.

Dear god. If anything could be described as a fortress.....

If anything, he's creative.

We figured that since he checks the blog religeously, if we posted a summary of the meeting, he'd calm down and....

Well, that was the plan.

What actually happened is that all our phones decided to have some sort of panic attack and get stage fright. Having our only source of communication cut off all night has REALLY not helped the psyche of most of us, but I digress.

With that option rendered... not an option, we were forced to move the meeting closer to Hayden's tent//fortress and speak IN VERY, VERY LOUD VOICES.

Here's to technology.

It seemed to work, though. Hayden's calmed down sufficiently for us all to stop worrying about him, uh, MURDERING US IN OUR SLEEP and everyone is up to speed now. Which means that Alex, Suze, Richard, Walter, Elliott, and I are very, VERY tired from keeping watch over him all night.

Needless to say, we've got our work cut out for us.

Alex'll be posting the summary of the meeting tonight, once we all get some rest. In the meantime, Richard has insisted on going on some kind of lack of sleep marathon and told the rest of us to get some shut-eye.

(And all of us are too afraid of him and/or exhausted to say anything)

Hopefully, the screaming will tone down a bit.

...

Doubtful.

No. NO NO NO NO.

You've...

No.

No no no.

NO.

Broken record broken record broken record broken record broken record broken record broken record broken record broken record broken record broken record broken record broken record

Shit shit shit

what do we do?

what do we do?

what do we doooooo?

Suze was in on it

Suze was in on it

Suze was in on it AND SHE DIDN'T TELL ME

I'm next

I'm next I'm next oh god I'm next I'M NEXT I'M NEXT I'M NEXT

Ahaha.

Not going to happen, Suze, see that? I'm not falling for your little tricks and obviously there is SOMETHING YOU ARE NOT TELLING ME

I'll wait, though. I'll wait and wait and wait and wait because that's all I can do because even though I've read I still don't understand and I have to understand

why you would do

this to me

.....to us.

Hayden

Sie alle wollten mich auf meine Arbeit Englisch

Aber scheiß drauf.

Wenn wir gehen, um in einem Wald mit einem Serienmörder zu sein, als werde ich nicht meine zeit verbringen sprechen in einer launguage ich kaum verstehen.

Adelheid. Deutsch Austauschschüler.

Die Vergangenheit folgt Ihnen.

Immer.

Double teaming

Because someone in this camp has to get everyone back on track, and it sure as hell won't be anyone else who does it.

Richard Battle here. Walter has already gotten some people back to work, but we still have one big problem.

In everyone's shock and grief, they seem to forget we're STILL HERE, in the FUCKING FOREST where it's REALLY EASY to KILL US.

You know.

Just saying.

Walter, who would normally wouldn't raise a hand to swat off a mosquito, managed to slap some sense into Victor. Victor, who nearly got into [REDACTED] on an athletic scholarship and is built like a fridge with a Chia pet on top. If you haven't gathered, Walter is about as built as a washboard.

Yet he had Victor on the ground, terrified.

Go Philosodude. Whatever floats your motherfucking boat, because today, I had to deal with the Lyle issue. Here's the lowdown; while most of us have stolen a few hours of sleep, he hasn't had any. In what looks like days, before, well...

you know.

And I...well.... I walked into camp after some scouting and Walter and I made some food, and handed it out. As per usual now, everyone ate in silence. And then I realized Suze wasn't there.

Now let's get something straight. Zach and I were pretty close, so Suze and I know each other well enough. And I'm pretty sure if I let his girlfriend get killed, well, he wouldn't be too happy with me.

So of course, I ask where she is, and then that little black haired fucker started to laugh. "Wandered off. If she's not going to be savvy enough to-" He was cut off then by me tackling him to the ground.

"What the hell, Lyle?" I was furious, 'course everyone was staring by now. "Does the saying 'keep everyone alive' mean anything to you, you fucking piece of shit?"

At this point it was when I noticed how bad he looked; bags under eyes, heavy lids, maniac grin that was faltering. Someone had to wake this kid up. He managed to pick himself up and started to brush himself off, and suddenly his hand flew instinctively to his face. A thin trail of blood ran down the ridge of his nose and I held up my butterfly knife (Illegal in over 5 provinces!).

"Zach was a hundred times the fighter I was, and I could've killed you easily right there. Now go get some sleep or else the fucking psycho won't get the fucking chance, y'hear me?" I gritted my teeth as I watched his face slowly fall as he realized I was right and Walter gently took him to a tent.

The rest of the students watched me, like they were hypnotized or something like that shit. "And YOU! Does having a serial killer stalk you take points off your FUCKING IQ?!? WHAT THE HELL IS WITH YOU ALL?!? GET IT TOGETHER!!!" And they all started to move, by god, albeit away from me.

...I didn't look behind me, did I?

At least camp is up and running again.

Suze turned out to be in her tent, but I'm almost glad that this happened, because I was talking to Walter later and he looked at me and asked

"Why?"

"Because they need something to hate, Walter. They need something with a name and a face that they can see and asses and plot against. Right now we've just got bodies and a whole lot of being afraid. So they hate me. So they think I'm...." I didn't even finish that thought. "It's alright. Because everyone who's dead would've wanted me to keep 'em alive, no matter what it took." And Walter just sort of looked at me for a while, but he really didn't have to say anything.

So that's what's going on right now. And I guess that's my introduction too, ohhh boy. I'm just making a great impression, aren't I? Fucking awesome. I'll do what I have to but I probably won't like it.

Maybe someone else'll post later, I don't know. I'm going to go stand watch (not that we ever see anything through this fucking forest).

Fight 'till the end,

Richard Battle

There's a whisper in the forest....

...and it's not the cool breeze we're all accostomed to feeling. Zach once mentioned uncontrollable shaking. I think we all know what he meant.


Because we've all been keeping secrets, haven't we?


Greetings. After seeing Lyle's spectacular... moment last night, I figured that at least one person has to post and let anyone reading this that rationality does exisit within the camp, it's simply scarce and an incredible rarity. Many of my fellow students have not moved since last night; they stare into where the fire burned and has now gone out.





Something has to be done about that. Excuse me for a second.








...Alright. At least they're tending the camp again. As harsh my methods, they remember that they're alive again. Once a human loses the will to live, are they truly a person anymore? Sure, they're human; but what consitutes a person in the first place? At one time, the general view was that souls (of which there was an assumed existance) was our substance, what made us, well, us. Though some still share this theory, I consider it... outdated. Our bodies our complex biological systems and some metaphysical object is, quite frankly, a cop out. Does that mean that the soul itself is the person, is the body and soul one unit, or is the soul simply something that is non-tangible? Difficult to say.

Then let us move on. The question of personal identity, which was first raised by Locke and later expanded on by Leibniz, seems fully trival in comparison to our whole soul issue. Consider this; if one takes, for example, a pencil and puts it behind their back, is it not the same pencil that you placed there? Argue as you will; the pencil is the pencil, no matter how many woodchucks have gotten to it. It's not that straightforward, is it?

It may be.

Yet we grow. We are not the "same" as we are when we are simple children. We grow and change. Does our status of personhood change as well? If a ship sails with a whole store of replacement parts, a replacement for every part on the ship, and over 100 days, you systematically replace every part, is it the same ship that you left on? We are the same; our cells are die and are replaced. Your blood cell that lived with you through your first kiss is long dead.

So who are we? What are we?

If I may.

Souls are foolish. They're intangible and invisible, but what if we considered the soul as, rather, memory? Rather, it is our experiences that shape who we are.

Those who have lost the will to live are throwing everything that makes you what you are. You give up your personhood the moment you give up.

I'm not going to let that happen.

Walter, philosopher, survivalist. Now, if you excuse me, I have to go talk some sense into the walking dead.

There seem to be a lot of people like that around here....

Things are going downhill fast.

Zach's dead.
Nothing like plainly stating the obvious to get a point across.

Now there’s no reason for you to believe me, is there? No reason for you to stop and wait and look and actually give a flying fuck about what’s happening, but Suze is in shock and everyone else isn’t in the mood to update this thing. In the meantime, the blog is going haywire, all out technology is fizzing out, and Bri is sitting here on her admin account, deperately trying to sort everything out.


It started early in the morning. We hadn't seen some people in twelve hours, but figured they were drunk or high or passed out in some ditch or worse. And to be honest? We didn’t really care. Hayden insisted we search for them until Zach and I set out to find some answers.


Well, we found them alright.


[REDACTED]


And Zach just... fell over, like he had passed out. There was a ten inch boxcutter sticking out of his back.


People started to scream then. Some still haven't stopped, and I’m left here debating whether I should go try to collect Zach’s body.


God, if they could just shut up.


Zach is dead. We know this. But here’s the thing; he was the strongest and best suited out of all of us. He JUST came out of the army and was no weakling. Played videogames like a modern Adonis and could break your fingers by accident.


Somehow, he was caught by surprise.


And I’m not going to just sit here and wait for other bodies to fall into my lap.


I’m Lyle.


Nice to meet you.


Hopefully I won’t be dead by tomorrow morning.