Part Twenty-Five (April 24, 1972)

I woke up, that morning, without any real desire to get out of bed. I had awoken, several times, in the middle of the night, and my heart was racing. I kept having this dream... Slender Man was chasing me through an empty town. Right when I thought that I was going to get away, I tripped, and he caught up to me. Suddenly, the nightmare switched to a third-person perspective, and I got the displeasure of watching the results. I was forced to lie there, stuck in my own dream, while the creature tore my entrails from the bizarre projection of my own body that had been formulated by my subconsciousness. The worst part was that, during this, my dream-self was fully awake, but too weak to scream, as the beast continued ripping open my chest. The best that I could manage was widening my eyes in an expression of pure panic. Then, right when Slender Man delivered the final blow, I woke up.

Every time that I awoke, I would get increasingly desperate to make it stop. I tried everything, from reading a book, to dunking my face in the bathroom sink, but it was to no avail. If that wasn't enough, when I finally gave up on forcing myself to stay awake, it happened again. Whenever I closed my eyes,  the dream would begin anew.  Eventually, I had to tie myself to my bed, with sheets, to keep my fits of terror from causing my to fall off.

In the morning, I got Charlie to untie me. He looked confused, but he asked no questions. He couldn't really understand what was happening to me, but he did his best to help me. Anyway, when that was done, I immediately called Tommy. I didn't even wait until I was dressed. I just walked over to the phone, in my underwear, and dialed the number. Admittedly, I could've done it later, but I figured that updating him on the latest happenings would give me a degree of catharsis. It did not.

After informing Tommy, I told him that we'd probably come to see him in about a week, provided that he felt up to it. He agreed, finding that to be reasonable. With that, I said, "Goodbye," hung up, took a quick shower, and put on some clothes.

Understandably, I did not want to go to school. Of course, my parents didn't understand my crippling depression, so I still had to attend. As far as they were concerned, I was just being "difficult". It's not as if I had much room to protest, though. It would be extremely difficult to explain any of this to them.