Sickend

I am sorry for the lack of updates since the 6th...I've been so sick since then. I find it almost impossible to leave my bed most of the day, let alone stand to walk and update the blog. It is a miracle that I am able to post this today. Nothing new has occured...Alice remains the same. She refuses to speak to me, even as I lie here in pain. Robbie is worried for me, sometimes he is even frightened of me, it seems. He says I don't look right, even though he wants to help me, I know he is just afraid of me. Whatever this sickness is...the effort it takes to walk sends the room spiraling. More than once I have glanced at a window or mirror only to think I saw a figure there. There's nothing there, nothing ever is. I feel so weak, so heavy...I want to ask if Robbie has seen this figure too.
We all know who he is, and if Alice is allowed to tell Andreas, why can't I tell Robbie? Only I doubt his mind will be able to handle it. I haven't seen any of his puppets lately, maybe he thinks I'm not well enough to see them. I worry for him. I don't want him sucked up into this. Whatever 'this' is. This sickness, this paranoia, these Schizophrenic rumors and whispers. Nothing of it makes any sense to me, does anyone make sense of it?
I just want to sleep now, the light from the computer hurts my eyes.

Wiped Away

The things I discovered in Pennsylvania had opened more answers than questions. Robbie and I arrived in Pennsylvania late Monday, and headed to the area of town on Tuesday. Everything was gone; the houses were obliterated. They were crushed to tiny pieces, some of them even showed signs of being on fire. There was no one around, no one with Robbie and myself, no survivors. The whole community was exterminated by this storm. I wanted to find my relatives' bodies, but Robbie wouldn't let me. He insisted that everything was okay, and that we should go back home. I should have known better than to bring him, he's not used to such tragedies and perhaps seeing everything traumatized him. Maybe he was even sent into a state of shock, I was unable to convince him to look further into what had happened. I don't know if any other surrounding areas were affected, or if there were any survivors. I don't know what happened to anyone, and the more I try to search up the storm, the less information there is to be found.

Therefore, I have come to a conclusion, upon my return home, that everyone seems to be in denial; they are ignoring that this neighborhood was wiped off the face of the earth by some force. Even Robbie may be lying, maybe they all cannot accept the loss of so many lives from an extraordinary source. Or, it could be much worse. They could all be slowly turning against me, lying to me on purpose. I shouldn't jump to such conclusions, there is no reason for Robbie to turn against me. There couldn't be...even though I once believed the same with Alice. Maybe there is no one I can trust.

Response

I received an e-mail from Alice today, the first one in months. I was hoping maybe her e-mail would be something important, as it was titled 'Answer'. The only answer I got, however, was this image;

The text next to the fish is a poem. When I held it up to a mirror, it read as:
'Silly little miss Mary,
Took a load she can't carry
Up, up the crooked, uncanny hill,
Tumbling down, down-would not,
could not be still!
Into the forest she swirled,
Over a stone, down, down a steep slope,
over a thing of steel-
Right into the water, she hurled!
Oh, no fish to reel!'

It seems to be about me, obviously. I do not know what it means really, although it is some sort of..warning. I do not understand the significance of the fish, of what it means..and that symbol. I know I have seen that symbol before, both in things I have posted, and in things Alice has posted. I don't know what Alice is trying to tell me except that it can't be very good. Perhaps she continues to relate this somehow to that Slenderman, and part of me wishes to believe her.

Recovery

The past few days I have been trying to recover from..from whatever it was that occurred last week. I was able to have the burns treated at the hospital even though I could provide no reason as to how they occurred. The doctors had no idea either; they could not speculate on what caused the burns, and I refused to let them involve the police. Nothing they had done in the past was of any help, and I doubt even with their support would anything be discovered. I have made a good enough recovery in order to walk, but my legs still shake and collapse occasionally. As for what I saw in my..vision, shall I call it-I can make no comment. It is obvious what happened to Brian happened to the children, but otherwise..I am lost.

I can only guess that the number five had something to do with the fifth building, but what the importance of the number was I am unsure. I cannot think of the experience as doing so only reminds me of the horrible images of the children, and a feeling of dread spreads over me. It will be impossible to forget the things I saw-it causes me so much pain to think back on it. Robbie has been trying to keep me calm, and to soothe the remnants of the pain in my legs. I am thankful I can at least talk to him, if Alice refuses to speak.

Understanding Alice

I am growing more and more worried about Alice every day. Anyone who has been reading her entries can see it; her psychotic states are growing worse and worse. With only being able to contact her through the internet, there is so little I can do. She avoids my e-mails, which are the only way I can try to follow her moods. I don't know what is triggering her psychotic episodes, or why they are occurring so often and so violently. Sometimes they can be triggered by mood; usually you simply do not hallucination continually. But with her entries growing worse and worse, I fear her schizophrenia will simply start to destroy her in other ways. The disorder can lead to many other disorders, and without help she could lose touch with everyone and everything around her.

The fact she has kept a job and kept up with the activities with the bird club are a miracle, but I doubt they will last. I hope if she can't trust me, she will be able to trust someone-such as Andreas. I don't know what else I can do then sit and wait, and hope that maybe she will learn to understand that I am trying to help her. I know it can become hard for her to understand things, and the longer she goes untreated the worse it will become. She won't be able to make decisions or even make use of the information given to her. I know she used to take medication, but it doesn't seem to be helping her anymore. I don't even know if she still tries to take it, or if she has decided to go untreated.

Her ways are also becoming much more confusing and disorganized. The videos she has posted, and the hidden picture are examples of this. I suspect they were supposed to be messages for me. Messages that I can't understand because I don't know where her head is. I fear she will begin to believe the delusion of that man. That Slender Man, Tall Man, or the Tailor-whatever she chooses to call him. I fear she may be trying to prove his existence, and her disorder only helps to prove it. She has already had enough of an effect on me with the number five. I have been trying to see any and all relations with the number five and my life; nothing fits. The number five has nothing to do with me directly, and yet I cannot think of anything but the number. Robbie has been trying to keep my mind off of it, he has been trying to keep me away from Alice so that I do not worry about her. But I do worry; I wish to understand what she is trying to tell me. I wish to know what is going on so that I can help her and get her to talk to me once more. If understanding what the five has to do is the key to that, then I must stop at nothing in order to figure it out.

Of Happiness

I am sorry for the lack of updates recently, but with Robbie's sickness and the other occurrences going on I have been distracted. I am happy to report that Robbie is back to normal, and with him in good health I will be able to try and focus on everything else. Nothing has come up yet about the children who went missing at the Daycare, which only unsettles me.
Alice has also remained silent to any of my inquiries on how she has been feeling and if she has been getting along alright. I am worried for her. Even worse, since finding out the hidden picture in the picture she posted, I have been unable to get the number five out of my head. What it means and what its significance is I do not know. Nothing that comes to my mind makes any sense. It is almost as if Alice is toying with me.
On a much lighter note however, I saw a bird today. The first bird I've seen since the owl attack, and it was a welcome sight. It was too far away for me to identify what sort of bird it was, but it fills me with such joy to see the return of the birds to this area. It's much more tranquil and calm with the feathered flocks flying about.

The Answer

I was recently e-mailed by someone, informing me what exactly Alice's entry 'Look Inside' meant. I was told to do one of the following;
1. Save the picture without changing its format.
2. Extract it using a program like Winrar; there is another picture hidden within the original.
---
1. Save the picture without changing format.
2. Right click > Open with > Choose default program.
3. Select Winrar, and open the image.

The result you get is this..disturbing image.

It is a picture of a man I've seen before. Alice has described him many, many times. On his shoulder is a bird, but what really caught my attention was the number in the corner. The number 5, it seems familiar to me, like a dream I cannot quite remember.

Translation

I was able to find someone to translate Alice's discovery, and it is much more clear than the Google version. Sadly, with it translated, I only fear for Alice's psyche more. The text of the entry is disturbing enough on its own, and I know it could not have helped Alice at all to have found it.



[...] if there had been something then they would not have returned, so it was just an illusion, a phantom which their worn out heads, their poor minds, had created. Why then is it, that mine and their days are so long, so filled with fear, this because of something that does not exist?
But I feel compelled to write this down, for there are signs that He truly exists. I admit this only because we, me and the men, have had similar dreams – all unique, apart from a few details, these details that makes us walk around on edge. He has a white, empty face, completely without eyes or mouth or nose. Several meters tall. More than two. Three, four, five… sometimes ten. Sometimes with more than two arms, sometimes with what one of the men describes as “tentacles”. He always wears black clothes. But even beyond the dreams He has appeared.
To me He came with a black cylinder on his bald head. I walked on the path on my way to the village after having been on a short walk, and there He stood on the top of the hill. Even if His face were naked, I could make out that He was looking out over the forest. He had noticed me, but it took a while before He would give me a look (I have just described how He doesn’t have any eyes, but how else am I supposed to describe it…?), and when He finally did it I had enough time to wish that He had continued to stare out over the forest as I fell backwards while the world grew dark. All the while I heard a ringing in my ear.
Soon enough I awoke in my home. My uncle had come walking down the road – I never asked him if he had seen the same man on the hill, he does not know anything about this, and I will keep him and as many others as possible away from this – when he saw me lie unconscious on the gravel. He said that he had inspected me, to make sure that I hadn’t been hurt, but according to him I was as fit as a fiddle. I gave him a bad excuse, said that I had worked too much recently, and he bought it.
But not everyone have the same luck as I. One of us have lost his life, two are gone. Before they disappeared, Erik began to slowly loose his ability to write and instead began to write down codes, and above all else he preferred to communicate through Morse code. He wrote down the codes or knocked in whatever he had to knock on. I still remember what he said one day when I sat in the outhouse. “The trees are coming, the trees are coming, trees, trees, they are coming, trees are coming.” He kept on like this for several minutes, and I had to hurry up in order to stop him from hitting the wall and bloodying his fist.
Karl tells me that the codes are the only way in which they can communicate in. I wondered why, and he said that they had gone mad. I understand that, we all understand that.
Yet I am confused.

Concerning Alice

Alice's behavior is becoming increasingly alarming these last few days. As her posts have been showing, she has lapsed into talking only in third person, and I would like to note that she always stays in third person. Most of our contact is through e-mail, and even though she understands everything I write to her, she insists on staying in third person. This makes conversing with her increasingly difficult, as well as making sure she is not falling into any other harms. A first person account of something being wrong is a lot easier to understand than a vague retelling in third. I'm becoming very concerned, as staying in third person isn't healthy nor easy to maintain.

If Alice was joking, she would have made a slip up long ago, but instead she's locked in this way of talking. I have never heard of Schizophrenia causing this to happen, let alone many other mental illnesses in general. Something is wrong and I'm unable to come up with an answer in order to help my friend. Looking over both my posts and Alice's, I know very well I'm partly to blame for driving her into this madness. I know she understands what I'm writing here, so I'll say it; I'm sorry I acted like I did. Being unable to be in any closer contact with her other than through the internet makes it extremely hard for me to moderate what exactly is going on with her. The best I can do is wait and hope, but it is hard to wait and watch for any improvement.

Contemplation

I have been so very troubled, looking over the last month's posts-I mean both Alice's posts and my own-and the drastic change occurred that I just..don't understand. My posts are full of hostility, and anger, while Alice's Schizophrenia becomes more and more severe. I don't know what caused my anger, even when I think back through the month, nothing about me was different. I had no headaches, no other injury other than the owls attacking me. The only parts I have no memory on are the two weeks I was searching for Roc. I remember walking through the forest, I remember hearing the birds and other normal sounds, but how could I have been wandering in a forest for two weeks? It is impossible. Robbie tells me about how he worried he was when I was missing, so I know I could not have come home without knowing. If something had happened to me, I would have remembered. The human brain simply doesn't just forget things, especially traumatic things, unless some injury occurs. No scars were on me after I arrived home, nothing until the owl attack. If I did suffer from some sort of amnesia, what could have caused it? Memory doesn't just blank out, and it's concerning me that something in my own head has gone awry. My personality change only supports this, and no doubt it has had a negative effect on Alice. I'm just as confused as she is, simply without the severity of her disorder. I'll have to spend more time looking into what could have possibly caused this, maybe by doing so I'll be able to help both myself and Alice.

Psychopathy

Since meeting Alice, I have been focusing mainly on Schizophrenia and other Psychotic Disorders. Recently though, I've humored myself with looking up various other disorders. I found out another disorder may be a possibility in her condition-Psychopathy.

Before I go much further, I would like to point out that none of this is definitive. I can't conduct, nor prove anything about anyone's condition without being there in person-and certainly not without more education in the subject. Worth mentioning also, is that Psychopathy is often used or confused with Antisocial Personality Disorder, but the two are not exactly the same. I will be focusing only on the symptoms, and comparing them with Alice's personality.

Need of Stimulation/Prone to Boredom- Perhaps not totally true, but hasn't she written in the past how boring and dull everything is?
Shallow Emotional Response- Not responding or interpreting the emotions around her easily.
Manipulative- That 'joke' with the bird skeleton; trying to act like the skeleton was that of Roc. Manipulating the thoughts and emotions of myself.
Parasitic Lifestyle- Her inability, almost, to survive during the few days I was gone. To feed off my support.
Lack of Long Term Goals- I do not think Alice has any goals in mind.
Poor Behavioral Controls- As seen in some of her journal entries.
Lack of Empathy- Again illustrated with the bird skeleton, but also with her reaction to me losing my job.
Impulsive- I believe she thinks or acts without much, if any, planning.
Failure to Accept Responsibility for Own Actions- Perhaps not totally true, but she has not accepted or asked for forgiveness of all of her actions.

Not all of Alice's doings and reactions are psychopathic, and many other of the symptoms of psychopathy do not fit Alice exactly. I do not say she is just a psychopath, but I must point out the possibility she may be both schizophrenic and psychopathic. The correlation is not accepted as common, but that does not mean it can't exist.

I'm Happy They Took You Away

Remember when I ran away
And you got on your knees and begged me
Not to leave because you'd go berserk? Well...
You thought you had me fooled
But I just left you anyhow, because
I knew you were already out of your mind! And...

I'm happy they took you away, ha ha
I'm happy they took you away, ho ho, hee hee, ha ha
To the funny farm
Where life's hysterical all the time
And you'll be sorry I sent those nice, young
Men in their clean, white coats
And I'm happy they took you away, HA-HAAA!

I thought that you were nuts and so I laughed
I laughed when you had said
That losing me would make you flip your lid. Right?
It's true, I laughed, you heared me laugh
I laughed, I laughed and laughed
And then I left, because I know you're utterly mad! And...

I'm happy they took you away, ha ha
I'm happy they took you away, ho ho, hee hee, ha ha
To the happy home
With tree and flowers and chirping birds
And basket weavers who sit and smile
And twiddle their thumbs and toes
And I'm happy they took you away, HA-HAAA!

You burned my food, you wrecked my house
And this is how I've paid you back
For all your cruel, unloving selfish deeds! Nyeh!
They've got you now and you'll get just
What you deserve for calling me a mutt,
You mangy man!
And...

I'm happy they took you away, ha ha
I'm happy they took you away, ho ho, hee hee, ha ha
To the funny farm
Where life's hysterical all the time
And you'll be sorry I sent those nice, young men
In their clean, white coats
And I'm happy they took you away, HA-HAAA!

To the happy home
With trees and flowers and chirping birds
And basket weavers who sit and smile
And twiddle their thumbs and toes
And I'm happy they took you away, HA-HAAA!

To the funny farm
Where life's hysterical all the time
And you'll be sorry I sent those nice, young men
In their clean white coats
And I'm happy they took you away, HA-HAAA!

Back to Work

I started going back to work yesterday, and before I left today I decided that it would be best to let you all know. Robbie has been coming with me to work, mainly to volunteer and keep me company. Also, Alice and I have been talking about the occurrences of Brian's Card and her picture appearing. I'm still not taking any of it well, but...I'm getting better. We can't think of a logical explanation, and it just unsettles me that someone, somehow is trying to drag Alice into this..

.....

...I checked the newspaper today. There was an article about Brian in it, he's been kidnapped. His house was ransacked, papers, books, and other things were thrown everywhere but only Brian is missing. No doors were unlocked and no windows were broken, and his family say they didn't hear anything. He was making so much progress..and now he's gone. Just..just gone.

The police found only two odd things at the crime scene. Things that were added amongst the books and papers. One was a pair of twelve inch..tailor scissors, the blades doused in blood. Then..then there was this picture that was posted in the paper. I can't..say anything about it.
I don't understand..