Back again

I slept all day. Mom and Ted were at work, and didn't know. And then I get back on the blogs tonight and just...everything is going to hell for everyone, still, and I kind of started crying when I read Alora's post because...well, what else can I say?

I'm scared to go back to Tucson on Sunday. I got a call from Officer Clinton today, asking if I can come in when I get back to give an account of what happened with Daniel, who is apparently still in the hospital and not improving. They want to know if I'll testify against him when he gets better. I told them I will, but honestly I'm not sure what'll have happened by the time he goes to court...I could be dead by then, or worse...

I'm sorry, I'll stop being so fatalistic. It's not helping at all, is it?

I know this is so small, but..stay safe, and good luck.

Ugh

The monster is back...it was outside my window all night. My bedroom at my parents' house is on the second floor. I think it's taller for me than for most people. It was bending down to look at me.
I should be scared but...well, no, I am scared. Fucking terrified. But it's buried under a thick layer of sleep deprivation. And I took an ativan around midnight and another one a few minutes ago so that's probably dampening it a bit too.
I'm exhausted from trying not to make noise. I can't let my mom and Ted know what;s going on. I can't live with that happening.
It finally went away, and as soon as it did I started writing this...it was like a vampire, gone with the morning light. If I hand't seen it in daylight I'd say that's what it was. But I don't know why it went away. I don't really caer either way.
Things are bad for people right now. I'm not sure why, what's changing...but things are bad. Awful. And I don't know how to help when I'm thousands, millions of miles away and I have to keep watch on my window.

Stared at the screen for 5 minutes trying to think of something else to say...I can't. I'm exhausted. I've been awake for 24 hours and I've been running on adrenaline, in a state of terror, for at least 9...I literally had to count on my fingers to figure out how long it's been since the monster first showed up.
Look, just...just don't die, any more of you, if you can possibly help it don't die because it hurts and I can't do this and I just really, really want you all to be saffe...there was something else but I'm forgetting. I'll tell you later. I'm going to shut my blinds and sleep.

Home

I'm sitting in my room right now while Mom and Ted watch tv downstairs. Mom started crying when I walked in the door- I've never been so happy to see her in my whole life- it was horrible to see her cry though. Aunt Caroline came over too, she distracted me with all this funny gossip about her co-workers. I'm so fucking grateful for my family. I spent three hours on the phone with Andrew last night, and he says he'll come visit me the next chance he gets. So I'm sort of happy right now- I feel safe, I feel loved. But there's always going to be that extra thing now, that worm at the core of the apple...


I'm going to be in Flagstaff for the next week. At this point school is the least of my worries. I've got a leave of absence and I might be able to get a medical withdrawal or something...it'll mean pushing back my graduation date yet again, but honestly there's no way I can concentrate on school with all of this happening, and if I can get a withdrawal I'm going to take it.

I'll keep you posted if anything happens. I'm really hoping nothing does.

The bruises are already fading

...but I still can't talk properly. I told my mom what was going on yesterday and started crying on the phone...I'm going up to Flagstaff on friday, and I'll probably be staying there for a few days.

Here are the scans, though:

Nothing unexpected, I suppose. Not sure why I bother posting them at all. My mom says that the first two are from when I was about seven, the last from when I was eight. They were in boxes with some of my school stuff. She sent me a little note with the pictures, this is what it says:

(after some general how-are-you stuff) Knowing you, you'll want to know the whole story behind all of these pictures. I can't promise I remember it right, but I think Mr. Moon was a tall man in a suit, and his face was the moon. You said that was why he was so tall, so he could keep his head in the sky at night. Apparently he had a lot of arms so he could hold up the stars. Very creative, Al. I should have known you'd be a writer. I seem to remember you playing a lot of hide and seek with Mr. Moon, especially in the forest. You used to scare Caroline and I half to death playing back there- you'd disappear for hours on end, and we'd have to go out there and bring you home almost every night. That was why we started having Grandma Alice give you painting lessons, remember? We wanted to keep you in sight. Thank God Andrew never went wandering around in the woods, or we would've lost one of you.

I'm relieved at least that Andrew never saw it...I'm sure Mom or Aunt Caroline would say something if we'd had the same "imaginary friend".

And, the last part of this: Officer Clinton (the officer I've been talking to most about what happened with Jill, remember?) called last night. He asked if I was okay, which was nice of him, and told me I won't have to testify against Daniel for a while. Apparently Daniel's very ill, no one's sure what from, but it's similar to what would happen if he were exposed to high doses of radiation, only much faster acting. He's in ICU or whatever the secure version of that is...I don't know how to feel about it right now. Mostly I'm just glad he can't come get me.

Trying to remember what happened when I was a kid is off the table for now. It'll stay off the table unless things get desperate. And that's all I've got to say for now.

still here

Sorry about the ending of the last post...I was, um, obviously very upset. Still am. But I'm calmer now. It's amazing what some good sleep and an ativan will do for my peace of mind (not much, as it turns out, but enough).

Scott, thanks. You're a sweetheart...your comment made me tear up a little, but in a good way if that makes any sense. It's weird how much I'm depending on these comments to keep going...

I forgot to tag the last post, I've fixed it now. And I'm not going to school today, obviously. I don't know what I'm going to do about my GPA this semester, and then I look at the bruises on my arms and legs and wonder why the hell I'm worried about my GPA anyway.

Caught up on the blogs though, and what the hell is happening at White Elephants, I don't understand any of it. Maybe I'm not important enough for redlight or redlights or whatever the hell. Look I'm glad. I think I'm a terrible person for this but sometimes I feel like half these blogs that I follow like they're reeal are just stories...it's impossible to know, isn't it? I wish I could be like some of them though. So sure that what they're doing is right. I'm so lost all the time, I can't figure out these puzzles, and I'm so fucking fucked up that I feel guilty for wishing Daniel ill even though he tried to kill me. But for God's sake, I'm a pacifist, I don't want anyone to die, not really, but the thought of him makes me so angry and afraid...I always thought that I'd be one of those people who forgives. Jess gets angry and gets even, she's tough, if someone tried to hurt her she'd hurt them right back. Kevin would get revenge, but not for himself- only if someone he loved were hurt. Jill would have protected me. She spent all that time trying to protect me and I ran full speed ahead past her barricades...I never said I'd be good at this.

This entry is useless. I'll scan the pictures later, tell you what happens with Daniel and the police later, do everything else later too I suppose. For now I'm just going to go back to sleep.

Daniel

Daniel, my stalker, broke into my house today.
I'd left the back door unlocked through sheer idiocy, and thank God it squeals loudly when you open it because I was asleep, and if I hadn't heard...I don't want to think about it.
I rolled out of bed, my nerves were all jangling and my heart was beating so fast- my baseball bat was in the living room by the front door, and I had to look around my room for a weapon- I grabbed my phone and called the police, and all the time I could hear something crashing around in the kitchen. I had my back to the door, trying to brace myself in case he tried to get into my room, and I was trying to be quiet but I was also trying to tell the police where I was while hyperventilating and it was so, so hard not to scream...and then the door started moving because he was trying to get in and I did scream. A lot.

I felt like I held that door for an eternity, and then all of a sudden my leg gave out and he was in my fucking room, and you know how I make fun of him sometimes? How I call him a bad stalker and say it's sometimes hard to remember he's supposed to be scary? Not anymore. He came in like a storm or something- threw me back against my bed and knocked the wind out of me. My phone was knocked out of my hand, I remember being able to hear the operator asking if I was still there but all I could do was watch while he took that one extra step he needed to get in, and reached out and grabbed my throat.
He grabbed me and pushed me up onto my bed and I was trying to scream, trying to fight...I thought he was weak but I was so wrong. He was snarling and spitting like a wild animal, his face was riddled with sores and boils and his teeth were bared. His eyes were so blue. He had one hand pushing down on my throat and the other held down my arm and I kept kicking and kicking and his grip didn't loosen atall, just kept pushing me down onto myu bed and me fighting for air and seeing something dark, dark, dark and tall and slender rising up behind him as I blacked out...
The police pulled him off of me. They told me later that they'd arrived about 7 minutes after I'd called, and that if they'd been much later I'd probably be dead. I don't remember them pulling him away, or clubbing him in the back of the head, or making sure that I was alright. I couldn't see- everything was vague and fuzzy and full of pain, and I kept thinking that I wanted to go to sleep but my eyes kept returning to my doorway where I saw the monster rising behind him, ready to finish me off. I had to struggle to breathe. Then finally my breath came back and I could see and hear again and there was no monster, just three police officers and my open door and Daniel lying face-down on my carpet, with his fucking fedora next to him.
You know why he was wearing that fedora? His hair was missing. In clumps. Like he had radiation sickness. And when the police picked him up and dragged him away, he was still unconcious but he vomited all over his shirt without waking up. There was blood in it.

I got back from the hospital an hour ago. I haven't told anyone except Jess, who gave me a ride home. She wanted to stay but I told her that Daniel's in jail, so I'm safe. Ha.
I've got bruises all over my body- there's an ugly ring around my throat where he tried to choke me, and I can barely talk. I ache all over. I can't eat because every time I do, I throw up. I'm sitting on my bed, the same place where he tried to kill me this morning, the same

No, no, no, no, we're not doing this again. This entry...shit. I ve been trying to write it isnce I got home and I've started crying twice and had to run to the bathroom to puke again and I'm fucking done.  I'm getting this down on paper. He's in jail now and he's not fucking getting out. I'm safe from him at least, and I've got my bat and my phone and I've tripple-checked all the doors and windows. I should count myself lucky. I survived, I'm going to be okay. It'll take some time to heal but I'm alive and...oh god I can't beleive it I thought he was going to rape me and he didn't and just knowing that didn't happen thank god thank god thank god I'm fucking crying jesus christ why is this happening I wish he were dead god forgive me I wish he were dead

Pictures

Kevin came over yesterday and we made dinner together. He didn't apologize for not talking to me. Neither of us brought it up. I kind of hate myself for letting this go so easily, but...anyway, it was nice to have a night where I didn't worry about anything, normal or paranormal. My headache even went away for a few hours. It was nice. We made pasta. Well, Kevin made pasta, because I can probably find a way to burn salad. I'm a pretty terrible cook.

On a more relevant note, I got the pictures. And they're basically exactly what I thought they'd be. I'll post scans later, all the electronics in my house have been on the fritz...I can't tell wether it's due to the monster or the fact that it's been raining for the past two days. Which, according to some sites/blogs/etc. is also connected to the monster...I don't know. I still haven't seen it, thank God.

Back to the pictures...yeah. It's definately the monster, and I definately drew them. I hate looking at them.

I'm still going to try and remember. I'm going to do it on the next sunny day. When it's nice out, not rainy and creepy, in the middle of the afternoon. Away from any windows, while clutching my baseball bat. Probably in my closet, actually.

I'm also probably going to live-blog it. Just edit the post every few minutes, as much as I can...I guess that's the closest I can get to not doing it alone.

Stupid

I can't believe I still care about stuff like this when I'm being stalked by a goddamn unbelieveable monster, but I do.
...this keeps dancing around the edges of my posts, so let's just get it all out now. I'm not over Kevin, I don't think I ever was, and he finally texted me yesterday. Just one word. "Hey".
And like a fucking idiot I pretend he never stopped talking to me. I send a happy text back to him with exclamation points galore, and he responds, and I respond, and for ten minutes it's like none of this ever happened. It all goes away.
And then it's right back again because after I finished inviting him over on saturday, my mom called and said she'd mailed the pictures.

I think...I think if the pictures are what I know they will be (and I am praying that I'm wrong), I'm going to try to remember. I googled "triggering repressed memories" and got a method called EMDR as a possibility...I think I'm going to try it with tapping in the background or something, and just sit in my house and think about the forests behind my old house in Flagstaff. I might try it drunk. I don't know.
This is a bad idea, and I know it. I should be doing this (if I do it at all) with a psychiatrist and a support system and by working up to it, rather than alone and in a bad frame of mind and with no safety net, but...I can't have a safety net. That would mean I'm infecting someone else (if they don't think I'm already crazy). I can't do that.

I don't know, guys. I think instead of getting used to the fear I just get more and more tired, my headaches just get worse and worse, I find it harder to get out of bed and check the internet to find out if anyone else is hurt, or dead, or worse.

I'll let you know when the drawings get here.

Memory games

I've been staring at this blinking cursor for almost 20 minutes. I have to actually do this now or I'll never get the courage to post.

I saw it again. Worse (and I thought there could be nothing worse), I heard...shit. I'll get into that later. Work up to it.
Let's start with what I never thought would be the easier thing to write- I saw the monster again yesterday. I was asleep on my couch and I woke up and saw it rising over the top of the duplex across from mine. This is what the view from my window looks like:

except imagine that instead of a poorly-captured sunset (I took this photo early last semester), it's a clear, mid-afternoon sky and there is a thin, faceless monster leaning over that roof. Its legs must have been almost as tall as the building. And it was LOOKING AT ME.

I screamed and stared...I couldn't look away for several minutes. I don't think I even blinked. And it stared back. I was sobbing so hard I could barely breathe but I couldn't look away. I kept whispering, "no, no, no, no" over and over, trying to remember the words to a prayer, a satori, a song, but there was nothing, just...just that thing. It was so goddamn tall. It could have almost been ridiculous. Like a god walking across the world, like a bone-thin colossus. It looked over the roof of the duplex across the courtyard at me for five minutes and it seemed like an eternity. Broad fucking daylight, this monster, this impossible thing just looking over an entire house to peer into a window...
Finally it disappeared- just vanished. No theatrical effects, no jump scares, not even a noise or a weird feeling in the air. It was there and then it was gone. I had a panic attack, which was suddenly made immensely worse when I finally looked down and saw blood on my shirt- I screamed again, thought...I don't even know what I thought. As it turns out my nose had started bleeding sometime while I was staring at the monster, but I was so scared that I didn't notice. This is what my shirt looks like now:

Stupidly, I was relieved that it was just some junky shirt left over from when I was an RA rather than one I like. Weird what we focus on, isn't it?

I've kept to my room since then. I tried to go to class today but I can't...I can't keep my life together and focus on this thing too. It just doesn't work. Even now, my head is aching so bad I can barely look at the screen, but I have to get this down.

OK now the other thing...this is hard. I'm so scared to write it down, because as long as it's still in my head and no one knows about it but me, I can deny it. But the moment I hit the right keys and those black words appear on the white screen, I'm not going to be able to hide from this anymore.

This morning I got a call from my mom. We were just talking, me pretending to be normal and not paying much attention until she said something about finding a bunch of old drawings in the garage that I did when I was a little kid. They were drawings of my imaginary friend.

I don't remember having an imaginary friend.

I asked what the drawings looked like, and she told me that mostly it was me in the open, and my friend hiding behind things. She said I used to tell her he was shy. I apparently used to call him Mr. Moon. When she told me those little details...look, I'm not an idiot. I'm genre savvy enough to know what those pictures will show.
I was afraid to ask any more, but I asked her to mail me the pictures. I told her I thought they might be cute. And now I'm sitting here on my couch terrified not only of what happened yesterday but what happened when I was a kid...that fucking thing might have been near me before, might have tried...and I still don't remember at all. That's the worst of it. I have these blanks in my mind from when I was a kid, and I know something bad is in there. I don't know whether I should try and find out what happened, or to just let it stay buried...when Jill and I talked about repressed memories so many months ago, we talked about how difficult it is for people with repressed memories to access them. No, that's not quite the right word- not difficult to do, but difficult to deal with. We don't repress happy memories. Our minds cover things up for our own protection, and once we open that box, we have to deal with what comes out of it.
The question is, do I try and remember what I lost as a little kid playing behind her mom's house in the woods, or do I keep myself in the dark?

I'm scared of being in the dark. But I'm even more scared of what happens if I turn on the light. And I have the feeling that if I don't flip that switch, someone else will.

Fishing

Still no sign of the thing.

I re-read Icthyological again this evening. I think the last time I read it I only skimmed it...my heart broke. I think I would have liked Elizabeth a lot if I'd met her. She was a lot like me. Jill would have liked her too. We might have been friends.
Elizabeth died on August 10th of last year. I started this blog only 9 days later. More nines. That used to be my favorite number, did you know? I used to count things out into groups of nine and it would give me this warm, safe feeling. And now I can't look at it without feeling sick.
What does it mean that I missed someone like Elizabeth? That we passed each other like cars on the freeway, not even looking over as we sped away? What does it mean that she was from the same place as Jill and she had OCD like me and she was funny and smart and brave? Why am I so upset about her death, when I never knew her?

This is narcissistic, isn't it. I'm so affected by this because she shares attributes with me, and with my dead freind. She makes it immediate, present, possible...and then there's the fact that she's so brave and she just...gives up. She's surviving and then all of a sudden she isn't. And that scares me, because I don't even see myself lasting as long as she did...

Fuck. I hate this. I've got this helplessness burning in my heart and I have to sit here while you all fight and get hurt and die, and die, and die. And it doesn't stop hurting. Even the people who died before I knew this was real. Especially those people. I just...I'm being repetitive, and it's late, and my anxiety meds have not been enough lately (golly gee I wonder why) and Kevin...fuck. I saw him on campus and he said hi but his voice was flat and he barely even looked at me. I can't believe how much this hurts. It's so fucking stupid that I care, right? Just so incredibly dumb. I didn't have the heart to get angry at him.

Elizabeth died nine days before my first blog. She didn't deserve it- none of us deserve it- but that thing killed her and Jill and Darby and so, so many others and...

I'm just hoping that this story doesn't go the way it usually goes.

Everything's ok at the moment (ha)

Jesus Christ, bloggers.
I wish...fuck. I wish Darby was still alive, let's start with that. He commented a few times here and he was...well, I'm not going to say I liked his methods, but he was a human and he was good to people, and now he's dead.
I'm glad Robert and Reach are alive though. Thank God. I only checked this once everything was over so I missed most of the anxiety.
As for the rest of you...I say this so often. I wish I could come up with something better than telling you to stay safe, be careful, keep up hope- it's all so impotent. I'd come riding in on a white horse to save every one of you if I could, but obviously I'm just one more scared kid in the woods. I don't even have a clue.

About the title of the blog- even though everything's fucked up for you guys, nothing's happened to me recently. No sign of the monster today, or yesterday. I slept a few hours at most both nights, and actually on Thursday night I had to sleep in my closet with the door closed because there are windows in every room of the house.

...that makes me sound like a crazy person. Great.

I've been forcing myself to get out of the house and go to class, which...well, frankly, I didn't think I had it in me. I was certain that if I ever saw it I'd be so traumatized I'd never leave the house- in fact, I kept having this vision of myself seeing it and just dying of fear on the spot. But I'm still here, somewhat sane (although I'm sure if any of my friends saw this they'd disagree) and I've left my house and gone to class and acted like nothing's wrong. It helps. It's not denial, just...avoiding unproductive paths of thinking. At least, I hope that's what it is, rather than me being in denial about being in denial...
Okay, enough of that. What else is there to say?

I saw Daniel yesterday, or at least I thought I did. Just someone with a fedora ducking around the side of the video rental place by my house...did I mention how stupid his fedora looks? It's almost enough to make me forget he's working for a thing that shouldn't exist, and probably wants to kill me...

I've sort of given up on the police making any progress on Jill's case. The handwriting analysis revealed only that H. wrote the "CLAIM HER" note as well. They have no idea who H. is. And I've been having these terrible headaches, and feeling like shit in general...I don't know. This is a worthless post. But I'm still writing it.

I'm scared all the time now. Writing (X) on my windows again, sleeping with my bat next to me, keeping the blinds in my bedroom closed at all costs. I keep having dreams that I can't remember, but I wake up shaking, certain that when I open my eyes that fucking thing will be staring right back. Stupid to say that something without eyes can stare, stupid to say something without a face can look at me. And then there's the headaches...there's nothing I can do to distract myself. I'm flailing around like an idiot, missing my friends and locking myself in my room and staring out the windows...it's all so confusing and I just want to sleep through the night.

I don't know how you guys deal with this. Literally every noise makes my heart stop, every movement is the monster, everything...God. How do you live like this? Does it ever get better? Do you get used to this fucking thing or does it just subside and then spring up again like it's doing now?
I am hoping against hope that it's the former. Because right now, I'm so scared that this is all there is, forever.

Never thought...

I saw it. Fuck, fuck, fucking hell I can't deny this anymore, there's not even that slight amount of hope that I'm just paranoid or I spend too much time on these blogs or that there's a real explanation for...I saw it. I was at the fucking grocery store this morning buying a bunch of shitty microwave food because I can't cook for shit and I was in the parking lot I picked up a jug of apple juice to put in my trunk and I saw it, I saw it, I saw it, I saw it oh my god and it was so so real. i feel dizzy. Something like that shouldn't be allowed to exist. I couldn't breathe, everything went white behind my eyes. It's real. Fucking real. It was across the parking lot by the entrance to the store. How the hell didn't people see it, a woman walked by close enough to touch its hand and I could see from across the asphalt that those fingers were so long, so long and grasping. Those strong twig fingers killed my friend.
I dropped the juice on my feet and the bottle broke. My pants smell like apples still and it makes me want to puke. It shouldn't be real, I shouldn't have seen it. Jesus Christ, God, oh God, where are You right now? How can You let these things exist?


This is later, not much though. I'm trying to keep it together but I'm shaiking so my typing might suck, sorry. Um. I saw it. Thats' where I get stuck. Come on, get past this. I saw it and then. And then. And then I dropped the juice and the bottle broke and I slammed the trunk and got into the car and locked the doors. It didn't move. It just tstared at me and I felt so so cold. I drove home faster than I've ever driven before and it's amazing I didn't crash and now I'm at home with all the doors locked and my stupid useless bat across my lap and every single light on even though it's broad daylight. I redrew the (X)s on the windows. Remember when I scrubbed them down? Ha, and now I'm jumping at every sound. Did it follow me home? Did it appear

No, no, no. We are not going down that fucking paranoid road. This is just like when I watch horror movies and get freaked out because I somehow convince myself that Michael Meyers is in my closet or something. With the obvious difference that Michael Meyers isn't real and this thing, God, this thing is real and solid and casting shadows in the albertsons parking lot. Just don't think about it for now ok? I'm okay. I'm okay. There's nothing behind me because I drew the symbols, I've got my bat, I've taken every precaution I can. I can't get up high because my house is only one story tall but I'm covering all my bases.

My heart feels like it's going to explode.

Isn't this nice.

I come on to post about finally making some headway on the picture translations, and find out someone's posted coded nonsense on my blog. Actually, not just mine- I checked, and s/he's posted the same coded nonsense on every single solstice story indexed on Scott's blog here.
I'm not going to repost it because it's on every solstice story, and frankly I don't care to waste the space.
I don't understand codes. It's taken me the better part of a week to translate a few words of Russian, so obviously I'm not the one to help work this thing out. Some of it looks a bit like an IP adress but I don't know...just thought I'd let you know, scarce, if you're reading this: You're sort of wasting your time with me. I'm not going to put any effort into understanding this. It probably doesn't pertain to me or to Jill, and I'm busy trying to live my life and figure out actually relevant information, so...

I probably already gave this person too much attention. Let us never speak of this again, unless by some astounding coincidence it becomes relevant.

I meant to talk about the picture. I've been doing trial and error tests to get a decent typed version of the text so that I can put it into google translator. This means I go to a website with a Russian alphabet, and then copy/paste letters from that into word, and hope that I'm getting the right letters. Of course once I get the right letters (maybe) I have to hope that Google gives me an accurate translation, so...let's just say this took me a while. For the most part it makes sense, though, so I think I got the translation right.
Here's the picture again, for reference:



 
Starting at the top, it (probably) says "HE wants to erase me" (can't tell what the crossed out thing says)
Next line: "Remember me"
then 208, and the three words apparently translate to "sunshine sunshine" (that seems wrong to me, though, because it's clearly three words turning into two)
The last word which is partially burned is "Miligan" which doesn't mean anything to me. I think part of it might have been burnt off, or I've messed up the translation somehow.
 
The first two sentences are easy to understand. Jill's even said them before. But the rest makes no sense to me...I googled "sunshine sunshine miligan" and got a bunch of random crap that doesn't have the slightest bearing on what's going on. Google also suggested "sunshine sunshine milligan" with two "L"s and that gave me a Florida HR manager named Sunshine Milligan. Somehow I doubt she's connected. I don't know. I wish I had some way to move forward on this, but everything I do seems to lead to a dead end. The police don't have any leads, and of course I don't know what I'm doing.

I tried to call Kevin on monday but he never picked up. And ever since then I've had this terrible headache and no amount of excedrin is helping. It hasn't been helping with the translation, but I've been working on the translation far too much so I can distract myself from worrying about all this shit with the monster, and if Kevin will ever talk to me again.

What a stupid little girl.

Here's my "findings"

Sorry for not posting for a while...I've been a bit busy and haven't had a chance to organize my thoughts til now.
I'm just going to do a bulleted entry to talk about what I've been researching/analyzing/looking into in general. On the personal front, I'm still doing ok, although Kevin and I haven't been speaking very much lately, and you know what? I'm going to not talk about that because it hurts to think about and I'm sure you're not interested in that part of my life.
In more relevent news, while the police haven't seen BSG- Daniel- neither have I, and I'd really like to keep it that way. Nor have I gotten any threatening mail or deliveries, and no sign of the monster either.

Okay. What I've been thinking about things in general:

• When he talked to me earlier, Daniel said "Remember my name." That's the same thing that Jill said in her phone call to her mother. And in another blog, Vivere Disce, Kim keeps saying "we gave him a name." So names are important, maybe? It sort of fits with my fear of saying the monster's name, which I still think is actually quite a stupid coping strategy.
• I'm starting to really understand why Jill wanted to cut down the tree in our courtyard. At night it sort of looks like it's reaching for you. The palm tree right outside my bedroom window isn't helping either...the fact that it's a vague shadow I can barely see through my blinds, for example, or the way the fronds look like tentacles when it's windy.

About the photo in this post (which sort of got passed over, in the blog and in my life)

• Like I said before, it's probably of somewhere in the southwest, I'm not sure where. I can see what looks like a highway at the edge of the photo, or at least some billboards and maybe a truck stop sign(?), which is circled with an arrow so it must be important. The plants and geography looks like southern Arizona, although I can't be sure. There aren't any real identifying features in the background of the photo. I can't identify the mountains in the background because the text runs over them.
• The most striking thing of course is that wooden thing, the crossbars or whatever they are, and I don't recall ever seeing that ever before. Also, I just noticed that Jill seems to have turned the crossbars into my name. Look next to them: there's a tiny "li" on the edge of the horizon. The crossbars form the A.
• I've been doing trial and error to get the Russian letters into a translation program, but it's taking forever and I'm not done yet. I'll keep working on it. I know OH is "HIM" and MEH(backwards R) is "me" I think, but that's all I've got.

About the letter, and this is the hardest part right now:

• The police have been checking it out but it don't have any leads so far. They're bringing in a handwriting analyst but don't have high hopes, or so says Officer Clinton, who is the person I've talked to most throughout this whole ordeal. It's sort of strange and a bit horrible that I know a few police officers so well now. He (Clinton) says that it's very difficult to get a handwriting match, and usually this sort of analysis is only useful in forgery cases. He says they'll probably be able to tie it to the note Jill's mom got (the one delivered with flowers that said "CLAIM HER" and the name of the Texas town, which no one will tell me), but beyond that it probably won't lead anywhere.
• The letter also didn't have any usable prints or DNA on it or the envelope.
• Here's my own limited analysis: I'm pretty much convinced that the person who killed Jill sent this letter to me, and I'm almost certain that H. is also the one who called Jill's mom.
• H. doesn't seem to know my name, and neither does Daniel (or at least, he's never said it). When Jill called her mom, she said "I never told him her name" and I think she was talking about me. How they got my email to reference it is still a mystery...I do have it public on this blog, but the odds that either of them has found this blog are astronomically high. Also if they'd found the blog, they'd be referring to me by my first name at least.
• The letter sounded like a prayer. "Lord" and "Him". Like H. thinks of the monster as God. At one point in the second paragraph she (I'm calling her she unless I get proof that she's not the caller) gets *this* close to quoting scripture.
• The worst thing about this letter, other than the bit about Jill...you know what I mean...the worst thing is the way H. writes. She talks to me as if I'm her friend or relative...like she knows me and likes me, and expects me to like her "lord" as well. And given what she's probably done, I am really, really not okay with this attitude.

One last thing: Daniel said something about "our friend in Marietta"...I'm assuming it's a place, so I googled it. There appears to be a Marietta, Georgia, a Marietta, Ohio, Maryetta, Oklahoma, and a restaurant named Marieta's in Santee, California. I'm not sure where to go from here, and I'm not even sure I heard him right, so...let's just call that a dead end until I can think of something better to do with it.

Thoughts? Observations? I am completely at sea.

Scans of the letter

First of all, I got a twitter so I can follow some of you guys. I'm not going to be posting on it often though because I...don't do that.

Anyway.
Sorry this took so long. I had to write out the transcript and it was...really hard to get through, as you'll see below. And then there's school, and the fact that I've been sleeping so much lately...I can't seem to get through the day without falling asleep, and I'm always tired. Before you start worrying about that being related to the monster, I can tell you with a reasonable degree of certainty that the sleeping, at least, is depression-related. I always get very tired when I'm not doing well emotionally. However, the near-constant headaches are something new and entirely unwelcome.


It's sort of amazing that I managed to hold onto the letter. I was running away from BSG- Daniel- without thinking about anything at all, just wanted to get the hell away from him and back into my home. But I guess I sort of instinctively had it in a pretty tight grip, because when I got home there it was, clenched in my hand. Sorry about the wrinkles.

This is the envelope:

And here's the actual letter:

In case you can't read it, here's a transcript. I think it's pretty accurate.

Dearest Shining, (don't ask me how she knows this, but I think that's a reference to my email)

I'm certain that the Lord will dispatch a competent servant to send this letter to you. You needen't fear, darling, because I do not know where you are, although I've heard such good things about you. Your friend Jill is just the sweetest thing, and seems quite devoted to you. She's told me so much about you the time you've spent together, although she has a strange aversion to saying your name. I did try to allow her to say goodbye, but she didn't manage to get you on the phone. I do hope you got the message.
I'm sure you're wondering why I'm writing to you. The truth is, I feel terrible about how things ended between you two girls. I hate to see a friendship end that way. I thought it might give you some comfort to know that she cared about you very much, and she was quite insistant that the Lord not find you. Although it shan't matter in the end, because He will find you, dear. He already has. I'm surprised He hasn't made Himself known to you yet, although it's best not to question the Lord. He works in mysterious ways.
Perhaps this will not calm you, but it is the truth: Jill died in agony but she died for for the Lord. He did not administer the beatings, but he performed the final rites, and I am proud to have done His work. Would you like to know how she resisted, how she tried to run before I cut her hamstrings with my gardening shears? How she tried to type messages until I broke her fingers one by one? How she called you, dear, and her mother, before I cut out her pretty tongue? She was not brave but she was determined. I admire that, in a way. It made my work so much more interesting.
There is one more piece of business to be dealt with, darling, before the Lord claims you. I would so enjoy the chance to spend the same time with you that I had with Jill, but unfortunately I am so far away, and the recent police activity here has limited my ability to travel. But I am honored by the Lord to have this opportunity to let you know: He is coming. He is already there. And you must give Him my regards when you next see him. Tell him that I am, as ever, His loyal servant.

I envy the bliss you will enjoy when you see the Lord.

Forever His,

H.

...There are literally no words. When I took it to the police, I lied and told them I didn't know what she meant by Lord and Shining. It was too complex. They wanted to take me into protective custody but I said no. I honestly think I'll be safer at home.

every time I look up at those words, that scan...I start crying. Oh Jill, poor, poor Jill. Why didn't I believe you?

No more ignoring him.

I saw BSG today, and he was on my street. Let's repeat that in case I didn't have the proper emphasis: HE WAS ON MY FUCKING STREET. Near my HOME.

 He was walking very quickly, as if he was trying not to be there when I got home, but my fiction class was canceled so I was home early. He's lost the scarf, probably because it's so warm now that he can't wear it and pass unnoticed, and he's got a lighter coat now (his old coat reached down to his knees, almost).
When I saw him I couldn't help gasping in surprise, and he turned around sharply and started running. I ran after him- it was automatic. I still can't believe I did it, that I ran after him instead of in the opposite direction. Apparently I can be very stupid sometimes.
BSG is very slow. He stopped a few feet after he started, doubled over and wheezing. I caught up to him easily.

"You shouldn't have seen me...HE's gonna kill me..." he said, in between ragged breaths. Every time I see him he looks worse- this time his face was dead white and his pale eyes looked sunk into their sockets. Is this normal for the servants? The, um, proxies, as most bloggers call them, or hallowed (I'm not clear on the distinction, sorry)? He looked like he had some kind of wasting sickness, and he had all these pimples and sores on his face- not like a plague victim or something, but like he had a vitamin deficiency.
"Listen," I said, crouching down near him, but far enough that he couldn't grab me, "why are you following me? I know who you're working for, I know it killed Jill. Why isn't it coming after me itself?"
And no, I have no idea where that bravery came from, because thinking about it now makes me want to throw up and cry in a corner.

He drew back, snarling, and I backed up too. BSG doesn't scare me usually, he's too...I don't know, he's a little bit pathetic. But when he does this animal thing, when he growls and hisses...that's scary. It's inhuman. His face was all twisted, he looked insane, angry. When he spoke, drops of spit flew from his mouth.
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about." He growled. "You don't want HIM after you. You're so fucking lucky it's me. Now let me go, you stupid cunt, or I'll cut off your hands."

I stood well back while he got up.

As he stood, he pulled something from his coat and pointed it at me. I flinched back before I saw it was an envelope.
"This is for you, from our friend in Marietta(?)." he muttered, waving it at me. He'd gone back to that sulky kid voice. I took the envelope very carefully, and he twitched when it left his fingers, like he was about to grab for it back.
"Was gonna leave it for you but..." and he shrugged, looking weirdly normal, "why not. You get it either way." Then he grabbed my shoulder and pulled me over. I was trying to jerk away from him but even though he looks sick, he's strong...I thought he was going to kill me but he leaned in close and stared at me with those light eyes.
"I don't think this is right," he said, and his face was twisting again but this time it looked like he was going to cry. "This isn't fair. I didn't want to go to HIM, HE made me, made me, made me..." His voice was rising and then he started mumbling again. "Remember my name, okay? Just...just please let them know who...HE's going to kill me and I need someone to know."
I was shaking and almost crying and any sympathy this guy was going to get from me was completely eclipsed by how bad I wanted to get the hell away from him, but I thought if he told me his name he could loosen his grip or something, and I could just run away, so I asked his name. He said it was Daniel. And then he did let me go. I turned and ran, I didn't even look back to see if he was following.

I've been keeping a stalker log or whatever you're supposed to call them, which is what the police recommended. I got home and locked all the doors and wrote down what had happened, and then drove to the police station and gave them the evidence. They told me they'll be on the lookout for BSG, who I'm calling Daniel from now on I guess, and told me to stay with friends.

I've been home alone since then (I got back around, what, 7?). I didn't talk to anyone about what happened. Jess is going on a trip with her parents in 2 days and I don't want to worry her, and Kevin....we haven't seen each other too much since the breakup. I think he's angry at me because I came between him and Sarah, even though I didn't mean to...I know it's stupid to be alone, but I can't bring myself to talk to anyone about this, even just the stalker part. Even if he's dangerous, and I don't doubt that he is, it's too close to telling them about...the other thing.

I scanned the letter before I gave it to the police, but I'm not...guys, it's bad. I can't really face it right now, I'll post it later. And I don't know what Daniel meant about Marietta, if that is in fact what he said. I'll look it up later (later, always later). Right now I'm just so tired and my head hurts and I can't stop thinking about...things...



Oh, and Flagstaff. It was a nice break. I got some charcoals and a new sketchbook, and a clock shaped like a hand which is a bit weird. No events, nothing bad. And Andrew's girlfriend turns out to be a very sweet girl, her name is Laney. They're going to do well together, I think.

Now I'm going to catch up on blogs and then go to sleep.