15 October 2012 I was never the kind of person to go for any kind of supernatural or macabre situations in a real-life environment.

I had some Wiccan friends whod talk about legitimate and valid communication through an Ouija board or tarot cards that summarised their current life down to the nitty-gritty, but I never went for it myself. I never really thought about anything inhuman walking amongst the living. I dont mean vampires or werewolves or even the extraterrestrial. I mean down-to-the-bone inhuman and insidious. Id watched a lot of horror films in my twenty years, ranging from serial killers stalking babysitters to the government authorising all crime to be legal once a year. Id seen enough to make me cautious and even slightly paranoid; I wont take showers when Im alone in the house and I lock the windows and close the curtains after dark, as the doors are always locked regardless. It was influenced by things that could happen; tonight however, was differentand I dont think my life will ev er be the same. I was sitting at the computer reading some digital comics to take my mind off of a stressful day at work and the trauma Id put myself through by playing Silent Hill at eleven oclock at night. I had some light music playing in the background and could hear my cat snoring quietly on my bed behind me. My mother had knocked on the door to say goodnight and announce that she was going to bed; I had the next day off from work so I decided to stay up until my father came home from work in a few hours to hear about his day and tell him about mine. After I finished the comic I was reading, I guzzled down the last of the water in the bottle on my desk and pulled a cigarette out of the carton. I headed downstairs and thought about where I should go; my brothers room was in the basement, but he was home so I didnt want to smoke down there and inconvenience him. I figured that the fresh air would do me some good anyway, so I unlocked the back door and headed outside, gently closing the screen door behind me, leaving the reinforced wooden door before it open. It was a warm night with a light breeze coming in frequently. I sat on the porch steps and lit the cigarette, taking a slow but inevitable drag from it as I listened to the neighbours next door chatting around their bonfire. The smell of burning hickory wood was simply wonderful and it reminded me of the summer that had just ended. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened the Facebook application, responding to a message Id received from a fri end a few minutes earlier. After sending the message, I heard a twig snap from behind the shed across the backyard and quickly looked up. I couldnt make out any shapes or a figure moving around near it, so I assumed it was one of the stray cats that frequently cut through my backyard. As if on cue, as I pocketed my phone, a white and brown cat came from around the shed and hopped over the stone half-wall into the neighbours yard. I smiled at the cats lackadaisical attitude and as I neared finishing my cigarette, I stood up and walked over to the patio table in the centre of this side of the yard and moved the ash tray closer to me. From where I was standing, you could see down the pathway that divides the east side of my house and the grassy portion of the yard; the pathway led to the front of the house where the front porch, mailbox and main gate entryway was. You could also see across the street to the giant fenced-in area that was once a Goodyear store before it was closed and demolished; you could now see across the grassy field to the grocery store and the post office on the other side. As I took one of the final remaining drags from my cigarette, I happened to glance down pathway and my heart dropped into my stomach when I processed what I was looking at. Across the street, standing in front of the fencedin field, was a tall, gangly figure. It was illuminated by the streetlight overhead, but the angle of the light did not allow me to identify its form in entirety. From what I could see, it was approximately a little over six feet tall a slightly above-average height for a human and its arms were a bit longer than normal, almost past its would-be knees. At first I thought I was hallucinating or at least exaggerating, because I knew Slenderman wasnt realbut I could also tell that it certainly was not Slenderman, and if it was someone trying to dress up as him, they did a pretty bad job.

The figure was dressed in all black and had the form of a human, so I assumed it was. I had a thousand thoughts racing in my head at the time. Who was he? What was he doing? Could he see me? Wheres all of the usual traffic that occupies my street at the time? I couldnt make out his face and as I attempted to squint to try to identify more than I could, he did something that made my blood freeze. He tilted his head slightly to the right and I knew instantly that he could see me. I lost my breath for a moment and stared at him, locked on his gaze. I thought about something that made me feel better. Even if he made a motion of moving closer, Id be able to run back inside the house before he could even open the gate or hop over the chain fence. I moved to hold the ash tray in one hand and extinguish the cigarette in the other hand, keeping eye contact with the figure. I glanced over to the ash tray for a mere second to make sure I hadnt miscalculated and the moment I did, I heard the sound of the chain fence rattling and quickly glanced up. The figure was now standing in the same stature as before, except now he was inside the yard, at the other end of the pathway. Immediately, I ran and hopped over the three steps to the back door, whipping open the screen door and slammed and locked the reinforced wooden door behind me. I staggered backward, my gaze switching back and forth between the door itself and the lock and handle. I was breathing heavily and unstably as I backed away toward the kitchen; I realised that Id woken my dog when I slammed the door, who was sleeping on the couch in the living room. He was staring at me with a look of bewilderment before lowering his head back onto the pillow. I started to breathe normally again, thinking it was a mere fragment of my imagination, until my dog jumped up and started barking at the windows in the living roomthe windows with the curtains shut. He couldnt see anything obviously, but hed heard or sensed something that I hadnt. I ran full-sprint up the stairs to the second floor and nearly ran right into my mother whod woken up with the door slam. Whats going on? she asked, slightly frightened. I couldnt breathe properly. I gasped for air and clutched onto the railing of the stairway. There was a man or something watching me from across the street. I turned to put out my cigarette and he was suddenly inside the yard. I ran inside and slammed the door and then the dog started barking at the window. Her eyes widened as she reached for the telephone. What did he look like? I dont know, I-I dont remember! I started crying and turned around to glance out of the window at the top of the stairs and froze. M-m-mom. She put down the phone and walked over to me, glancing out of the window. The figure was standing in the driveway, looking up at us through the window, his head tilted to the side. My mother and I exchanged looks and turned to face the window again. The figure was gone.