Just Another Fool

…who has the nerve to think that his life is interesting enough to blog about.

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This is what happens…

July 29, 2009

Sometimes I stay up late and for some reason feel like I have something interesting to say. Most people would just go to sleep at this point, because we all know that no one is really interested in what we have to say at three in the morning. I, however, decided to make a blog. I’m pretty sure this has happened before, and it always followed this pattern:

1. Stay up late.
2. Make blog.
3. Go to sleep.
4. Make two posts over the next few months.
5. Wonder why I made blog and delete it.

Will this time be any different? Dunno.

Does it matter? Nope.

So how about a little content for this post, aye?

I recently got a lovely new watch, which was technically my gift for graduating from High School.

I just finished my sophomore year of college.

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I certainly love it, and think it can look quite beautiful close-up. With the aid of the TiltShift Generator, I spiffied them up a bit more:

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The shot of the bottom inner workings is quite obviously currently serving as the header of this website.

Anyhow, this is mostly me just rambling… We’ll see if this actually heads anywhere borderline interesting…

Posted in Results of Choice

Weird Shit

August 5, 2009

I haven’t been in exactly the best of moods lately… To give the backstory in brief, a good friend of mine went over to Iraq in February. As a parting gift, I gave him a nice large Moleskine journal to take notes in and such. I accidentally gave him the unlined version, which was just a mistake because Matt couldn’t draw to save his life. Anyhow, I found out last month he was caught in an ambush in early July and wound up with some serious post-traumatic stress disorder, and had been at a mental hospital since.

You may be wondering why I’m just rambling about this to an audience of approximately no one on the internet. I’m getting there.

Matt passed away July 30. He apparently killed himself, although I didn’t ask for details, and at this point I don’t think I’d really want them. I found out on August 1st because the hospital gave me a call, since apparently there was something he wanted me to have. I got this in the mail today:

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Sure enough, that’s the moleskine I gave him. The staff I spoke too, I’m not really sure what his position was, said I was very welcome to not have it sent to me, since he wasn’t legally bound to in any way. He warned me that it might be somewhat disturbing because of what was inside.

Matt never spoke a single word since the ambush. Apparently he held on to the journal and attempted to use it to communicate, and the hospital staff tried to work it into his therapy. Through a combination of tones and implications I gathered that I was essentially receiving the journal of a madman. But he wasn’t a madman to me, he was just Matt to me. So I said of course I wanted it.

Matt had never written or drawn in the book prior to going to the hospital, but he had apparently used it for something else before then:

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I’m 90% sure that if you count each tally as being a week, this would add up to how long he had been away from home before his hospitalization.

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That’s the first page. I obviously edited out my full name and address. But as far as I can tell, this is how the doctors knew that he wanted me to have the notebook. After all, what else could tell them that if he never spoke?

I’ve flipped through the book and there are a looooot of sketches and the like, but best as I can tell, this is the only place that he actually wrote anything in any coherent form. There are a few disturbingly ominous statements like “I SAW HIM” and the ilk, but this was the only example of a fully formed thought I could find anywhere.

Anyhow, I find this a combination of incredibly depressing and interesting, so I’m throwing them up on the interweb in hopes that other people might at least find them interesting as well and some good can come out of this, rather than me just sit here and stew over everything. I’ll be adding pics as I have time.

Posted in Results of Fate

First Page

August 5, 2009

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Figured I should throw this up before I go to bed as a sort of idea of what you’re looking at. It looks rather frantically made, to the point that the pencil actually cut through the paper in a few spots. I also swear to god that’s a head wearing a hat, but that doesn’t exactly jive with the rest of the “body.”

Posted in Results of Fate

Second Page

August 5, 2009

And the second page:

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The stick figure isn’t too hard to pick out, but this is the beginning of his obsession on what apparently is trees. You can obviously see the tree there as well as a spider-like bush or something. Any ideas what the thing on the right is other than just a sunburst on the remaining hole in the page?

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Also I noticed that all of the lines that were made when the pencil cut through the page he used in his picture. I left a message for the doctor that was treating him, so hopefully I can learn a bit more than I already knew about the notebook and how they used it.

Posted in Results of Fate

Returned Call

August 6, 2009

I’m so tired… I’ve barely slept in the last two days, and when I do I tend to wake up all the time from some bizarre dream that I can never quite remember.

Dr. M (not divulging his full name for obvious reasons) was nice enough to give me a call back earlier today. I should have written this sooner as my memory is far from fresh and the lack of sleep certainly isn’t helping, but we had an interesting conversation nonetheless.

He said that Matt was one of the worst cases of PTSD he had seen in recent history, especially due to the turnaround time from what he called “the trigger event” to the state that Matt was in. Dr. M wasn’t the physician in charge of Matt, but he had worked with him on a few occasions, including upon his arrival to the hospital. Below is my attempt to retrieve our conversation from my memory:

Dr. M: “He looked awful. I mean, it just looked as if the boy hadn’t slept in a week. His medical examination showed that he had no physical reason that would prevent him from speaking, so we attempted to get him to communicate for some time. One of the orderlies mentioned that a blank journal was included in his belongings, so I decided to try to use it as a bit of a conversation starter. I asked him questions like ‘is this yours?,’ ‘what do these marks mean?,’ and the like, but he didn’t respond. All he did was gently raise his hand and hold it out to take the book. He very gently opened it and made a writing motion, so I gave him one of my pencils.”

LR: “And at this point, the book was blank?”

Dr. M: “Yes, barring the silver markings on the spine. The cover had some wear on it, as if it had been hit by a blade at a few points but not really cut through, but it was as new as you could expect any book like that out of Iraq to be.”

LR: “I see, sorry to interrupt.”

Dr. M: “Not at all. He began to draw what looked like an egg. It ended up being the head of the figure or whatever he was drawing, but he spent what seemed like an hour carefully drawing the head and hat of that thing. He paused for a moment and then started furiously scribbling all over the page. He at first seemed to be doing it almost artfully. He would occasionally stop and use his fingers to smudge the lines a bit, and then continue. Whenever any line or smudge intruded on that egg that looked like a head, he would immediately stop and erase the fraction within it before continuing along his way. The intensity with which he scribbled slowly increased until he seemed just incredibly panicked and started tearing through the page with strokes of the pencil. At that point I grabbed the book and tried to tell him to calm down, but when he just continued I pulled the book out of his hand and he just froze, staring at me like I had broken some trance.”

LR: “And you decided to continue using the book even after that?”

Dr. M: “That was Dr. W—-‘s decision. I believe he came back to it since Matt simply shut himself off as far as communication went, and that was the closest we could get to a response out of him.”

I asked him how to get ahold of Dr. W, but now I’m not so sure I want to know more. The more I dig into this, even after just a few days, the more uncertain I am that it’s a good idea. I can barely believe that Matt is gone, and here I am looking into essentially what led him to kill himself. What’s really sticking in my mind is that Dr. M once made a reference to the “rather… unique way in which he passed on.” I don’t want to know what that even means, but my mind is whirling with possibilities.

Posted in Results of Choice

Re: Returned Call

August 6, 2009

I said that I was trying to recall our conversation from memory, but now that I think about it, I’m quite sure those quotes are 100% accurate.

Yeah, they definitely are.

Posted in Results of Choice

The Egg?

August 6, 2009

Dr. M used an egg to describe the hatted figure on the first page’s head a few times.

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Page 3.

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Meanwhile, I still can’t sleep.

Posted in Results of Fate

What is a Slender Man?

August 7, 2009

Dav Flamrock posted a rather interesting comment, reproduced below (hope you don’t mind Dav):

Hey dude, that looks really familiar and seems to be corresponding with some research I’m doing on the myth of Slender Man. Have you ever heard of him? I have a few other case studies which I can point you to, if you like, which I’m using in my research, but if you wouldn’t mind I’d like to keep an eye on your blog and on Matt’s journal as a possible–nay, probable–source for my research. If you must contact me, the email supplied with this reply should suffice.

Thank you for your time,

~Dav Flamerock

Miskatonic University

I have no idea what a “Slender Man” is, but it sounded familiar. I finally got home after a long night out and flipped through the book. Sure enough…

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Page 13. And for added fun:

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And the back of page 13, as well as page 14:

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I’m banking on me not being crazy at the moment, because I’m fairly sure that says “Slender Man.” I need to try to grab some sleep but I guess I’ll try to look into this myth a tad more tomorrow.

I also sent Dr. W an email today. I’m unsure whether or not I’m hoping for a response.

So as not to break the pattern by jumping to page 13…

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Page 4. This is the first time that I seriously have no idea what is going on.

Posted in Results of Fate

Something in the Trees

August 7, 2009

I just woke up from a ridiculous dream that I realized I’ve been having repetitively. I don’t remember how it begins but I remember how it ends. I’m standing in some sort of arid region dotted with a few spindly trees. The tree nearest to me looks like it’s on fire, but I can’t really tell since I don’t have my glasses on or contacts in, so I start to move towards it, and only then do I realize how ungodly tired I am. Each step seems like a battle in itself, but as I get closer, I realize that it’s not the tree that’s on fire, there are several things in the trees that are burning.

I hear a voice that is familiar yet unidentifiable say “Now…”

And then I woke up clawing into the air. I turned on my light and even then it took me a few moments to figure out I was in my room at home. I guess Matt’s fixation with trees is starting to gnaw at me.

On the way to my computer to write this something else occurred to me…

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I was looking at the first page again, and from how I was holding it realized that the long streaks on the bottom right are from Matt’s hand when Dr. M pulled it out of his hands. It’s kind of unsettling to see the physical result after hearing a story like that.

Posted in Results of the Unknown

What's With the Trees?

August 9, 2009

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Page 5.

Still waiting on a response from Dr. W.

Posted in Results of Fate

It's Like Christmas…

August 10, 2009

Only with freaky ass drawings. I decided I might as well do some shooting to catch up to page 13 and 14 that I posted earlier…

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Page 6 and the back of page 6. I actually rather like this one in an odd way, plus page 6 (the front only) is the first page to have used pen instead of pencil.

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Page 7. Very exciting, I know.

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Page 8.

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Page 9 and 10. The left vertical lines of the “No”s are lines from the pencil cutting through the page.

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Page 11 (and the back of page 10).

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Page 12 (and the back of page 11).

Posted in Results of Fate

Response

August 11, 2009

My message to Dr. W:

Dr. W——

I would greatly appreciate it if you would be able to take time to respond to this. My name is Logan R——, and I am a friend of a former patient of yours. His name was Matt S—–, and he recently passed away while in your care. Let me first say I don’t blame you in any way for what happened, I am merely curious as to the details of his stay at ———-, as I received a notebook that he had made extensive use of during his stay there.

I was just wondering if you could shed some light on the notebook and Matt’s behavior in general. The drawings and writings in the notebook can be quite disturbing, especially with a lack of context, so I’m hoping you could maybe clear up at least a little of it.

Thank you for your time,
Logan R——

Dr. W’s Response:

Logan,

My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I have been far busier than I would have liked to be in the last few days.

I certainly remember Matt, and you have my condolences for his loss. It is very tragic whenever we lose a patient, and Matt is no exception. Given that he was my responsibility, I can’t help but feel that I failed him in one way or another, but that man had more than his fair share of demons to deal with.

The notebook you have received I incorporated into his therapy after several days of him not communicating in any way. I decided that even vague drawings were better than nothing at all, as they would give us a starting point at the very least. When we could occasionally get him to write in it we would do our best to keep him going, but it was often quite a struggle.

From what I was able to gather, your friend Matt was a believer in a myth known as “Slender Man,” and he became obsessed with it. He believed that this Slender Man was responsible for the attack on his squad in Iraq for reasons that I could only guess at. I was somewhat wary of mentioning the Slender Man to Matt during therapy because the majority of the time it would cause him to simply shut down and draw something.

I shared some contact with his former head officer in Iraq and learned that someone had been researching the Slender Man on the base’s computers in the days leading up the attack, so my conclusion is that Matt suffered a mental break of some sort and he fabricated the Slender Man attack as a result of what he had been reading on the internet.

The story that we pieced together from Matt’s limited responses was that, in his mind, the Slender Man attacked his squad while in a town. Three of his squadmates’ bodies were thrown into a nearby tree, while the rest of them, as well as two civilian children, were murdered by the Slender Man as well. At some point the bodies became engulfed in flames. I understand that the story isn’t as clear as you might like, but you have to understand that for someone who can’t talk, establishing continuity is a bit of a challenge. What actually happened according to the military is that they were in the town, and one of the children was carrying a bomb, which she detonated. Matt was the only one to survive the attack, and thus he quickly ended up in my care.

I understand you interest and curiosity into your friends death, but I truly must warn you that very little solace is ever found in a search for answers such as this. The way that Matt died was disturbing enough to create a morbid sort of interest, but digging for information isn’t always the answer. When someone chooses to end their own life, they leave behind a whirlwind of emotions to those close to them, such as yourself, and letting that whirlwind settle is usually the far wiser choice than to give it fuel to continue.

I will answer any more questions that you might have, I only ask that you seriously consider whether or not you really want to know the answers before you ask them.

Regards,
John W——

I am pretty numb… I really have no idea how I feel about this at all.

Posted in Results of Choice

Thoughts

August 12, 2009

The entire “Slender Man” bit that Dr. W mentioned was weird. I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something. Why did Matt start researching him in the first place? What could Matt have encountered that caused him to suddenly be interested in this?

I am unnerved but have to know more. I’m afraid I have to completely disregard Dr. W’s advice at the moment since I have just come to terms with the fact that there is something occurring here that I do not fully understand:

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The tree. My dream. It all makes sense. THERE ARE THREE BODIES IN THE TREE. Consider that the stick figure’s head is simply another stick. Look in the tree. There are three bodies there, and I saw them in my dream before I even knew there was something there. What’s more, I checked the notebook and sure enough, the bodies are hanging off of the tree limbs that were created by the pencil ripping through the previous page.

I once more and having a recurring dream, but can’t remember what it is exactly. I’ve looked through the notebook and nothing reminds me of it. I want to know what the hell is going on in this dream but my desire to know is outweighed by my fear. I’m not seeing myself going to sleep again any time soon…

Posted in Results of the Unknown

Untitled

September 2, 2009

I run.

And that’s all I can do.

I will run and run and run and die.

Perhaps then I will find sanity.

Posted in Results of the Unknown

Note from Joshua

September 23, 2009

AUTHOR: JOSHUA

So after about 20 minutes of guessing, it turns out I DO know my best friend well enough to guess his password.

To give you the story in brief: Logan is gone. I’ve filed a missing person report with the police and… Well, honestly I’m unsure what else I can tell you from a legal standpoint.

Tomorrow is the day that some arbitrary deadline passes, so I’m going to head down to the police station to pick up the notebook. A friend of mine in the force said there’d be no harm in letting me have it, as they had deemed it to be irrelevant to the investigation (although I have my doubts on how much investigating they’re doing). While I’m there I’ll inquire on what information I’m allowed to share.

I’m unsure on how I’ll deliver updates, since I’d feel rather weird about using Logan’s old blog. I’ll post a URL to whatever I happen to decide on though.

Posted in Uncategorized

Accident

September 24, 2009

AUTHOR: JOSHUA

I was driving home on my motorcycle with the notebook and some asshole businessman walked into the road in front of me. I was able to stop, but my bike fell over and I broke my arm. The guy is mainly an asshole since, as I lay there on the ground in pain, he just walked away, and the cops weren’t able to find him. If he’d at least helped then he’d just be an ass.

Oh well. I’ll get pictures of the entire notebook up this weekend once I’m done being sidetracked with my arm. And by sidetracked I mean high on pain pills.

Posted in Results of Fate

LEAVE IT JOSH.

September 28, 2009

Posted in RESULTS OF THE TREES

Getting Rid of It

September 30, 2009

AUTHOR: JOSHUA

This is Joshua. The last post was not by me. So it’s safe to assume Logan is at least still alive out there, although he clearly doesn’t seem well.

Logan, if you see this, please call me or contact me in some way. In any way.

As for the notebook… I’m taking his advice and getting rid of it. If you want it, email me your address at moc.liamg|sapxuafj#moc.liamg|sapxuafj. I accept no responsibility for anything that might happen as a result of getting the notebook. If I can’t get this mailed off by tomorrow, I’m destroying it.

Posted in Results of Choice

Be Gone from my Life

October 4, 2009

AUTHOR: JOSHUA

The notebook seems to have a magnetic quality to it. I’d be lying if I said I have no urge to look through it, but its past is far too disconcerting and personal for me to delve into it.

I’ve selected who to send the notebook to based on who gave the strongest impression that they know what they’re dealing with and will be able to resist the aforementioned magnetism. They can identify themselves if they’d like, but I won’t share who it is for obvious reasons. If you haven’t heard from me, it isn’t you. I feel like I should say “sorry, it isn’t you,” but I don’t know if an apology is appropriate in this situation.

The book is sealed in an envelope and will disappear from my life on Monday.

-Joshua

Posted in Results of Choice

The Reward

October 6, 2009

Knowing is knowing is knowing is knowing.

Light flickers as hope bickers as the tree grows quicker as your path becomes slicker as you can hear him snicker as if drunk by liquor you’ll just get sicker.

Contact.

Contact.

Where are you.

Perhaps you can help.

The Earth shifts.

The earth shifts.

Time shifts.

Reality shifts.

And he just.

Doesn’t.

Care.

Posted in RESULTS OF REGRET

Another Note from Joshua

October 6, 2009

AUTHOR: JOSHUA

Logan. Call me. You know my number.

As a note to everyone else: It is clear that Logan, wherever he is, still has access to the internet and this blog, or at least he does intermittently. For the sake of clarification, I’ll start every post of mine with “AUTHOR: JOSHUA,” and will go back and edit my previous ones as well.

Also, a quick update while I’m at it: I also feel like I owe you an explanation on what happened to Logan, or at least, as much as I know. When no one had heard from him for two weeks, I finally went over to his apartment, and what I found was… Interesting.

The key that he usually had hidden underneath a false rock in the garden wasn’t there, so after some convincing I got the super to let me in. The entire apartment seemed like it had been overturned, with two exceptions. The first was that the refrigerator seemed untouched, which I can only assume is because it’s so fucking heavy, and the second was his bedroom. The bed was off of its frame, books were thrown from shelves, there was a hole that appeared to have been punched into the wall; but his desk was immaculate. It was completely clean, aside from the notebook, laying dead center, a knife and a set of colored pens beside it.

And… that’s about it. We immediately called the police, who swooped in and inspected it. I haven’t heard of anything new other than that they couldn’t find a single fingerprint that didn’t belong to Logan or belonged to me and had been created when I entered. But that claim in itself makes me suspicious. There should be other fingerprints. He had people over all of the time. My fingerprints should be all over the place, not just where I touched when I went into his apartment that day. Our other friends’ fingerprints should be everywhere.

That’s all there was to it. He was gone without a trace, leaving only a wrecked apartment and that notebook in his wake.

Posted in Results of Choice

The Notebook

October 9, 2009

For the sake of those interested actually seeing this, here’s Dav’s video of looking through the notebook:

Part 1

Part 2

Posted in Results of Choice

Journal of Matthew Selby


The players found that the word "CONTACT" in the notebook seemed to be leading to a phone number made of the Roman numerals. Dav Flamerock interprets the number as 1-518-631-5813 and receives a message: "Hey, this is Joshua. Sorry I missed your call, but leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can. Thanks. Take care."

KEY

November 2, 2009

you HAve come upon a door.

stop trying the haNDle if it’S not working.

if A dooR is locked, surEly you must first find THE KEY?

Posted in RESULTS OF THE TREES


Because of the clock hands pointing to 11:11 in the notebook, the players eventually agreed that they had to call the phone number on November 11th at 2:37 PM, the time specified by Logan's watch in the first post.

Phone

November 4, 2009

AUTHOR: JOSHUA

Do you have any idea how sad it is when your only comforts from a friend are ramblings that don’t make an ounce of sense?

Someone has informed me that a phone number of mine was in the notebook. The number in question was an old Pay-As-You-Go phone that I had that ran out of credit, but I still had the phone (although for the life of me I cannot find it). I tried calling it and, well, that’s not my voice. That’s Logan’s. I left him a message so here’s to hoping that I’ll actually hear back from him now that I seem to have a way to contact him.

But why use my name?

Posted in Results of the Unknown

Laughter

November 4, 2009

I can hear the laughter.

Through this endless night and after.

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I can hear the singing.

Chorus, verse, and refrain ringing.

Posted in Results of Choice

ALMOST TIME?

November 10, 2009

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Posted in RESULTS OF THE TREES


The voicemail reportedly changed to "I have found my answer. In time, I believe you will too." The correct answer to the riddle was "What time is it?"

Found. You.

November 14, 2009

BH

BS

DF

JA

LR

RE

??

??

HIM

Posted in Results of Fate

Journal of Logan Renault

Untitled 1

December 4, 2009

HE dIGs and digs and digs and digs and digs and digs and Digs and digs and digs

the Rain pours and pours and pours and pours and pours and pours and pours and pours and pours

i am crumbling joshUA

staring at the world through this foggy glass

nothing can be [un]made while I lean upon this windowSILL

Posted in RESULTS OF REGRET, RESULTS OF THE TREES

Game Over

January 6, 2010

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Posted in Results of Choice, Results of Fate

Searching

January 8, 2010

AUTHOR: JOSHUA

As a few of you no doubt noticed, since I received some emails in concern, I’ve been doing my best to stay as uninvolved from these matters as possible.

Logan rather sternly told me that I should not visit this website, I should not contact him, and I should try to not even think of him. So… Well, I did. But there have been some rather extenuating circumstances that have changed that.

Many of you here have been genuinely concerned about Logan and myself, and honestly, in this confusing, nonsensical, and dare I say supernatural series of events, it has been a source of comfort to know that there are people out there who cared and believed in what was occurring. Because of that, I feel I owe it to you all to at least update you on what has happened.

Two days ago, at about noon, I found this in my mailbox:

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Even though I cannot just flat out recognize Logan’s handwriting, I didn’t think it was much of a stretch to assume this was from him. I decided to finally take a look here later that night and saw that he had since been posting every now and then, but most importantly was the picture posted on Wednesday. I knew exactly where that place was, and it wasn’t far from my house. I immediately called the police and told them that he might be in that area and resisted all temptation to go there myself.

Yesterday I received a phone call that they found his body nearby. He didn’t have any ID on him so they’re not sure, but his clothes are the same as what he was wearing in the photo. The only thing he had in him was a smartphone, which could explain how he posted the picture, but it had been smashed to pieces in some sort of struggle. They were still trying to determine cause of death, but the only thing they said to me that stood out at this point was that he was blind in his left eye, which I can’t possibly see as being a coincidence given previous pictures he’s posted.

I didn’t sleep at all last night, and this morning I received the call that they’d like me to come ID the body. At this point, I don’t see how it could be anyone else, but I promise that as soon as I get home I’ll post again to let you all know, since I feel I owe you that much. I’m leaving to drive to the police station now. Come to think of it, I haven’t ridden my motorcycle since I broke my arm, but as anyone that rides could tell you, it’s a fairly relaxing activity, so at least it might help me clear my head. I’ll post as soon as I get back… I don’t see how this could take more than an hour or two.

Posted in Results of Choice, Results of Fate, Results of the Unknown



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