Goddamnit!

Two things today went badly wrong. The first is largely inconsequential and will just cost me vet bills, the second was rather more alarming.

1) My cat went walkies and vanished for a day and a half. Pretty normal Cassy behaviour, she does it all the time, but she came back with some pretty nasty scratches and I had to take her to the vet this morning. Nothing wrong, I just have to give her antibiotics. Which happen to be damn expensive, and that's on top of the vet bills.

2) One of my workmates, Chester, apparently called in sick today and I'm working for an extra two hours to cover for him because otherwise there's only two staff around and that's counting Leah, who just does paperwork and accounting. That's not a problem, extra money is good. The real problem was when I called up Chester. Here's a transcript of that phone conversation, as far as I can remember.

(phone rings. Chester picks up.)

C: (wary) Who's there?

G: It's Genevieve. Mr Irving told me you'd be sick today so I'm working until closing time to cover for you.

C: Oh. Thanks, Vieve. I would be at work if I didn't feel so shitty. I hope things go okay.

G: She'll be right, Chess. This isn't the first time someone's got sick. If you're infectious it's probably best to keep away, anyhow.

C: I meant you, you seem tired. 

G: You're the one who's sick. Even though you don't sound too bad.

C: I'm not sick, sick, I'm just stressed and it recently got worse. I haven't been sleeping too good and I don't want to accidentally poison a customer. That's why I asked about you seeming tired, I was worried you'd be sick next.

G: Point. What're you stressed out about?

C: It's probably just paranoia, but it's still creeping me out. I'm finding it hard to sleep at night, I don't feel safe in my own home.

(Is this sounding familiar?)

G: Go on.

C:  Okay, so you know how I like horror stories and urban legends and stuff?

G: Creepypasta, yeah.

C: Well, I was looking around on the internet when I came across this series of videos called-

G: Marble Hornets? Everyman HYBRID?

C: Everyman HYBRID. Wait, what?

G: I think I know what you're talking about. Slender Man.

C: Oh, fuck me. Not you too.

G: No thanks, Chess. Is he stalking you or something?

C: I keep hearing noises at night but that just might be me being paranoid. Branches on my window and all that.

G: There aren't any trees near your window, Chess. I'm not telling you to pack your shit and run like a crazy person, there could be another explanation, but that's definitely suspicious. Don't worry too much about it though. Most of what I've heard says that he can't get to you as easily if you're calm about it and it might be nothing. 

C: Well. Nice to know I'm not the only one. Thanks Vieve, I'll be at work tomorrow.

(He hangs up here)

Well, looks like things just got worse. Don't know for sure if he's genuinely being slendystalked or if that's just paranoia talking. Things might be fine. I'm not going to get too optimistic about all this. It seems suspicious that out of probably-not-very-many Slendervictims in the entire country one of them is my colleague.

For now, I'm just going to read some Terry Pratchett and then go to work. Then I'll go visit Chess and make sure he's not freaking himself out more. At the risk of sounding like a certain disney musical, we're all in the this together and we need to look out for each other.