Did not expect that to happen.

Chester here. If the note this morning wasn't already enough, something strange happened at work today. Mariko was sick today so Vivi was out working out front serving customers and the like with me, which was fairly uneventful until about 2.00, when this girl came in through the door, buys something, and sat down at one of the tables to eat it. She was really tiny, like some sort of pixie- about 5"1, cute in a wide-eyed, childish sort of way, blonde, green eyed, wearing a short skirt and a t-shirt. I went to ask Viv about something and she goes. "That's Kaylee."

Kaylee finished eating, arranged her knife and fork neatly on her plate, got up, gave Vieve a curious look, and left. Basically, nothing happened.

I think she's messing with us. Well, she's trying to mess with Vieve but she's messing with me as well. Because you mess with her, you mess with me and I, Chester Matenga-White, do not like messiness. Messes must be dealt with with extreme prejudice.

--Chester.

Chester, you're a funny one. Describing threats to your continued relative wellbeing as "messes". You have more in common with my family than you think.

On a happier note, Chester's slowly learning his way around the kitchen. I can't leave him by himself otherwise if something goes wrong he will flip out and make the problem worse, but he's making progress. He hasn't blown anything up yet, although he's got a bit too cautious and tends to undercook things a bit. Either that or he zones out for extended periods and just stares out the window or at the wall or at me. I'd be a bit worried considering the whole Slender-man thing but he's been doing that ever since I met him. He's doing it now. Hey, Chester, what're you daydreaming about?

(I was remembering lunch yesterday. What was the name of that place we went again? --Chester)

Can't remember, something to do with stars. Right, I've got to go make dinner (Chester's helping, of course) so I'm off. Everybody stay safe.

--Vivi

Thank Goodness.

Vieve here.

You have no idea how utterly relieved I am. I don't know who participated in the Solstice for definite, but most of the people who I knew for sure were helping out seem alive and kicking, which is soimmenselyrelievingyouhavenoidea. Seriously, the Solstice may have been freaking scary for you people, but at least you knew more about what was going on than Chester and I. And not knowing things that are important, such as whether your friends are still alive, is scarier than the scariest thing you can name. Nothing is Scarier.

I was working in the morning again today so I could have the afternoon to breathe, and around twelve when I'm just thinking about going come, Chester comes in the back door, grinning ear to ear, goes "I'll be kidnapping Vivi now, we're going on a date."

You can kind of predict how that went down. Max dropped the empty bowl he was carrying on his foot, Leah slopped water all down herself, and Mariko walked in to see what was going on and started laughing.

They were quite freaked out. Is it really so abnormal for me to, I don't know, fancy someone? I am a girl. I may have been a Bifauxnen with an allergy to Y chromosomes in my youth and I may have never dated anyone, but I am indeed female. Meh.

Over to Chester.

--Vieve

You forgot to mention the betting pool on when we *ahem*.

(WHAT? I didn't know about that! --Vieve)

It's pretty apparent you're a girl if you don't mind my saying, Vivi. Either way, lunch was pretty damn fantastic (note to self: Max knows all the good eateries in Auckland.) and Vieve is a lot easier to be around now she knows most of her friends are safe. She's still distracted, but she doesn't need reminding to eat and sleep now. Also, she's a lot more fun to hug if she's not always tense.

Turns out I am invited to Christmas dinner with Vieve's family, too. That's another group of people who have seen this coming a while back. I've called Mum to ask if my family are doing anything on Christmas night (they  usually don't, we're normally more lunch-gettogethers) but I got her answerphone,  so I've told her I'm living with Vivi until the people renting my house find somewhere else to stay and to call her home phone as opposed to mine.

Sigh. Vieve and I have rented a Studio Ghibli film because those films are...just...so...so...they make me happy. We're going to eat dinner, and we are going to watch it, and we are going to thank whatever deity is up there, if any, that things are being relatively normal.

--Chester

Weirdness

Okay, so I woke up this morning and checked my letterbox downstairs, and there was a wad of sticky notes in it. Y'know, post-it notes. It looked pretty much pristine too, except that every single note had an operator symbol on it.

Hoo boy.

If that's meant to scare me I'm more than a little bit offended, really. I had Slendy himself chilling across the road a couple of days back and a proxy tried to break into my house the other week. And they put a wad of operator symbols in my letterbox. They are still in my letterbox, in fact. I'm not trusting enough to actually take them inside my apartment.

Either way, what is up with that? Are they trying to lure me into a false sense of security or something?

I had Leah and Mariko over at my place last night to watch chick flicks and generally have a girls night. Leah and Max are still doing the whole will-they-or-won't-they song-and-dance. Max is still mad because Leah agreed to go out to dinner with Chester all those weeks ago because he owed her for something, just as friends. It's possible to take someone out for a meal without being interested in them. It is also possible to be friends with someone of the opposite gender. Rargh.

Lamp Santa. Because I can.

Work is getting a bit crazy. Lots of people buying food for Christmas dinners and presents and stuff. I don't usually work weekends but I'm coming in this afternoon to help ease the workload. It's extra pay, so I don't mind giving up my Sunday afternoon for work. Sigh.

dswyuil.l

Cassy approves this message.

Let's play a game.

Let's pretend life is normal.

I suck at this game.

I miss things being normal. I miss the times when I didn't sleep with a cricket bat propped up against my bed and a knife shoved between the headboard and the wall. I miss being able to hang around with my friends and family without glancing over my shoulder. I miss the time where the furniture in my living room was not arranged so I can see the door from every chair in the room.

I even miss stupid Chester cracking awful jokes and looking around at us grinning like he expects us to start having hysterics. Everyone does. Him and Max are Vitriolic Best Buds, Leah is sulking because she's missing her partner in crime, Mariko's temper is more hair-trigger than it's ever been, and some of our long-time customers have asked why he isn't around.

But the fact that I miss them doesn't change the fact that it's impossible to have it all back.

The thing with the Slenderblogosphere is that people are always dropping in and out. Dying, going crazy, just plain leaving. You never know who's going to be next, and it might be you. It's a very disquieting thought. People are leaving, taking Redlights offer, or just going, and try as I might I can't blame them for trying to get out of this as soon as possible. I just have to see this through to the end. My end or his. Whichever comes first, because try as I might I can't seem to believe in anything beyond this life other than oblivion.

I think it's taken a while to sink in, all the things that have happened. It hurts. It hurts a lot, seeing people in my situation or something similar dying, going crazy.

We have to try our best to hope. To try not to become so disillusioned that we give up entirely.

It's hard some days.

Sick

I was pretty much out for the count yesterday. Mariko, who works with me, chewed me out for being careless about my health over the phone this morning and told me that I'd better be well enough to show up for work this afternoon otherwise she'd storm over to my place like a 5-foot steam train and lecture me until this stomach bug died out of sheer fear.  I'm not being careless, I just can't help that the way the shadows fall in my room at night looks vaguely humanoid. I'm paranoid. Seventh floor, seventh floor.

Chester, meanwhile, hasn't seen him either. He's taking it all pretty well, if I were him I'd be soiling myself with blocks of baked clay. He's reading up on some of the blogs, trying to figure out exactly what we're dealing with.

sdjmksae4njmol\

Cassy says hi.

MAP. It's in the post before this one. Go put sightings on it.

--Genevieve.

Bleh.

Finally managed to fix the settings on this thing so it shows the correct date and time. For me, at least. The previous setting was Pacific time which got rather confusing, so I mucked around in the settings until I found how to change the displayed time. It's pretty annoying when a post you made one afternoon shows up as being at some ungodly time the day before. Timezones fry my brain.

Survived my night out with the colleagues. Spent the last couple of hours disinfecting the car. Not only is Leah a lightweight, but she has a sensitive stomach. Next time I go out with my workmates, either we aren't taking Leah or no alcohol is going to be involved. Either that, or someone else takes her home. Max has a car. He can do it next time.

I'm really tired. This Slenderman business is not helping my sleeping patterns. I haven't found any way of keeping track of Slendersightings, either. Much thanks, though, to the three people who clarified all the "wifin in the club" and "slenderman wants your $20" business. That was profoundly weird. I guess people have a sense of humour about this stuff. There's a blog somewhere supposedly by Slendy telling you to give your $20 to Haiti.

There are more Slenderblogs than I thought. I've been reading as many as I can (currently, Seeking Truth), and I just finished watching Marble Hornets. Seems like Dreams in Darkness was a fake run by a crazy guy, or if it isn't, Damien's in trouble. Alot of these blogs are ending badly. People missing, large body counts, who's going to be next?

I just wonder what's happened to A Lack of a Lexicon. Lexi said he was moving and then promptly vanished off the face of the earth, as did A. The only thing I've seen from either of them is a gibberish twitterpost 10 days back. The Tutorial seems to have gone dead too. Funny thing is this all happened around September.

This is painting a picture and it ain't a pretty one.

Something or rather

Sudden influx of college work. I'm not taking Latin any more, which means I don't have to revise all the tenses and conjugations. Latin ate my life in High School. It seriously did. Thankfully I'm not taking it now I'm at college. So for the last two years, I have actually had a social life. Where's my applause? Oh well. I still have another year of my degree left, still have to do homework.

Okay, so I know that Slendy's serious business, but what's all this about 20 dollars and wifin' the the club? WHAT THE HELL IS WIFIN'? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Words cannot describe how utterly perplexed I am. Oh well. I'm going out tonight. Dinner out with three of my colleagues. Hopefully this time I will not have to be the sober taxi service for Leah, again. Leah is a genius but she cannot hold her liquor.

Does anyone in my miniscule readership know a website where I and others can mark points on a map where there have been Slendysightings? (trying to figure out a pattern here)