Ending.

They found Simon. They found his body.

I don't feel anything.

I don't feel anything except resignation to what I must do next.

They found Simon with a bottle of antiviral medication next to him. Mine. It didn't work. For all his thought and theory, it couldn't save him. Daddy isn't a virus, or a tulpa, or anything so simple. Daddy can't be categorised and classified and tucked away in a box. The Slender Man is beyond understanding.

He is chaos. Writing, gaping chaos, beyond human conception and comprehension. Even looking at him makes our heads hurt, can even drive us mad. The extent of his nature is simply out of reach of the tiny scale of sane thought. He is the true face of the universe; cruel, vicious, random and impersonal. He shifts and changes, always different, with no order or consistency impressed upon him. He is what we make up gods to hide from - the face of a reality which does not require that we be safe or happy or sane, or that we not be made to suffer. No rhyme or reason.

The universe is vast and empty, and we are alone with Him.

Now I'm doing it too.

They found Simon with his innards torn out, and his limbs stretched. To do so without breaking the skin, they said, must have taken a long time. It must have been slow. And now Simon is dead, Simon is nothing. Simon does not exist anymore, not as a person. Now it's just a bundle of meat in roughly his shape. I feel sick. I feel like I'm suffocating. He's gone, he's gone and dead, and he'll never come back. He'll never hold me, never kiss me, never talk to me again, and I've never lost anything like this, never, and my nails are digging into my palms so hard I feel like I must be bleeding and my breaths are growing moist with welling sobs.

Why did he leave me, and kill Simon? I don't know. To speculate would be futile and arrogant. To uphold a pretence to understanding would be naieve and idiotic.

Natalie, Joey's older sister, ran away from home shortly after He started appearing to her. She knew to run. M got something right, it would seem. That was about a month and a half ago. She's run far - we talked recently, after her comment. She's in hiding, but apparently she's not alone, and she's a long way from here. Simon was an idiot to hang around Eastbourne. I won't make the same mistake.

So this will probably be my last post, everyone. To anyone who's still reading, anyone who's helped or offered support, I want to say thank you for your support on this, the worst four months of my life, the first four months of the rest of my life. Sorry I couldn't be here for all of it. But from here on out, I go it alone. I'm going on the run. I don't know where I'll end up - I always wanted to travel - but I don't have any choice except to outpace Him.

Simon, I love you. I will always love you.

Kari.

Alone.

I haven't seen Simon since he first came by. He's not returning my calls, he's not responding to my texts. I don't know where he is, or what he's doing. He's abandoned me, off on some wild goose chase to find why I survived. He's left me, alone, with all my fear and confusion, so he can go and play hermit some more.

I just want him with me. I want to enjoy the life I've gotten back. I'm out of hospital now. There's no physical reason why I'm not okay. But I'm still a mess.

I haven't seen Daddy in days. But I'm not letting my guard down.

Frustrating.

Why can't I remember?

One month.

A bizarre amount of time to be gone, a month. Especially this month. It seems like no time at all passed when I was gone, and yet to the people I love, this month has been life-changing, or life-ruining. Simon just left. He's lost his way. Exhausted, nearly to the point of delerium. He's a mess. This Daddy issue was damn near the death of me, and yet while I've returned without a scratch, his experience has left him with a hollow, wild desperation about him. I've caught up on his blog. It's an odd feeling; an insight into a mind I don't feel like I recognise, horrible as I no doubt am for saying that, he's changed almost beyond recognition. His hair is greasy and wild in its natural tight curls. His eyes are near-dwarfed by the yawning shadows underneath, swollen from lack of sleep. He's even neglected to shave, though his thin, light adornment could only charitably be called a beard. It must be odd for him to see me, nearly exactly as I was the day he last saw me, when he has been forced from his home and his family, and lives in terror.

And then we have Daddy. I don't know how to feel. On one hand, I've seen glimpses of him (or Him, as Simon has ended up writing it - I'd be very interested to read that book of his) but on the other, I honestly can't tell if I'm in danger. I was returned unharmed. He had me, and yet I'm still alive. Everything about Daddy - or the Slender Man, as it were - is one big question mark.

Whenever I wonder about this, Ms. Fisher's corpse fills my mind. Jagged ribs jutting from her chest like teeth, the hollow cavity like a maw. Her arms blue with the bruises of burst blood vessels, stretched obscenely. Her terrified face. To have endured that and still have room left for terror. The last thing she saw must have been beyond imagining. Like what Gladwell's brother saw. Gladwell's name was Simon too.

But I think of Daddy and I don't see what Simon sees - my Simon, that is. It seems odd that he criticised me for granting Daddy supernatural status, and he has since ascribed him the properties of the vicious, uncaring void of the universe. He's always been rather nihilistic, and I never bought into it.

After all, the void got me. Sucked in by the darkness. And I've returned.

Filling in gaps

Okay, I'm all caught up with what went on in my absence. So here's my side.

It was night, a few days into the stakeout operation. I was on the computer at the time because sleeping was not an option at that point, and I'd set it up so that I was facing the window. I didn't really have a reason to be doing so - alarm systems and intercoms meant that I'd know as soon as Daddy was spotted, and there was no way I'd spot him before the camera perimeter, so we thought.

I glanced out of the window and, between the trees, there was a flash of black and white. A headache overwhelmed me. At this point, the text was sent to Simon. I do not remember writing or sending it.

I was shaken awake by one of the guards, who shouted at me that the building was on fire. I climbed to my feet and we moved quickly through the house. Flames had spread at a startling pace. The heat was unbearable. I scrambled down the stairs and into the main hallway. A feeling of something wrapping around my torso, and I was pulled back into the darkness.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital. A month had passed. I had no memory of anything which had taken place in that time.

Sorry, guys, I don't know much more than you do on this one.

Prelude

He's outside, in the distance. I can see him out of the window. I'm back, but I still haven't escaped.

Big post coming tomorrow.

Simon here, again.

She's gone.

http://oldcelluloid.blogspot.com/2011/05/karis-disappeared.html

Night

It's worst at night. Because you can't know he's out there. Night vision mode on the cameras only does so much. I get scared near windows, worried that out of the corner of my eye I'll spot movement. Quick. Silent. I know in my head that there's no way he found us this quickly, that no ordinary man could have tracked us down here. The sighting must have been a false alarm. But it's dark, and it's cold, and it's always worst at night.

Alert

About two hours ago, one of the guards has called in a tentative first sighting. While patrolling, he could have sworn he saw a tall, thin man in dark clothes standing between some trees about 100 meters away, watching. It didn't register immediately, and by the time of the double-take, he was gone again. The guards swept the whole area. This was all about five hundred meters away from the house. Couldn't find anything. Not even tracks. Here in the house, everything's on high alert. Initially, we were ushered into a safe room, but we've been allowed out now. Assuming it was a false alarm. If you're wanting to see something for hours on end, you'll probably see it. Still, no-one's letting that assumption get in the way of their readiness. The threat has come not as soon as we were prepared for, but much, much sooner than we expected. All the police in the house are tense, their guns always in their hands. There're questions to be asked - how'll he find us, will he be armed, is he a proper threat - but no-one's asking them. Not sure if the answers are things they'll want to hear. Just assume he will find us, he will be armed, and he is a threat. The ifs and hows can wait. I'm less on edge - antivirals, antihistamines and the steady numb of sleep deprivation have made me drowsy, distancing me from the panic.

I hope it was a false alarm. I don't want to believe that someone wants to kill me so bad they'd wade into the middle of this just to do so. But it's an odd feeling knowing someone is coming for you, determined to kill you. Someone who might not even be human. All these people here to stop that, all this money and time. I try not to think about all the people who were there to stop Joey getting taken.

False Reassurance

The firearms team here aren't here for the long run. They're assuming that, in spite of the changing cars and the fake license plates and the stop off in a town to throw our pace off, Daddy will find us, and he'll do so quickly. They know the cameras won't work, and they've seen what he does to his victims. They're not scared, I don't think, but they're not looking forward to this. He's just a man, they tell themselves, he's just a man. Here's hoping. Bullets can hit a man. Bullets can stop a man.

This would be quite a nice house, under normal circumstances. It's at the midpoint of a long detour road going through the wood, like the centre-line of an H. Two thirds of a mile of road either way, and a mile of forest in every direction. Police campouts throughout, with a camera network informing every one of them. They're all heavily armed. The manpower here is incredible, but when you consider the publicity these murders have been receiving nationally, it makes a little more sense. The police forces of increasingly large areas are looking like idiots, and they are really disliking being made a fool of by whatever person or people are behind Daddy. Rather looking forward to filling them with holes.

The house itself has three out of five bedrooms taken up by police, sleeping on the floor two-to-a-room. Monitors of the security cameras in every room, wires trailing everywhere. My family and I are forced into the smallest possible space. Nadine and I are sharing a room for the first time ever. She cries all through the night. This Daddy affair is hurting everyone. Spoiling the lives of everyone it touches. And it's my fault that my family's been exposed to it.

Simon and I have barely been off the phone, I don't know why I'm still having to vent to you guys. I just feel powerless against this overwhelming malevolent presence. It wears a girl down.

The paranoia. The disgust. The relentless horror. I feel like there's less and less of me.

Migration

They've set somewhere up for us. Deep into the Shire counties. Not going to say which one, but yeah; away from cities, in the country areas. Changing cars regularly, unmarked license plates. We'll be taken to a house in the middle of the woods, full of police, armed and equipped. Camera perimeter, motion detectors. The police have attained special permission  to be armed with submachine guns, body armour, night vision goggles. They let me hold one. The Heckler and Koch MP7, they called it. It was heavy. Looked like it should be attached to a lightgun game in an arcade. Several trained police guards, each with one of these, is being put up against a tall bald man. Why am I not more confident?

I haven't shared my suspicions about him being something...not entirely human. My sister, Nadine, won't stop crying. She's eleven, but even now fear is overcoming her. We haven't told her about exactly what's going on, but she knows that whatever did that to Ms. Fisher, and her boyfriend, and Joey, well he's coming after us, and our attempts to run are failing. We're still in the waiting room of the local police station, like we have been for days now. She's lying across hard plastic chairs, her head on my mother's lap. My mother's stroking her head, desperately trying to reassure her that it's all going to be okay. My dad's been staring at the vending machine for twenty minutes. He can't even look at us anymore. Stir craziness set in a long time ago. The police went to get our stuff; we didn't even have a chance to unpack most of it. But I don't feel like doing anything, like I have no agency. In my lap I have Simon's copy of House of Leaves, open to some random page. The colour version, the one you can't get in Europe. A book about being stalked by a nameless horror as paranoia slowly envelops you? You see why I'm not in storytime mood.

I don't even know why I'm keeping this blog anymore. I guess I need somewhere to vent, and the knowledge that there are people out there who care about me. I looked back over the old entries. Interning at Motcombe seems like a lifetime past. I find myself feeling nostalgic for three months ago. I'm at a loss to explain why all this is happening. Did I deserve this? Did I bring this upon myself? Why did everything have to get so fucking fucked up? There doesn't seem to be a reason. It's just arbitrary, and yet it's derailed my life and the life of my family. I have been made prey; something to be devoured. My mindset is shaky, my nerves brittle. I think of Daddy less and less as a person these days. He's a force, a presence, far more than a man. My would be killer has, in my mind, become a monster, his form black and swirling, writhing, chaotic, and at times I find my will to live draining like warm water in a basin, leaving only an exposed cold, when I think of him.

I've been trying to occupy myself with memories of before all this. Lying in bed with Simon. Hanging out with my friends, eating with my family round the table as we talk about all the nothings we did that day. They seem like things I saw in a photograph once. My life is fear and disgust and paranoia...and something else, lingering in the back of my skull like an ache itch, that I can't quite put my finger on.

"Then for an instant, feeling stripped and bare, I teeter on an invisible line suspended between something terrible and something terribly sad."

I've looked down at the book. I've been letting tears drip-drop down onto it for about five minutes now. Simon's going to be so pissed the next time I see him. He's going to remind me that he doesn't pop over to Canada and happen upon copies of this book every other day, then he'll complain for a while. I wonder, almost idly, if I'm going to see him again. Not when, if. Not "when I'm reunited with the person I love more than anyone, who I sometimes dream about being with for the rest of my life, he a journalist or writer or film critic, me a teacher, as we grow older and raise a family and watch it grow and - " but if. I don't think about "if not." I've never felt like this before. No belief - none at all - that things will get better. A faint hope, but no actual conviction that it will do so. No optimism left in me. I believed that the world was a beautiful, harmonious place, where good ultimately triumphs. I don't any more. And it hurts.

That's enough from me. I just need to get my thoughts out of my head. Anti-viral medication time. We're going soon. I now leave you with a quote from a classic book. Go educate yourselves.

"The truth of the matter, I sometimes thought, was not so much that I wanted to die, as that I no longer wanted to go on living in my present manner." - Alberto Monrovia, Boredom

Rough morning

First off, never admit to being willing to consider supernatural options in any question you're considering on the internet. You have NO IDEA the kind of crazy-ass shit you'll get in your inbox. I've had one or two guys trying to convince me that this is the Devil, sent to Earth to punish me for reading "The God Delusion", one guy trying to convince me that it's a manifested fictional monster who - according to this guy - gets confused if you're more than 8 feet from the ground, or wearing a mask, and one guy who devoted four of five messages to trying to convince me he's a government experiment being let loose on an urban population to test his warfare applications. It would appear that being willing to consider something that's supernatural attracts people who are willing to consider anything that's supernatural. Or maybe I'm just too damn drilled with scientific rigor and scepticism (lies: there's no such thing as being too damn drilled with scientific rigor and scepticism). I mean, I'm looking for something just on the edges of human understanding and I'm getting stuff from people who seem to just believe anything from Coast To Coast AM. I guess when you compromise your rationality, all bets are off. All myths are true, anyone?

Feeling like crap right now. Still sleeping in chairs in the police department. No-one knows what to do with us. And I've gotten ill somehow. The police doctor says the symptoms aren't of exhaustion from lack of sleep, but rather a really late-season flu. He's given me antivirals, which is a first. Remember all that mention of how I get sick a lot? This is partly the kind of thing I'm talking about (The chronic conditions are, if nothing else, easier to manage.) Only I could get flu, in May, while being chased across the country by a serial killer who may not be human. Oy.

My family's getting increasingly irate. My dad can't work, my mum can't work, my little sister can't go see her friends, and the thing that stopped them doing these things didn't even keep them safe like it was meant to. I think they've found themselves blaming me, which sucks.

Also, I have to write all this on my smartphone, just to keep you guys updated. I hope you're grateful...

Neccesary update

I'm fine. Just to get that out of the way. Daddy just stood there. Watching. When the police arrived, we ran out of the house and into their cars and they whisked us away. We slept at the station.

I have some stuff to say.

Last night changed a lot for me, because it forced me to come to a conclusion I never thought I would. You see, assuming Daddy was just some serial murderer was easy, but it ignored so much. The strange dimensions. The headaches. The fact that it seems like I had dreams about this whole thing before it happened. And our inability to stop him using methods that, to anyone else, would be beyond beatable. The distortion in videos, despite comparative clarity with photographs.

Whatever Daddy is, I don't think he's something that modern science knows about. I don't think he's human. I don't know what he is, and this far outside of my comfort zone, I refuse to speculate, but that's a conclusion I've been forced to come to. I know it sounds crazy; hell, right now it seems like you'd have reason to assume I AM crazy. But whatever Daddy is, he's not something DCI. Duncan or any other damn detective is equipped to handle. He's something else. God only knows what. Alien? Some kind of monster?

Christ, listen to me. I sound like a fucking conspiracy theorist ranting about men in black. I just...I can't come up with a conventional explaination which fits what's going on here.

He's here. He's outside. He's in our back garden. I've just called the police, they're on their way. God only knows how he followed us all the way here, but he's here. And there's something wrong with his arms. Jesus, his arms. I thought he was holding something but I kept looking even though I thought he'd see me and even though I don't know whether or not he did and the more I looked the more and more I thought that his arms were long enough to touch the ground, just like his victims, and he's thin. He's too thin. He's thin and tall and with long, thin arms and no face. He doesn't have a face. No face at all. He's tall. He's taller than the six and a half foot fence around the back garden that he's standing into, staring up at the house. I don't know if the police will be here in time. Oh God, this is the first time I've seen him with my own eyes, that I'm not too pissed to remember. My head hurts and he's here and I don't know if I'll ever write anything ever again. I love you Simon. I love you Mum. I love you Dad. I love you Laura. I love all of you. Just...I hope that this isn't the last time I get to tell you this.

Please don't let me end up like the others.

Phonecalls

I got two phone calls today. One was from Simon. The other, from DCI. Duncan. Apparently, in my absence, absolutely nothing new has happened. No sightings, no new disappearances. They're currently stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they've got a dead teacher, a dead architect and a dead seven year old, and they want to bring the culprit down, but on the other, they have no leads, and anyone who's spent any major amount of time looking at the photographs has mysteriously fallen ill. All claiming, surprise surprise, headaches. The headaches have defied explanation, but it's affecting more and more people. I haven't had any in a while.

Okay, there're something I didn't tell you about that night. Up in Ms. Fisher's flat. While you know how she died, and what had been done to her from the newspaper article about Joey, there was one thing I hid. The look on her face. I don't know how I'd expect someone's face to look having had that done to her, but it wasn't like this. Her face had a look of the most abject horror, like everything she wished she would never lay eyes on was advancing upon her. It's quite a fear, that. Not just to be scared of the unknown. Not just to be scared of something that startles you. But the long, all-consuming dread of being trapped with something beyond your most frenzied, wild nightmares as it bears down upon you. Past screaming. Past crying. Nothing but horror.

That's what Daddy was.

No wonder I can't sleep.

Not for days.

Insomnia

It's black and I'm lonely
Oh if I could only get some sleep
Creaking noises make my skin creep
I need to get some sleep
I can't get no sleep

New everything is still dull. Maybe safer, but it doesn't feel like it. Still paranoid. Still shaking at every noise and movement anyone makes. Sitting at home watching the tiny TV in the relocation home, or on my laptop on TVTropes. Got onto the Nothing Is Scarier pages. That was probably a bad idea. Now I'm lying here, on my laptop, listening to Have A Nice Life. At least that's good.

I hate my life so much right now.

Purgatory-esque

There's NOTHING here. I've been walking around this area for hours. Nothing over 40 years old exists here except maybe the trees. All made-to-order housing estates for the sort-of-well-off and council housing. Small smatterings of franchised shops. Groups of kids who look like they want to stab me for wearing a Depeche Mode t-shirt, all with haircuts copied from footballers and tracksuit tops. Am I really so middle-class that kids who are clearly working-class actively scare me just by their presence? (I should never have watched Eden Lake with Simon) There's a park nearby, but - well, I can't deal with parks right now. News of Joey's death is still ringing in my ears.

To tell you the truth, I'm still reeling from Ms. Fisher's death, and her boyfriend's death, and the knowlege that I'm being stalked by the man who did it. These days, I wake up throughout the night just...screaming. Screaming and weeping. Eventually I cry myself to sleep, hating myself for being so weak. I alternate between having to sleep in the dark and needing the hall light on. When it's dark, it's too impenetrable, but when it's light, the shadows are too pronounced. Sometimes I'll want dark. Sometimes I'll want not so dark. Sometimes I just don't sleep. Being relocated hasn't changed that.

There's nothing to do here. I wish I could live over the internet. It's so much less lonely. There's always new people. But even that's sad. The worlds our minds inhabit since the internet and videogames and home film have become so much larger, but the physical one has become smaller. The known and the unknown both become larger, more intimidating.

I need happy stories. If anyone has any nice stories of things that're going on in their lives, please post them in the comments. I could use the pick-me-up.

Escape

My family and I are now in witness protection. I'm not going to tell you my new name or where I am, but we're far away. My internet connection is being routed through a proxy server in our old house (under police supervision - no piracy or, I dunno, ordering murders over the internet for me) because apparently in this age of social networking sites, it's better to continue with my old things than make new ones and have someone pick up on stylistic similarities. As long as I don't mention my new name and where I am. In the meantime...let's say that Daddy would be well-advised to not try and check out the house. I hope he does, so that I can come home.

I've broken up with Simon. Well, we're giving it a rest. Whether it's my having to move away, or his...incessant desire to share deeply private elements of my own trauma throughout this whole ordeal, I think it's best we have a break. I don't know whether or not I'm going back to him. I mean, I get that his blog is his place to get his emotions down (well, it's meant to be a film blog, but I guess that's gone out of the window) but there are some things I SPECIFICALLY ASKED HIM NOT TO SHARE. Namely, my fucking breakdown when that monster showed up practically in my back garden, and telling everyone who reads his blog about how I didn't care that Joey was missing as long as my ass was safer. That last one does sting more now. Either way, while I do love him, I just don't trust him anymore, and he simply doesn't respect me. Maybe I'll have a different perspective when I get back.

Anyway, I guess after all this time being stalked by some kind of serial killer, followed by whisking me halfway across the country into a new, creepily well-prepared house for me and my family, I'm expected to feel a little back in my shell. But I don't feel any less on edge than I did back in Eastbourne. I can't relax, or get it into my head that there's no way he could find us. I get staying a little highly strung, but I'm wound so damn tight...

Ugh. Anyway, I guess I'm going to go job-hunting tomorrow. I need some way to meet people while I'm here. Feeling isolated. All alone with my thoughts. It doesn't help my outlook. The world seems darker, scarier. It always feels like something could creep into the corner of my vision at any moment. I'm still scared to look out of windows. Just in case.

Goddamn it.

This article just went up on the local newspaper's website. I can't screenshot it like Simon, so I'm just going to copy and paste the article.

"In the third murder attributed to what some are calling the Bourne Butcher, the body of seven year old Joseph Walker has been found in Gilderedge Park, Eastbourne. In a similar fashion to his teacher, Louise Fisher, who was murdered almost a month ago, Walker appears to have had his chest cavity opened, his internal organs removed, and placed around the body. Early reports also suggest that, like Louise Fisher, his limbs seem to have been stretched significantly.

His body was found on a small stone table in a secluded area of the park, where it was discovered by a late night jogger. Walker had been missing for over a week, having been kidnappend from his family home on the night of Sunday 24th.

This tragedy only confirms suspicions voiced by critics that the real killer was still at large and that former sex offender John Halderman was not the perpetrator, as he was in police custody during the estimated time of death.

According to police sources, the East Sussex police are shifting their attention to protecting the classroom assistant who found the body of Louise Fisher, as she has reportedly been the target of several threats from a man fitting the description of the suspect. Why this was not taken note of before, allowing for the freeing of John Halderman, has not been commented upon."

I think I'm going to be sick.

Great day today. Everything's fine.

Distrust

Just got off the phone with DCI. Duncan. The son of a bitch doesn't believe me. He has explaination after explaination as to why what's in those photos isn't real. I'm paranoid. I'm seeing things. I photoshopped them to get attention. I'm suffering from Survivor's Guilt. PTSD. He accepts that Halderman can't be the only one behind Daddy's crimes, but he's not paying attention to what, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty persuasive proof that he wasn't even involved - two tall, thin, bald men, working together? Do they have a union or something? He just wants to believe that he solved the case - with my help, he is quick to remind me. It's hard to tell whether it's his ego refusing to take a dent, or denial of the idea that Daddy is still walking around, free as a pretty bird in the spring.

So I'm alone. No police protection for me or Simon, even though this fucker was right outside his house, looking in. I haven't been to Simon's since Thursday. Haven't left my room in days. Drawing deeper and deeper inside myself. Sleeping with the lights on. Sleeping less. Not sleeping, sometimes. Jumping every time the house settles or the wind blows. every time I close my eyes, I'm scared, because i don't know what'll be there when I open them. Maybe I am paranoid, but that doesn't mean that there isn't someone after me. I have photographic proof. I've got a friend, Laura, coming back down from University to stay with me. She arrives later today. I'll try and keep my...issues under wraps until then. I still have no reason to believe Daddy knows where I live. No headaches in a while though.

That's something.

Tell me I'm seeing things

I found these on my phone. They're from Wednesday night, while I was drunk, at about 2:30 in the morning. The latter was taken near Simon's house. The former was taken inside, from an upstairs window. Click to enlarge. You'll see what I mean.

Please let me be wrong. Please.

EDIT: Just realised. These photographs aren't giving me headaches. If your head hurts after looking at this, get in touch, but otherwise, that's an interesting little discovery.

Unheimliche

So it turns out that getting caught up in a case of people disappearing or being murdered immediately after being stalked doesn't do wonders for the psyche, especially the realisation that the person doing so is probably still at large. On top of my being worried sick almost all the time about Joey, I've become increasingly paranoid over the last few weeks. It's odd. I find myself unconsciously avoiding windows - being near them, or looking out of them - and finding excuses not to go outside, staying in the house.

Did anyone here know the etymology of the word uncanny? I mean, we use it to describe something which is just slightly off, with an emphasis on creepily so; familiar, yet at the same time, alien. And of course, canny indicates knowledge, or knowing. So the word itself means "not known", or in the modern sense, "outside of knowledge". But that's not where the word comes from. It's descended from the German word Unheimliche, which means "un-home-like", or the feeling of being "not at home", like those pictures Ms. Fisher took of her apartment. Familiar, yet not the place it once was. Off. She and her boyfriend both died in that place. It's now a burnt, blackened shell. She was right. It wasn't her home.

And that's my problem right there. I'm not at home. Paranoid, uncomfortable. Full of unease. My eyes not allowing themselves to linger on the dark places. My mental state was pretty damn fractured after finding Ms. Fisher, and I feel like I should admit that my tone on here is me actively hiding just how fucked up I still am about that. Better to keep smiling, eh? And I never smile when I'm alone anymore.

P.S. Joey's name is actually Joey. The fake name thing was a double bluff. I figure, since his name (Joseph Walker) is now a matter of public knowledge, what with all the press coverage, it can't hurt to say now.

P.P.S. I had not read House of Leaves when I wrote this! I feel kinda embarrassed...

Reproach

Today, a nagging little fear was confirmed. There's no way that Halderman could have worked the computer mojo on the security cameras. No-one can figure out exactly how that was done. The recorder was a closed system. They have a theory involving some kind of hyper-complex virus, but it's a stretch. Additionally, while Halderman is wily, his little Harry Houdini trick in and out of that house seems beyond him. I have no doubt he was involved. Guys like him, with that description and that track record aren't exactly ten-a-penny. But he can't have acted alone. That's the only explaination anyone can think of. Which means that someone still probably has Joey. The police force is back up to its full capacity, taking in detectives from all over the county. They're scouring everywhere. No luck.

In other news, my head still hurts. I expected quite the hangover, but this is ridiculous. I guess, with my constitution, problems like this are unavoidable.

Head hurts. No memory of what happened past about 10 o'clock.

Nothing like a good night out on the town, eh?

More sleep now zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

PS Simon Hunt: philandering douchebag?

Malaise

I'm feeling at rather a loose end. I'm not going back to Motcombe because, well, a teacher's death is as good a reason as any to cancel classes for a while in their management's eyes. I've been sitting at home, restless, waiting for a call about Joey having been found or Halderman confessing. I can't sit still. Daytime TV sucks, it turns out there's only a finite mumber of things to read on Cracked, and most of my DVDs have ended up round Simon's house somehow...fortunately, Simon put me onto TVTropes, which I was sceptical about after my first lookaround, until I realised that two hours had passed since I first went on in what definitely felt like fifteen minutes. So, if nothing else, it's a pretty good time-sink. Even then, I'm feeling uneasy - restless, like I said. I feel like I should be doing...something. Instead, I've elected to do almost nothing.

I'm going out tonight with Simon and a few friends. Hit a few clubs, probably get inordinately drunk, do a little dance, make a little etcetera etcetera. Get down tonight, is what I'm saying. If anyone's in Eastbourne tonight, maybe I'll see you around!

Slept well for the first time in weeks. Everything is working itself out :-)

Transcript

Okay, here's a transcript of the interview which took place about three hours ago.



Richard Duncan: Alright, Mr. Halderman, have a seat. This is Mr. North, he'll be your appointed lawyer for these preceedings.

(sounds of chairs scraping)

RD: Do you know who this boy is?

(sound of dry chuckling)

John Holderman: I've seen him in the paper. I hear you guys are having trouble finding the one who took him.

RD: Well that's the thing. We got this photograph of the one who did it.

(Sound of photo paper fluttering)

JH: Ahhhhh...picture's a little low-resolution to be just wheeling me in, isn't it?

RD: Tall, gangly, thin frame, bald, wearing a suit with a black tie. Almost exactly as we found you.

JH: I was on my way back from a job interview. What would you wear, shorts? That's not me. Besides, how'd you get a picture? Last I heard, the one who stole the kid did it without you seeing hide nor hair of him.

RD: This is from the schoolteacher murder, the first crime. She has dozens of pictures of you following her.

Barrister Geoff Paige: Chief Inspector, if you're going to be so casually accusing my client of murder and child abduction, I'd at least expect you to have better evidence than bad photos of a tall bald man.

RD: Tall bald men aren't in short supply. but tall, thin, bald men with histories of vicious violence and sexual assault...

GP: What evidence is there of sexual assault here? Was there any evidence of sexual assault with the teacher?

JH: Are you calling me a paedophile?!?

RD: ...Tall, thin, bald sadists are fewer and further between, Mr. Paige, Mr. Halderman. That is why you are here. You fit the description, you fit the M.O.

JH: When was that taken?

RD: It's timestamped for...Friday 8th. At 7:32. Why, got an alibi?

JH: ...Well I was at home, having just got back from my old job, probably watching television.

RD: Anyone who can confirm this?

JH: No, I was alone.

RD: Well then...

JH: So, you've arrested me for murder and child abduction. I hope for the little boy's sake you haven't called off the search...

RD: Oh, don't you worry. We'll be doing everything we can to make sure you tell us where that boy is...

JH: I wouldn't kidnap that boy, you smug son of a bitch, I'm not a fucking paedophile! Now while it may be hard for you to get your head around this, I always liked kids, and I don't want to see another body turn up around here any more than you do.

RD: Oh, because you're a paragon for peace, aren't you? Louise Fisher's murder was a fucking display of sadism and mutilation, and here you are, fitting the description of her stalker and with a history of slitting up women!

JH: I've changed!

RD: You stuck a knife in a 17-year old girl after she tried to stop you raping her. You mutilated her arms, her chest, her genitals. People like that don't change. People like that only get worse!

GP: (slams hands against table) This interrogation is over, Richard!

(Pause)

RD: I'll take him to his cell.

GP: I'll come with you. Can't have something bad happening along the way, now, can we?

(Tape ends)



No real alibi, a history of violence, the right shape. As I said, I'll be sleeping better knowing "daddy"'s behind bars, though I hope they find Joey soon. I'm still holding out hope that nothing too bad's happened to him, poor kid.

THEY CAUGHT HIM.

At least, they caught someone.

Just got a phone call from DCI. Duncan. John Halderman. 6'8, 143 pounds. Bald. Practically emaciated. Former sex offender - two violent rapes. No recorded interest in children, but hey, no-one's putting it past him. After a string of minor violent crimes, steadily escalating, he was arrested aged twenty for raping two teen girls at knifepoint and stabbing one of them through the hand when they tried to escape, before torturing her. Rape, kidnap, GBH, torture. Now 46. Got out of prison two years ago. Arrested in town after being on the suspect list for a while. Wearing a suit. I'm so excited right now. I don't care about all the weird shit around this whole thing, folks, it looks like this is all on one very tall, very thin, very violent man. If we're lucky, we'll even get Joey back.

Everything might not be going to shit!

EDIT: Duncan has promised he'll e-mail me a transcript of the interrogation. Either he's a little too enabling, or he really IS trying to sleep with me. I don't even think that's legal, but I'm not complaining. I'll put it up when it comes through.

Recession

Joey's gone. No-one knows where. He disappeared on Sunday/Monday night. The police watching their house saw nothing, despite the fact that there should be no way for him to have gotten in. No alarms tripped. No glass broken. The security cameras around the house show nothing, except that at about 2:15, the video file becomes corrupted, framerate slows to a crawl, and picture quality plummets. After about thirty seconds, it goes to a short bit of video of Joey in bed from just before the distortion, playing on a loop. The only bit of image they can get is about five minutes into the file, of Joey, standing beside his bead, looking up at something in front of him. Whoever "Daddy" is, he got into that house at the centre of one of the biggest police cases in East Sussex history, despite the fact that it was being actively surveiled, took a kid, and left, and we only knew the next morning when his mother found his empty bed and started screaming.

What no-one can figure out, as I understand it, is how the camera got sabotaged. It's not attatched to any outside connection other than a police computer being hidden in a cupboard in the next room. It too is under video surveilance and no-one went near it the whole time.

Either way, the press is screaming blue bloody murder over this latest kidnapping, and considering this investigation had brought in police forces from all over East Sussex, the whole county's police forces have egg on their face. It's not common to read about this town in the national paper, you know, let alone when the entire county's best and brightest let the murder suspect they're hunting waltz into a house they're watching and steal a child they're protecting, before slipping away like he was never there. At the last I heard, the phones have been taken off the hook just to stop them ringing. DCI. Duncan's superior'll be resigning in disgrace, from what I hear. Good riddance. If they can't protect a seven year old child, every one of them should hand in their badges.

This has effectively halted my mental recovery from the last incident. I'm not sleeping. I can't bring myself to eat, I can't sit still. I find it hard to go outside. Everything's going to shit.

Advancements

Hey everyone. After what I found out in last Friday, I've been pretty busy. I'm now almost certain that "Daddy" was the one who killed Ms. Fisher; that she knew about him - or just about Joey being stalked - for a while, but that she became particularly aware after getting him back on the Monday, and that Joey's in danger. After spending a few days trying to set out how to present this to the head of the investigation, a Detective Chief Inspector Duncan (whose phone number I have, in case I remember or hear anything, assuming he doesn't just want to sleep with me while I'm vulnerable) I got it crystallised in my head. He's a tall, thin, bald Caucasian man, who seems to wear a suit a lot. No facial description unfortunately, and I think it's best if I don't mention the supposed long arms and the fact that headaches seem to break out near him, because that'll make me sound crazy.

I told DCI. Duncan all this, and he yelled at me for five minutes about not telling him about this before, then thanked me for my lead and hung up. On Thursday, I got the call that he and his household are under police protection. I also received some other, interesting information. Firstly, there was not only one photograph. There were thousands. She had in her purse about five Micro SDHC cards, full of pictures. Mostly of areas around the school, at all times of day. A lot of the time they were down alleyways, into dark windows or out of her flat window into the night. Sporadic at first, but increasingly frequent as time went on. In her last week, she was taking over two hundred a day. And every so often, far off in the background, was a featureless bald head and thin black-clad shoulders peering out towards her, at first rarely, but then with more and more frequency. He was following her. A chill ran down my spine when I heard this. How long had he been planning that murder, how long had he been choosing the exact right moment to maim and kill that poor woman?

More chilling, when I thought about it, were the photos with nothing in them. Some were just of corners of rooms in her apartment, or hallways in Motcombe School. Places she should have felt safe, turned into hunting grounds for her eventual murderer. I don't know what's scarier to me; that she was paranoid enough to distrust even her inner sanctums, or that he may well have been there.

Anyway, today, I got bad news. According to Joey's mother, they don't know any bald men who wear suits with any regularity, let alone on every occasion anyone had seen them. More bad news, several of the police staff had dropped off the case, particularly those in the photo labs, complaining of terrible migraines.

Can anyone tell me how this headache thing is possible? Because I'm drawing a blank.

On Joey

This afternoon went pretty smoothly. I went over to my friend's house and spoke to her mother about Joey's parents. Told her that the school was having me drop off homework for his class, seeing as how they didn't get it from the end of the term. It turns out the two kids have had a few playdates, and she had Joey's address written down on a stack of paper, which she handed over.

Joey...doesn't live well at home. The house he lives in is one his family can't really afford; his mother works multiple jobs for it just so she has the right postcode to get him into decent, middle-class schools, and while it's in a nice area, it's a dump. They'd honestly have a better residence in a council estate. I knock on the door - coarse, unpainted wood and the glass of the windows long since smashed and boarded up - and a woman with hair that seems prematurely greyed answers. Crow's feet across her eyes. A uniform for a minimum wage job on under her jacket. Instantly I feel self-conscious, until I remember why I'm here.

"Hi, I'm Ms. Dawkins, an assistant in Joey's class. Is Joey in? I need to talk to him about homework for school, catch up after the rather chaotic end of term, if that's okay."

She looks at me, scanning me up and down, and then her gaze softens.

"He's in the lounge. I have to go now, but feel free to go in there and keep him busy."

She can't afford a sitter, it would appear. Okay, that makes my life easier.

"Hey, just for security's sake, let me take a photo of you."

She produces a cameraphone and takes a photograph of me. If I were some kind of paedophile, then she's certainly gone further towards solving this crime than preventing it.

"Right, I'll get out of your hair. Let yourself out whenever."

And with that, she walks past me, down a vegetation-tangled garden path and into an old, beat-up car before driving off to some shitty job. I walk into the house proper. It looks like someone was in the middle of a large DIY project and stopped halfway through; walls stripped and with splashes of old white paint and cement filling in cracks. The hallway stretches out to a tiny kitchen in front of me, and to my left, a staircase and a door to the lounge. Blu-tac'd at seemingly random intervals (covering up holes in the wall) are drawings seemingly drawn by Joey. I enter the lounge to find Joey sitting on the floor, drawing eagerly. He looks up at me and grins.

"Heyyyyyyy Kari!"

I sit down on the sofa. "Hey, Joey. I'm just here to ask about Daddy."

Joey looks confused.

"Ms. Fisher already came over and asked about Daddy. She had pictures on her phone. He was in some of them. There were more pictures than I can count. She asked what his face looked like."

She was here? She was asking about Daddy?

"Joey, stop drawing, this is very important. Tell me everything about Daddy. Is he your real Daddy?"

Joey's face scrunches up in concentration as he tries to find the right words. "No, but I never had a Daddy. He started being there, and so I called him Daddy, because he was the first person who was there for me."

"When did he start appearing?"

"About two months ago. At first he was hiding. I'd see him off in the distance or outside the house. Then he got more open. He watches me through windows, presses his face right up near them. Sometimes at school, he comes right up to the glass on the door. He comes into my room at night while I sleep. Look, I drew a picture."

Joey pulls a sheet of A4 from out of a pile. It showed Joey in bed, with a smile on his face, while the same tall, suited man stands right next to the bed. He looks like he's staring right at his, but his lack of a face means I'm just guessing. What was really bizarre were his dimensions; despite the fact that Joey's art skills are well beyond that of a normal child his age, he insists on drawing Daddy with long, thin arms and legs. The arms touch the ground even from standing. By comparison, the dimensions of other characters he draws are very realistic. It makes me wonder about that artistic choice.

"He always comes to keep me company when my head hurts."

Suddenly everything clicks.

"Did he take you with him that day you went missing?"

Joey's face turns red with anger. "He's my Daddy! I wanted to go with him!"

"What's wrong with Daddy's arms and legs?"

He stops. I press on.

"Why do you draw his arms and legs like that?"

He's completely quiet. Just looking at me.

"Who is Daddy?"

He suddenly looks scared. I can tell I'm not going to get any more information out of him. I back off, try to comfort him calm again. Eventually he relaxes.

*****

By the time I walked home, it was already dark. Colder than it had been previous nights. Deeper shadows, stretching out from behind cars and walls. I walked quickly.

New things, junk, and in other news, stuff.

The Easter holiday makes me feel out of the loop. I've only found things out about Ms. Fisher's murder during repeated police questionings. I got the number of the guy in charge "in case anything comes to me", but it was pretty heavily implied that he still doesn't trust me. All I know is what the rest of the town knows; that her apartment was lit on fire last night. Her boyfriend was asleep inside, and was trapped. He's dead too. It seems to me that it might be the murderer trying to cover up any evidence which might be left. A shame that another person had to die horribly, but at least it's better than what happened to Ms. Fisher. Smoke inhalation probably put him under before the flames got to him. Quicker. Less painful, in the grander scheme of things.

Yesterday, however, I found that apparently the police already got what they wanted to hide. It turns out that, dropped under the bed near her, was her phone, on camera mode. She took a photograph of someone, a photograph I was shown. The problem is that the culprit is very far off in the distance and her phone camera wasn't very good, so all the police are going on is that they're tall, wearing black and bald. They can't even get any kind of clarity on his face. It just looks like white.

I know what you're thinking, but this is why I feel out of the loop. I can't tell if they've made the connection to Joey's "daddy" yet, because I haven't seen Joey or anyone who knows Joey since they broke up for Easter holiday, but it can't be a coincidence. The whole scene after she got Joey back, the days off afterwards. Her growing fright whenever Joey mentioned him. This "daddy" has a lot to answer for, possibly a murder.

A friend of mine's little brother was in the other class, and I saw them playing together once or twice; there's a chance his parents know Joey's. I'm going to go ask around. I'll update you later.

Breaking the Silence

Kari here. Sorry about the absence. Things have been a bit frantic here. Thank you all for being patient, assuming there's anyone still reading this. I've needed some time to myself.

So, here's what happened. I went over to Ms. Fisher's apartment at about eight with her books. She lived on the fourth floor of an apartment building in town near the seafront. The elevator was broken, so I took the stairs up. As soon as I got to the landing I saw that her door was ajar, but there was no light coming in from inside, so I assumed someone had broken in or something. I crept up to the door and listened for footsteps. Hearing none, I went inside. I turned the light on, and saw their living room in front of me; all tasteful, neutrally coloured furniture, arranged straight out of a catalogue. The door I entered was on the far left side of the wall, and so to my right was a TV with a cream sofa and some chairs arranged around both it and a wooden coffee table. In front of me was a dark wooden dinner table and chairs, and behind it, a door, which was also open, showing just enough of the wall inside for me to see a streak of red. I sprinted to the door.

The police arrived about two minutes after I called them, along with an ambulance. I couldn't stay in that apartment, so I crawled into the hallway, where they found me. I was sobbing and shaking. I've never...I didn't realise I lived in a world in which something like what happened to that woman could happen. I never even thought that something that grotesque could be a part of the same reality that I inhabited happily, safely, for all this time. I...

I'm not going to say what had been done to her. You don't want that.

 A paramedic, a young woman, wrapped a blanket around me while police and other paramedics ran into the bedroom. The sight of the body quickly sent them all back out again. None of them were prepared for that. After about half an hour later, when I was sitting in the back of the ambulance, still draped in the blanket, a rather ashamed policeman told me that I needed to come to the police station for questioning, and to deliver a statement.

That took hours. I recounted finding the body over and over and over and over and over until they were sure that the details were consistent. Eventually my parents came to pick me up.

When we got home, Simon was sitting on my house's doorstep. As soon as we pulled up, he sprinted over to the car, pulled open the door and hugged me, tight, squeezing me tight into his chest. I started crying again, like a fucking baby.

We went inside and we both went to bed. I felt that I needed him there or I couldn't sleep. I was wrong. Even with his arms still wrapped around me tightly, I woke up screaming and crying from a nightmare. This happened again and again throughout the night, and most nights since then. The worst, however, was one two nights ago, a repeat of that one nightmare, complete with the splitting headache.

Ms. Fisher had a headache.

I think I might be sick.

Simon here. This news article from the local paper got posted about an hour ago. Only just heard. Kari's not answering her phone. I don't know what to do. On my way to the police station now. Click on it to view full-size:

Today's findings.

Ms. Fisher hasn't been into work since the incident on Monday.

Sorry, I should start at the beginning.

I went into school for the first time in a while after my sick spell, only to find Mrs.Swift at the head of the classroom, all pursed, wrinkles lips and steely gazes towards the children, who'd given up all semblance of the sweet little tykes who I'd first met. They were unfocused, disruptive and uncooperative to her, and while they still seemed to like me, they wouldn't obey me if I were advocating for her. She seems to have proven herself unpopular.

The day dragged on; maths into history into...nothing much really. The more I thought about it, the more I became worried about Ms. Fisher's condition. An opportunity to find out more came at the end of the day. Ms. Fisher left one of her class planner books in the classroom, so I'm heading over to her apartment to give it to her. Figured I'd leave it late, so that if she's indisposed, her boyfriend can answer the door. I'll let you know how she's doing.

Not so ugh

Feeling better. Hopefully I can get into work tomorrow and find out what's going on with Ms. Fisher. Something's not right here.

Ugh

As the title says, ugh. I've been off for two days, ill. Had to leave halfway through the school day Tuesday. Ms. Fisher's still not all that stable either. Phoned in on Tuesday, to give instructions. She says she's not sleeping. If it's any consolation, neither am I. She still wouldn't say why she was in this state. When I'm better, I'll go and find out.

In the meantime, me brain no werk when I'm ill, so that's all for now.

Simon again. Kari e-mailed me this as a word document from her phone.

Hey everyone. Sorry I wasn't around to post last night. I've been wanting to get this written all day. I ended up writing this on my phone in my break and e-mailing it to Simon to upload when he can. Yesterday, Joey went missing. During morning break, he just vanished. No-one saw him leave; he was there one minute and gone the next.

Naturally, once we established that he wasn't on the premises, everyone panicked. Ms Fisher had me take over the class while looked everywhere within two streets' radius, knocking on doors and looking in gardens. Eventually, she came back to the classroom, the young boy in hand. He was crying his eyes out, completely incomprehensible through the sobs. Ms. Fisher, however, was something entirely different. She was white as a sheet, and shaking. Her warm, kind demeanour was gone, replaced with what I can only describe as utmost dread. Real, unadulterated horror. She looked older, more worn, than she had been a half hour before. I understand that losing a child like that is worrying, but something was obviously very wrong. It turned out that he'd gotten through the fence around the school somehow - it's a tall fence, even by adult standards, with nothing to climb up, so he can't have gotten over it - and into the large park next door. Ms. Fisher had found him hiding amongst the trees, curled up into a ball. That was all she said - nothing to indicate why she was in the state she was in. After a while, the shaking gave way to a sudden, splitting headache, which rendered her useless. 

Her boyfriend came to pick her up and a substitute teacher, an old, short-tempered woman called Mrs. Swift, who the children were in turn not very cooperative with. It seems like the only thing stopping them from being as...well, as variable in their behaviour as most kids their age was the influence of a teacher they loved. I had to work my ass off getting them all calm.

Anyway, I'll be back with another one later today.

Kari's busy

Hey all, Simon here. Kari's got some stuff going on tonight - her brother's back in town to visit and they're all going to be out until the wee hours. She said she has some stuff to tell you all when she gets around to it, and she'll get it to you as soon as she can. Until then;

Third Day

Had a new experience today. It turns out one of the children, who I will be calling Jenny for the purposes of this blog, had her father leave her mother last night. She was in pieces all day. What sucks was that she wanted someone to hug her, but for obvious reasons, I can't. If she hugs onto me, which she did, I actually have to raise my hands above my head to show that I'm not touching her inappropriately... At this point, Ms. Fisher tells me to "stop being ridiculous" and ushered her into her arms. I felt terrible.

Anyway, this girl was bawling her eyes out, and Joey walked up behind her and said "Your dad'll always be with you. Mine's always with me." And as creepy as this kid's getting, it actually seemed to comfort her, the way it seemed to comfort him.

Meanwhile, I could see Ms. Fisher's face turn white.

Still not all bad; the weather sucks, but that means we get MISTY NIGHTS! I FUCKING LOVE misty nights! Specifically, I love how light goes when it's illuminating mist or rain. Shadows streaking through the air and the like. I took some snaps on my way back from Simon's at about 9 last night.

On that note, I should probably head off. It's approaching 2 A.M. and I have shit to do tomorrow. Weekend and all.

Day 2

Morning had the same routine; Ms. Fisher and I battled against the Sisyphean weight of her book bags and planned the day ahead; maths (well, adding up), more english (well, copying sentences) and then the afternoon spend doing P.E. (well...actually no, just P.E.) First period went well; while it was intermediate-level adding up, most of the children were able to get through it with time to spare, and the last few got out to break on time with a little help from yours truly. Nothing's quite as rewarding as actually passing on knowledge. The look of slow, dawning revelation on a little girl or boy's face when the problem before them reveals an answer? Amazing. I love this job.

English went the same as yesterday. The kids copied out the sentences. You wouldn't believe how hard they find this; getting the letters legible, getting the syntax right. It's mostly handwriting training but it really helps their grasp on writing, and on reading.

P.E. was actually really fun to watch. They were playing dodgeball in the main hall, but a weird variant involving benches and a kind of goalkeeper setup. Here's a diagram: 

Also there's only one ball. The best tactic, as far as I could tell, is to have two layers of people facing either way, one to catch from the advantageous position of the goalkeeper (who can't get out and is thus invulnerable, but can only stay on the bench they're standing on) and the other to catch stray shots from the floor team. Neither team managed to figure this out and it essentially became "anyone who gets the ball will get an out". Anyway, the kids all seemed to have fun, although they got VERY competitive. I certainly had an active goal as the referee...

Afterwards, I met up with Simon and some other friends. One of our friends is an ex-Jehova's Witness, and this is her first birthday with a party. Her girlfriend and another girl (she bakes. It's what she does. How she's not fat is beyond me) made her THIS:

It's a gay cake! Because she's, y'know, gay.

Yeah, I know it's kind of off to define her by one attribute, but that's how we roll. She's the gay one, her girlfriend's the ditzy one, I'm the ill one, Simon is the ginger, pretentious, inappropriate, poorly dressed one with the terrible diet and the unsavoury relationship with his computer. It's a delicate balancing act ;D (Love you lots, honest!)

Anyway, that's all I've got today. Bye all!

First Day at Motcombe

Interesting day...

So I showed up, on time, at 8:30. Waiting for me in the car park was the teacher I was assigned to. Greeting me as she dragged her laptop bag and rucksack full of lesson plans and registers and the like out of the back of her car, she introduced herself as Ms. Fisher. Once she was fully upright I saw she was a pretty woman, in a soft kind of way. Brown hair, a warm smile, and a summer dress which would unfortunately come back to haunt her when the rain started up in the afternoon. She was one of those women who seemed motherly, even when they don't have kids; caring, sweet and infectiously enthusiastic. I figured, in retrospect, I should have worn something more feminine than my customary black jeans, t-shirt and hoodie. Giving her a hand with her bags, she led me into the Year 2 classroom. A large, open space with tables and chairs around most of the room and a carpeted corner for the kids to sit on as a whole class. Ms. Fisher has a utilitarian wooden desk in the corner, the wall around it dotted with drawings. We spent fifteen minutes talking about the day ahead, getting what we'd get done sorted out.

At about 8:50, kids started gathering. Some played in the playground, some lingered on the edges of the field with their parents. After ten minutes, they trickled in and sat in their places. I guess I was expecting them to be more boisterous, because they were surprisingly well-behaved. They were the sweetest little things you've ever seen; playful, talkative, every one of them a character in their own right. The register was taken, and I made my introduction. The kids treated me with curiosity and warmth; one said that "It's like Ms. Fisher's the mummy, and you're the big sister." I love kids <3. They got to work copying out sentences from a sheet of paper. There were about five of them, yet it took concentration from almost every one of them. After an hour and a half, they were let out on break. Wanting to get to know them, I went to go play with them. I ended up playing football with the boys in the group, and while I have basically no athletic talent, compared to seven year olds I'm damn near competent. My side won, though, depressingly, not so much through my efforts.

After break, the children were set a task; to make a small presentation to the class about their parents. They got to work, with crayons and felt tips to draw pictures of their parents and with me helping them decide what to write. After lunch, the presentations began. Most of them were fairly routine - parents were everything from doctors to shop managers to scientists. However, one stood out. One boy, whose name I'm not sure I can put on here but who, for the sake of reference, I'll call Joey, got up and talked about his mother. When he got to his dad, however, his eyes lit up. "My daddy is the biggest, strongest man in the world. Mummy says he went away but he never really goes. Sometimes he stands in my room, watching me while I sleep. Sometimes he stands outside the window. My daddy doesn't say anything, but I know he loves me." He showed a picture of his father; a tall, thin bald man in a business suit, with long arms and legs, as tall as the tree next to him. Despite how he drew pictures of himself and his mother, he apparently didn't get round to drawing a face for his father. I felt uncomfortable. Couldn't put my finger on why. Ms. Fisher hurredly stepped in; "That was lovely, Joey. Now, Melodie, your turn." And the show went on.

After class, once the kids were gone, Ms. Fisher confided in me the troubling thing about this. Joey never knew his father. He's been talking about this "father" for a few weeks now. His mother doesn't know what to do. His classmates are beginning to ask questions. Teachers have been put on alert to keep an eye out for a man fitting this description. And no-one knows where he got this character from. Ms. Fisher sighs. "At this rate, we're going to have to send him to a therapist. He's...he's not well. I'm so worried about him. He's a good kid."

She thanked me for my work today and I left. Weird first day, huh? Something about this whole incident made me really uneasy. My head aches faintly.

Photos!

Took the long way home from college. Got photos of the bits of the park. Illustration's always nice.

You see what I mean about tall bushes? (Though I think they were taller in the dream)

Hill with stone tablet on left of this, path into "forest" on right

This led to a woods like...well, like the Forest of Dean, I guess, is my best reference point.

The seagull? Not in my dream ;)

This bench...well it seemed important. Less so now...

Just thought I'd give a visual reference.

First post

Hey all, Kari here. I'm creating this blog to act as a diary of my time as a teaching assistant at Motcombe primary school, which I will be starting tomorrow. I just thought I'd get the blog started now, because, well, never put off until tomorrow what you can do today, right?

I'm not looking forward to it, actually. I feel like crap at the moment. If any of you read my boyfriend's blog, you'll know that I have a pretty shitty record with my health, but last night was a new one. I had this dream.

I was in a park, near where I live. It's night and I'm trying to find my way around using the flashlight function on my phone. I should know how to get home, but nothing's the way I remember it. I start down this long path lined with tall bushes until I come to a very steep, very tall hill with a stone table at the top. There's a path behind me, and as I turn to shine my light down it, I hear a crackling sound. I go to investigate and I come to a small clearing an a forest full of trees, tall enough that their branches block out the stars. Nothing like this exists in the park I was dreaming of. The crackling continues. I walk towards it, and my head starts to ache. Another step. The aching intensifies. Another step, the ache gets worse. My light sweeps across to the space between two tree trunks. A leg disappears round the back. Someone's here. The ache becomes a sharp, piercing pain, enough to make me double over. I get back on my feet and run. I drop my phone, and the light with it. Scrambling through the forest in the dark. The crackling gets louder. The ache gets worse. I reach the path again, and rush into the light from a lamp by the side. My arms have grown massively. They're long, thin and bloodied. Bone sticking out. They look like they've been stretched so much all the muscle and bone has been shredded. Long enough that I must have been dragging them behind me as I ran. Someone steps out from the forest area.

Then I woke up, but here's the thing: my head still hurt, worse than anything I've ever felt. This deep, piercing ache. I've never been in so much pain. It ground to a halt after about an hour leaving me with a low throbbing sensation. I cried myself to sleep in the end.

So yeah. Not in a child-care mood. Wow, dark first post. It'll get better, honest!