Trenton

I can’t describe how the pain felt, but I’ll do my best. Imagine someone took a knife, and opened a hole in your chest about the size of a quarter. Now imagine they took a nest of hornets, a colony of scorpions, and poured liquid nitrogen and acid all into that hole.

That would have been blissful compared to this.

I lay on the ground, unaware of anything around me. My eyes were shut, but I could hear voices. I vaguely remember replying to Serena when she asked me questions, and I must’ve fully regained consciousness when they all read the note. I had my own suspicions about what was going on. Obviously, we had to conquer our worst fear, obtain a small part of the page, and then combine them all into one. That was obvious. However, there was one loophole. When combined, there was still one scrap left over. Which could mean one of two things: one, there’s another person here in these woods in the middle of the night contending with the Slenderman purposefully. That conclusion doesn’t seem very likely. Two, we have the other scrap, we just aren’t aware of it. Seems more likely. Which leads me to believe that the necklace somehow contains that scrap. A lot of thinking went into this, but I told no one, for fear that I could be wrong and waste a bunch of precious time. I opened my eyes and looked up at the sky, the stars glittering like diamonds. I pulled in a breath, and pain erupted in my chest. Red stars joined the ones in the sky as they danced across my vision, exploding in yellow sparks. I coughed weakly, and someone came to my side. I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth in pain. I heard my heart pulsing furiously, and I knew that, this time, I was actually going to die. All the other time I thought I was gonna die, but this time, there was no escape. I was going to die. I thought of all the good times that I had, and all the times I would never have, and tears began to run down my face, but it hurt to cry, so I tried to hold it back. Still, some escaped my grasp and fell onto the cold hard dirt beneath me. I opened my eyes once again, and I see Kathryn and Eric standing over me. I saw Kathryn holding a knife, and Eric was ripping his shirt into small squares. Kathryn saw that I was conscious, and looked in worry at her knife.

“Trenton, I’m sorry, but this is gonna hurt,” she said. First, she probes the center of my chest, feeling around for something. Pain shoots through my body every time she touches it, but I hold back. I decide to look away. I turn to my left and see Aly standing to the side, watching out for anything.

“Where… where are the others?” I gasp, even though it hurts.

“Don’t talk,” Kathryn commands. “They’re out looking for the last note.” I closed my eyes, hoping with all my being that they’re safe. “Okay, what I’m going to do now is going to hurt, but it’ll be over quickly.” I close my eyes and clench my jaw, waiting for the pain. However, it still hits like a steamroller. I feel the cold blade of the knife digging in my chest. Eric holds down my arms, and tries calming me down. Pain erupts throughout my body, centered in my chest where the knife is trying to dig something out. Finally, and interminable amount of time, the pain stops, and I see Kathryn sit back.

“Eric, hand me the bandages,” she commands. He gives her some squares of shirt he tore up and she applies it gently on my chest. When she pulls it away, I see black blood covering the cloth. “It’s no use,” she said. “The necklace keeps moving, so I can’t dig it out. The poison is spreading too. I’ve failed.” She looks defeated.

“It’s… it’s okay…” I mutter weakly. I see a single teardrop fall down her face and land in a plop on the ground.

“I wish… I wish I had powers of healing, but I don’t…” she said. I hear footsteps pounding and I turn my head weakly. Aly runs towards me, and in her footsteps, small patches of grass spring up. I hear her whispering words under her breath.

“I know my power,” she whispers to us. “All around us, I hear everything, every living thing, all the trees, all the rodents, all the snakes, everything! And I have control over all of it!” she says triumphantly. I notice that her eyes have turned a deep emerald, the color of the forest we were surrounded by. She leans down towards me, hands out in front of her, and she takes a deep breath. From her palms come small orbs of pure white light, and all around us I hear the grass drying, leaves crackling, and trees creaking as the life is forced out of them, and redirected into me. The pain lessens, and I feel a pressure beneath the skin in my chest. I feel my chest, and a small bump is there. The skin is completely healed where Kathryn cut, but I take the knife from Kathryn. I hold the edge just under the bump, take a deep breath, and shove it under. Pain erupts from my chest, but I grit my teeth and finish the job, flinging the necklace out of my chest onto the dead grass by me. I take a deep breath as the poison leaves my body as black fog, more than I thought was possible, and it spills out like Slender’s tendrils of shadows, denser than air. It creeps along the forest floor where it dissipates into the ground. I close my eyes in relief and then look up at the sky. Aly closes her hands and the orbs wink out of existence, and she stands up shakily. She helps me to my wobbly feet, and we lean on each other for support. Kathryn rushes forward and hugs both of us, whispering a thank you to Aly. My chest is completely healed, with no signs of anything except for a small circular scar where the necklace was.

“Let’s go get the others,” I say. Eric hands me a flashlight, and I turn around. I almost drop the flashlight in terror. At the edge of the clearing, the Slenderman stands, two of his ethereal tentacles at his side, one holding Kylie, the other holding Serena, both around the neck.

“It’s time to choose,” a dark and heavy voice said.