TWENTYFIVE

Hello World.

I’m going back to Tasha’s house.  I got this text message from her earlier today.  I don’t know what it is that she wants to talk about…but this gives me a chance to find out more about her mother. 

I hope this isn’t another dead end.

~Willow

TWENTYFOUR

Hello World.

I’m figuring it out.
I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid and blind.  I read everything I’ve told you guys since the beginning.  I figured that maybe there would be something I’d forgotten or missed, maybe overlooked.  I’m stupid.  I’m stumbling around in the dark with a flashlight in my hand.  I wrote down notes, while I was going through all of my updates and I at least found out that the Tall Man is the reason why my schizotypal symptoms have died down.  From memory I can also add that the longer I go without killing someone he takes away, those symptoms start to show their ugly faces.  So I’m some kind of mercenary for this thing?  Why?  This I haven’t figure out yet.  I also have no idea still why these people were targeted.  I use that term simply because it’s the only logical word that fits with what has been happening.  I need more information to answer these questions.  What I need to do is figure out more about these people.  Tasha’s mother would have been easy, except for the fact that she kicked me out of her house.  The boy though…I have his name from the news.  I could try to pick up something from his neighbors or friends, acting as if I were part of some kind of investigation involving his disappearance.  It’s a long shot because I’m rather short and I’ve been told I look rather young, but I have to try.  It’s all I have.
As far as the search for my brother, I’m putting it on short hold while I get this…Tall Man business sorted out to the best of my abilities.  I still have no leads and I found nothing in my updates that I could use to work towards finding him.  I’m hoping that since his disappearance has something to do with the Man that maybe in my ‘investigations’ I’ll find something to help me find him.

I’ll update as soon as I find something.

~Willow.

TWENTYTHREE Part 2

Hello World.

Unfortunately this part of what has happened recently isn’t so pleasant.  First of all, the first four days of staying at Tasha’s house was great.  I was actually taking a short break from my search for Riley and I was catching up with an old friend and having a good time.  It was also really nice to have full meals for a change.  Instead of junk food here and there and some days all that would get me through a day was a cup of coffee and a crescent roll or a strawberry tart from a Starbucks.  Justine was also very happy to be inside a warm household once again.  However these glorious spoils were short lived.  I walked into the living room one morning to find Tasha watching a news report about the man I had killed, his body was still missing and now they were talking about her mother.  The news reporters, always looking for a good story, were going on about how these two cases of missing persons could possibly be connected but it was too early to tell for sure.  Tasha turned the T.V. to mute and turned around with a pissed off look on her face.  I stared blankly at her hoping that she wasn’t about to ask me what I knew she would end up asking anyway.
“Do you know anything about this?” She asked, trying to keep her voice as calm as she could.  I slowly shook my head.  She didn’t need to know about any of that.  So why would I tell her?  She eyed me with the greatest look of suspicion and turned back around to continue watching the news.  I quickly walked out of the room, grabbed a bagel from the kitchen and left the house to go for a walk.  I made sure not to go down any busy streets as I didn’t want anyone to recognize me.  I was keeping up with mine and Riley’s missing persons case and I wasn’t about to make any stupid mistakes.  Even though Tasha’s neighborhood was a decent couple of miles away from where Riley and I lived I still took precautions. 
About thirty minutes into my walk however I started to feel a familiar itch.  The haunting ringing echoed in my ears and I shook my head to try and get rid of it.  Nothing helped and I turned around to search for what I knew would be near.  There he was…standing across the street from me.  I shook my head again because the ringing kept growing louder.  I suddenly felt something warm trickle down to my lips and my face curled in disgust when I ran my tongue across my lips.  The nasty pang of my blood was all over my taste buds and I brought my sleeve up to my face to wipe away my nose bleed. 
“Hey, are you alright?”
I heard someone behind me.  I turned around to see a young man looking at me quite concerned.  He had to have been in his teen years, probably seventeen or eighteen.  I looked back across the street at the Tall Man who was still standing there.  The boy followed my gaze and he turned almost as pale as the Tall Man.  He could see the Man?  Before I could even go over this thought in my head I was leaping onto the boy grabbing at his neck to keep him from screaming.  I squeezed hard with one hand and was able to grab my knife from my jacket pocket.  His eyes widened and he managed to utter a gurgled “SHIT!” as I brought the knife closer to his face.  I stroked his cheek with the blade and then quickly jabbed it into the bottom of his jaw closer to his throat.  With a quick jerk up to his chin he was suddenly lifeless and I jumped off of him taking a few hasty steps backwards as the Tall Man appeared before us and just as quickly disappeared with the body.  I stood there for a few minutes staring at the spot that the boy’s body once laid. 
“What is going on?” I found myself asking out loud.  I wasn’t scared.  Hell if I was scared by what I was doing…I know I should be…but I can’t feel it.  All I felt was confusion.  Something was going on that I wasn’t getting.  Why do I keep killing people I don’t even know?  Excluding Tasha’s mother of course…but…then I had a thought.  The boy had seen the Tall Man before I killed him.  How could he see him?  No one else I ever knew could.  I had too many thoughts racing through my head to sort it all out there so I cleaned my blade with my sleeve and pocketed it. 
A few days passed and I had been out of the house for about an hour before I returned.  Upon entering through the front door I heard the T.V. on in the family room.  It was the news again and this time it was focused on another missing person.  The news woman described a teenage boy with the description of the kid I had killed the other day.  Avoiding the entire situation I tried to hurry upstairs before Tasha knew I was even home.
“WILLOW!!!” I heard her yell, and it was loud.  I couldn’t avoid this situation so I made my way down to the living room where I found her standing in front of the television with her arms crossed and a furious look on her face.
“I’m going to ask you a question and this time you are NOT going to lie to me.” She said and I stood there frozen.
“I know you know something about these missing people, and it’s not just because Riley is gone too.  You have something to do with this and I want to know what.”
I didn’t say anything.  I stood there staring at her trying to keep a calm, straight face, but she didn’t like that.
“WHERE IS MY MOM!?” She screamed at me.
I couldn’t deny her the truth any longer.
“She’s dead.” I said in the flattest tone I’ve ever used.
Tasha stared at me for a few seconds before tears began to stream down her face.
“GET OUT!  JUST GET OUT!!” She yelled and took a few steps towards me.  I knew she wasn’t going to hurt me but I was afraid anyway that she would.  I grabbed my bag and Justine from the kitchen and rushed out the door into the street.  I ran.  I didn’t stop until I was at the elementary school a little ways further into the neighborhood.  I sat down on one of the swings at the park next to the school and just…cried.  What is wrong with me?  Why was I hurting and killing people without any feeling?  Why was I doing it at all?  I know that the Tall Man most likely has something to do with all of it I just can’t understand any of it.  Nothing makes sense.  I’m turning into a monster and when I think about it I haven’t made any real progress on finding Riley at all.  I had a friend but I’ve ruined even that.  Am I cursed or something?  I need answers…but I have no idea where to get them.

I don’t know what to do…

~Willow

TWENTYTHREE Part 1

Hello World.

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you all.  Once again I’ve been bombarded by a LOT of shit.  Therefore I’m going to make these next two entries in parts.  This is going to be Part 1.  Anyway going back to when I was talking to Carolyn, like I said I had talked to her and informed her of Riley’s disappearance although I tried my best to leave out the details of the Tall Man and killing the man and her own mother.  Unfortunately this proved to be extremely difficult and she caught on to my lack of information very quickly.  I ended up telling her about the Tall Man after and when I first mentioned him her face grew slightly pale and she swallowed nervously.  By the time I was finished telling her ALMOST the full story, she was silent for a little while.  At first I feared that she didn’t believe me but I knew that wasn’t the case.  Not with the way she reacted.  She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment before speaking.
“I believe you.”
This was beginning to sound like the conversation I had with Riley before he disappeared.  As a paranoid reaction I looked around the room to make sure the Tall Man wasn’t anywhere near.  I didn’t see him.  Carolyn then began to explain what had happened to her after I wasn’t allowed to see her as a child.  Her family was very upset with me and my parents even though it was deemed an accident.  Carolyn was scared and hated me at first but after they moved away from us she began to remember seeing the Tall Man with me that day and told herself that it was his fault.  Sometimes she would think that she saw the Tall Man throughout the rest of her childhood years but when she would really look there would be nothing there.  As she grew older he went away and she didn’t see him anymore until once recently.  She saw him one night outside her bedroom window, watching her.  She tried to tell herself it wasn’t real but every time she would go back to her window he would be there.  I then realized that the night she saw him was the same night I had killed her mother.  I didn’t really know what to think.  I sort of hated myself for not feeling sorry about the whole thing but I couldn’t help it.  I tried to feel something…anything…I could not.  She noticed that I wasn’t exactly focused on what she was saying and said my name a few times to grab my attention.  Carolyn then continued to explain that her mother and father had gone through a really bad divorce and her father wouldn’t leave them alone.  Things ended up getting really bad so they moved and even changed their names.  Carolyn’s name for the past five years has been Tasha.  I quickly apologized for using her ‘old’ name but she smiled and told me it was fine and that it was sort of refreshing to hear her real name as even her mother called her Tasha all the time.  We talked a little while longer before I finally asked the question that had been nagging at the back of my mind.  I asked her if I could stay with her for a while.  I’d been jumping around from random buildings and backyards for weeks ever since I stopped wasting money on cheap motels.  The nights had gotten way too cold to be sleeping outside and I feared that Justine would catch the flu.  Tasha told me that I was more than welcome to stay in her home for as long as I needed to and that even if I left I was always welcome back.  She then mentioned that this offer only lasted until her mother returned from a sudden business trip that was stretching on longer than expected.  I paused nervously for half a second and then smiled.
“Of course.”
I hugged her and thanked her for her hospitality and she showed me where I would be sleeping.

It felt good to finally have someone to talk to, and somewhere warm to sleep for a change.

~Willow

TWENTYTWO

Hello World.

I know this video might have left you somewhat confused but let me try to explain.
With much effort over the past few weeks I managed to track down where Carolyn lived.  I decided to sneak into her house and try to gather anything useful that I could find.  I was under the impression that I was supposed to find something since when I killed Carolyn’s mother all that the Tall Man left me was her photo.  There had to be something, besides I had no other leads to follow up on as far as the search for Riley went so I figured, why the fuck not?

So I entered the house through the garage which wasn’t locked and I went straight upstairs to find Carolyn’s room.  In her room I grabbed her camera and figured I would document my finds through video footage which is what you see above.  I stayed in her house all day as you could also see in the footage.  I’m not sure why I stayed that long…I didn’t think that I had.  When I went out back into the shed I again, didn’t find anything of use.  It was literally just a bunch of tools and shit, so I went to go back into the house to go out through the garage so that no one would know of my entry at all.  However just as I was about to open the back door, Carolyn came home.  I waited for her to leave the room so I could get to the garage door but when I turned the corner she came at me with a gun.  She didn’t recognize me and I couldn’t have really expected her to I mean, we hadn’t seen each other since we were little kids.  I turned off the camera quickly and raised my hands in the air.  I didn’t say anything at first.  We just sort of stared at each other for a few moments.  I finally found my words and calmly told her, “Relax Carolyn, It’s me…Willow.”
She gave me a really strange look and quickly asked, “How do you know that name?  That’s not my name anymore!”
I could see I was only making her more nervous, so I tried telling her who I was again.  She finally recognized me and somewhat lowered the gun in her hands.
“Willow…what are you doing here?  How did you get here?” Her tone of voice was slowly calming down.
I explained to her everything that had happened with Riley and that I was here on a lead and I told her nothing else.  She had lowered the gun by this point and she stared at me suspiciously for a few moments before telling me to stay where I was.  She left the room and came back a few seconds later without the gun. 

We talked after that, but right now I don’t have the time to put it all on here so I’ll leave it for my next entry.

~Willow

TWENTYONE

Hello World.

It’s been nearly a month since I’ve last spoken to you and I still have no information about Riley.  I’ve been searching nonstop all around the city for anything, even just the smallest clue.  Last week I did find something interesting.  Last Tuesday, so that would be the 30th of October, I went back to the apartment.  I know it seems like a really stupid move but the cops were long gone by then.  They stopped hanging around the place two weeks after I left.  I made sure to enter the building unseen anyway and when I entered the apartment things looked generally untouched.  A few things moved here and there and Dexter’s cage was gone.  No doubt he’d be at my parents’ house.  I went through the kitchen to grab some food.  Thankfully I didn’t have to spend too much of the money I’d brought on stupid junk food.  I hate that shit.  I went to my room next to grab some things for Justine.  She wasn’t really running low on anything but while I was there I figured I might as well grab some things for her.  I moved into Riley’s room after that.  I stood in the doorway looking at everything that was still there.  His bed unmade, his clothes strewn all over the floor, the bald spot in his room where Dexter’s cage once sat.  His bathroom door was open and I went in.  I immediately noticed there were speckles of reddish brown on the edges of the sink.  I moved closer to investigate.  The majority of the sink was clear except for those few little spots.  I touched one of the speckles and some of it rubbed off onto my finger.  This confused me.  There was no way this wouldn’t be completely dry after a month, and surely the police would have seen this and taken samples.  There was no indication that the police did so.  The blood was completely undisturbed until I touched it.  Someone had been in the apartment recently.  Could it have been Riley?  He was the only other one with a key except for the owners of the building.  I looked around a little more before leaving the bathroom and upon leaving Riley’s room I grabbed one of his shirts and stuffed it into my backpack.  I left the apartment carefully, making sure I was hardly noticed.  Later that night I was walking through the neighborhood where I killed that man.  I don’t know why I was there.  I suppose it’s just where I ended up.  Justine was running a few feet ahead of me; her collar’s bell was jingling every time she moved.  I started to hear a voice in the back of my head.  It was really quiet and I hadn’t noticed it at first but then I turned around to see if it was perhaps just someone behind me.  No one was around.  Soon the one voice turned into multiple, they grew louder only slightly when a new voice chimed in with the others.  I couldn’t understand any of them.  I hadn’t even noticed that I was going to run into someone until they angrily stomped around me. 

“Pay attention to where you’re walking!” The woman scolded. The voices stopped and so did I.  I turned around to look at her and managed to hear her curse at me before she crossed the street.  Suddenly I felt this….itch.  This pinch.  It was irritating and insistent.  I found myself turning towards her and I began to follow her.  I hardly noticed the jingle of Justine’s bell rapidly trying to catch up with me.  The bell was soon muted completely and cancelled out by a loud ringing in my ears.  It was really loud but it didn’t hurt.  The woman’s footsteps stopped and she turned to face me with an annoyed look that began to turn to nervousness.  I stopped a few yards in front of her and stared not at her, but past her.  Down the sidewalk a short way under a streetlight was the tall man.  His blank face was watching us.  It seemed like he was waiting for something…but what?  I looked back at the woman who was closer to me now and she looked shocked.  Her face was frozen and unchanging when she fell to her knees.  I stepped back slightly startled and let her fall to the ground.  She was shivering uncontrollably and her teeth chattered loudly.  I found it extremely annoying and bent down closer to her. Her eyes moved up to the side in order to look at me.  I reached into my pocket and pulled out my pocket knife.  I flipped out the blade and felt an extreme satisfaction from the look of sheer terror in the woman’s eyes.  I reached over and grabbed the sides of her jaw with my thumb and four fingers pressing in a specific position to force her mouth open.  I poked the blade into her mouth and carefully sliced into her gums, pulling the blade back towards the front.  Her eyes streamed with tears and her mouth filled with blood.  She never made a single sound.  She couldn’t, because He wouldn’t let her.  I moved the knife to the inside of her teeth and once again started at the back and sliced towards the front, deep enough to reach the bottom roots of each tooth.  I pulled the knife out and set it down in the grass, I reached in with my fingers and pulled out each of the teeth on the bottom left side of her mouth.  The ones closest to the front came out easily but I had to grab my knife again to pull out the ones in the back.  I repeated this whole process for the bottom right side of her mouth.  The blood was streaming out of her mouth like a waterfall, so once I was done pulling her teeth I turned her on her back so that her mouth would fill with the blood gushing from her gums.  Her throat gurgled through the blood as she struggled to breathe and I watched her suffocate until she finally stopped moving.  I grabbed her purse and opened it to shuffle through for her wallet.  The tall man was closer now but I didn’t react the way I had with the man.  I handed the wallet to him and he took it.  I bent down to grab my knife.  When I stood back up He and the woman were gone.  The only thing left was a small photo on the sidewalk.  I reached down to grab it and looked at it.

It was a photo of Carolyn and the woman I just killed.  At first I didn’t recognize Carolyn, but I recognized her young childish features and also the bruise-like birthmark on the left side of her cheek.  She was one of those people who kept their baby face into their adult years.  I then realized who the woman was.

The woman in the photo was Carolyn’s mother.

~Willow

TWENTY

Hello World.

I’m fine.  I got out of the apartment with a backpack full of essentials before the cops arrived to search the place.  I watched carefully from across the street as they rushed in and banged down the door.  They searched everywhere for me and for Riley but the only living thing they found in there was Dexter, who I was struggling with the decision on whether or not I should take him with me.  Before I left with Justine and my things however I decided that it would be best if he were left there for the police to find and give to my parents to take care of.  Dexter was more of a typical ferret than Justine.  Justine and I have this weird connection and that’s why she never leaves my side no matter what.
I didn’t stay long enough for them to come back out of the building.  I couldn’t risk any of them spotting me and giving chase.  I had more important things to do than sit around in some random psych ward for who knows how long.  I got up from where I was sitting and headed down the street.  I guessed the first place I could look for Riley would be at work.  Maybe someone had seen him in the time I was gone, maybe he was looking for me as well and asked some of his colleagues if they had seen me.  I arrived at the building after walking for 30 minutes and before entering I waited across the street and looked for anything that might be suspicious.  I was mostly just checking to make sure there weren’t any cops around.  After I was satisfied that the building was okay, I walked in the front door and headed to the department where Riley worked.  I saw a few familiar faces right off the bat and they recognized me as well.  I guess nobody knew that Riley was even supposedly ‘missing’ which reassured me that they wouldn’t think I had been ‘missing’ either.  I asked a few of Riley’s work friends if they had seen him at all in the past two weeks and they all told me that Riley had been coming to work up until the 30th of September.  I found this strange.  So I had been missing until the 2nd, but Riley had been here all along?  Nothing was making sense anymore.  I thought that Riley was the one missing.  I thanked Riley’s friends for the information and walked out of the building.  Maybe mom had thought we were both missing because Riley had been too afraid to tell her anything had happened.  The other question that popped into my mind was where was he now?  As far as I know, no one has seen him since he stopped coming to work.  Was he looking for me?  Why did he wait so long to start looking for me if that’s the case?  So many questions flooded my mind and I was so distracted I bumped into a woman who was getting up from her seat in front of Starbucks.  She cursed at me and told me to watch where I was going before storming away in her bright red pumps.  I stared after her intently until the people around me began to stare so I kept walking.  Justine, who had been asleep in my hood the entire time, had woken up because of the commotion with the woman and started to sniff my ear.  A few people who noticed stared at her and me and after a short while I started to notice that one or two of the people were pulling out their phones and they completely turned their direction around to follow me.  I tried not to make it obvious that I could see them so they wouldn’t back off.  I wanted to hear what they were saying on their phones.  We were forced to stop at a crosswalk and the two people stood a little closer to me.  One was a man and one was a woman, they turned to each other and were pointing at me and I heard one of them say, “That’s Riley’s sister, the police are looking for both of them right?”
That was enough for me to hear and instead of continuing on the crosswalk I broke through the crowd of people gathered there and booked it down the sidewalk to my left.  The man and woman instantly freaked out and started shouting at people to move out of the way.  I could tell the woman wasn’t still running after me because she had been dressed in a well fit knee length skirt and some heels.  There was no way she was going to be able to follow me.  The man however had managed to break through the crowd and was now only a few feet behind me.  I kept darting through the people on the sidewalks and knew that I had to lose this guy fast if I didn’t want the police to show up.  I made it to the edge of the city and into a neighborhood and took off into one of the yards, jumping the fence that surrounded the backyard and darted across that as well.  The man, being in a business suit and spotlessly shined shoes slowed down and tried to find another way around to where I was.  I kept going and eventually slowed down to a stop so I could breathe.  I looked all around me and didn’t see the man anywhere.  I sat down under one of the many tall trees that lined the sidewalks and reached my arm back to my hood to grab Justine.  She sniffed my nose curiously, letting me know she was okay.  I set her down on the ground and she wandered all around the base of the tree.  Just as I managed to get my breathing back to normal a hand reached down and grabbed my jacket sleeve roughly trying to haul me to my feet.  It was the business man who was chasing me.  I struggled against him and right before he dragged me upright I grabbed one of the large rocks next to me and swung it right into the side of his head hard.  He grunted and dropped like a log.  I stared at him for a moment before I noticed the blood trickling down the side of his jawline.  “Shit.” I cursed.  This was going to be a problem.  If he was still alive he would tell the cops that I was the one who hit him and then I’d be in big trouble for assaulting this man.  I had absolutely no emotion towards the possibility that I may have just killed this man, but all I could think about was how big of a problem it was going to be if anyone found out.  I cursed at myself for being this way and leaned down to check and see if he had a pulse.  He did not.  I sat back on the grass and stared at his body.  I hardly noticed Justine crawling from around the base of the tree onto his arm and then his chest to look at me as if to say, “Wow bitch, you fucked up.”  Justine then suddenly scurried over to me and buried herself into my lap.  I looked up and was startled to see the tall man standing across the street.  I stared at him for a moment before I looked around myself to see if there was anyone else around.  When I looked back he was closer, so close that I actually jumped back and screamed.  These large black arms that looked more like an octopus’ tentacles were flailing around, coming out of the tall man and a few of them reached out as if to grab me so I instinctively put up my arm to shield myself.  Then just like that he was gone….and so was the man’s corpse. 

I don’t remember much of what I did after that.  I’m sitting in a small coffee shop, I won’t say where just in case the police come looking for me, and I’m currently trying to figure out where I could continue to look for Riley but so far I’ve got nothing.  Nobody else has seen him other than his co-workers and they have only ever seen him at work.  

I will definitely let you all know if I find anything, or if something else happens.

~Willow

NINETEEN

Hello World.

I apologize for my absence…I wasn’t expecting to take this long to write to you but a lot of shit has gone down since I last wrote to you.  The day Riley let me stay home ‘sick’ I simply bummed around the apartment.  I studied the driver’s ed books that Riley picked up for me a while back to study so I could go get my license to drive sometime soon.  Justine ran around the apartment for an hour or so before she took a huge nap on my lap while I was reading the books and watching cartoons.  Riley came home right on time and I smiled a hello at him from the couch.  He returned the smile and asked me how my day was.  He seemed to be acting pretty normal and like his old self until I asked him what he wanted to talk to me about.  His body tensed and he licked his lips nervously before sitting down next to me on the couch.  He wouldn’t look at me at first but when he was ready to talk, he made eye contact with me.  I have NEVER liked making eye contact with anyone ever for any reason.  I don’t know why, it just….makes me extremely uncomfortable.  Anyway, he made eye contact with me and at first I wanted to look away, naturally, but I didn’t because Riley is the only one on earth whom I can hold eye contact with for more than half a second. 
“Willow I want you to know that I believe everything you’ve told me about this…’tall man’, I do.”
I breathed a sigh of relief then.  I was so afraid that he was going to tell me that he was going to admit me to a hospital or something.
“I believe you because I’ve seen him too, a very long time ago when you and I were little.  Remember the time you pulled a knife on mom?  Well, before I grabbed you I saw the tall man in the hallway outside of mom and dad’s room.”
I stared at him for a moment in shock.  I thought I was the only one who could see this man.  I was under the impression that there was a good chance he really was part of my imagination.
“I want to help you because you’re my sister, but we shouldn’t talk about him.  Ever.  The more you talk or think about him the more he appears.  For weeks after I saw him all those years ago I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I started to see him on my way home from school.  Seeing him again only made me think about him more and the more I thought about him the closer he would come.  I forced him out of my mind and eventually he went away.  You didn’t try to hurt anyone after he went away, but…I saw him the day you pinned me in the kitchen.  I saw him on my way to work that day.  At first I thought I was seeing things but I saw him again on my way home.  I couldn’t mistake him twice…and then you told me everything yesterday and I couldn’t believe that this was happening again.”
He stopped talking for a moment, his voice had started to quiver and he was shaking lightly.  I put my hand on his shoulder and he seemed to calm down a little bit.
“You weren’t always the person you think you are Willow…”
I was about to ask him what he meant by that when his eyes widened and he was looking at something behind me.  I turned and saw him immediately.  Standing right behind me reaching out an abnormally long arm to grab me.  I couldn’t even scream but….I’d be lying if I said I even felt the need to scream.  I didn’t feel like I was in danger but I did feel danger for Riley. I turned back to Riley and then all of a sudden he was gone.  He just disappeared right before me.  I turned back around and the tall man wasn’t there anymore.  I sat on the couch wondering what the fuck had just happened before I noticed Justine running out of the kitchen towards me.  She climbed up my leg and right into my lap sniffing my fingers and licking them.  I got up, grabbed her and put her into the hood of the jacket I was wearing and I raced into the hallway towards Riley’s bedroom.  Before I could even open the door my phone started to ring.  I looked at the caller ID and it was mom.  I answered the call and found myself being screamed at by my extremely worried mother.  She kept asking me where I have been and if I know where Riley is.  I told her that I’ve been at the apartment and that I didn’t know where Riley was.  She called me a liar and kept telling me that it’s impossible that I’ve been at the apartment for the past two weeks.  She told me that she had come to the apartment several times to check on us when we didn’t call and said that neither of us where anywhere to be found in that time.  I was so very confused at this point and told her it was still only the 17th.  She was quiet for a moment before telling me that it was actually October the 2nd.  She asked me again, very nervously this time, where Riley was and I had to tell her again that I had no idea.  After I answered her she just hung up the phone and I got a little scared.  Knowing my mother she might actually call the police on me.  She thinks that I know where Riley is and I have a history of hostility towards people….I bet you more than anything she thinks that I’ve hurt him or even killed him. 

I can’t talk anymore, I don’t want to wait around here for the police who may or may not show up and I have to find Riley.  I have no idea where to start looking but I have to try to find him before all of this gets worse than it already is. 

I really hope that he’s okay...I'm really afraid at this point, nothing is making sense anymore...

~Willow

EIGHTEEN

Hello World.

A lot has happened this past week so I’m not going to waste time explaining all of it.
Riley’s paranoia around me hadn’t gone away and I was starting to become really annoyed with it.  Two days after my last entry with the dream about Carolyn I was in the kitchen fixing myself something to eat for lunch. Justine was wandering nearby as she usually does since she follows me everywhere.  I was cutting up an onion and Riley happened to walk into the kitchen as I was doing so.  He had just woken up so he wasn’t paying any attention to where he was going and I glanced at him just as he was about to step right on Justine.  I don’t think I have ever moved so fast in my life.  I stopped what I was doing and had Riley up against the wall with my arm across his chest holding him there; the knife was still in my hand.  Riley stared at me wide-eyed completely awake now for a few moments before sliding out of my grip and yelling at me, “What the hell was that Willow? “
I apologized angrily and told him he was going to step on Justine who was now hiding in one of the drawers I had left open for her to climb into. 
“You could have hurt me with that knife and how the fuck did you pin me against that wall huh?” He complained rubbing his hand across his chest where my arm had been.  I stared at him blankly for a moment trying to process his words.  I couldn’t have hurt him right?  I mean he’s a full grown man and I’m kind of on the short and small side of a woman’s build.  I moved towards him to see if he was okay but he turned defensively away from me and rushed out of the room.  I stood there for a while thinking about what had just happened.  Justine poked her little head out of the drawer and scurried over to me.  She climbed up my pajama pants and up my arm where I helped her onto my shoulder and continued to cut the onion for my lunch.

Everything was basically the same for the next few days, another dream but nothing too significant to share.  Riley was still being paranoid and looking at me as if I were going to pull a knife out of my bra and stab him in the throat or something.  Then two days ago I walked into Riley’s bedroom to ask him something and I accidentally caught him with his shirt off.  He was facing me when I walked in and I couldn’t believe what I saw.  There was a long bruise the size of my arm running horizontally across his chest where I pinned him the other day.  I stared at him and he stared back at me and we literally stood there for at least a minute without saying a word.  Finally I turned and walked back down the hallway and into the living room.  I didn’t see him for the rest of the night and I didn’t sleep at all.  I laid there in bed wondering how I could have done that to him and also wondering why I felt almost no emotion towards what I did.  I kept thinking about how it could have been worse and thankfully I felt a little scared thinking about the other things I could have done to him that morning. 
I didn’t see Riley again until yesterday afternoon when I got home from work.  When I walked into the apartment he was sitting on the couch and didn’t say a word, he didn’t even look at me.  I put down my bag and went into my room to let Justine out of her cage.  I came back into the living room and sat down on the couch.  Riley looked at me and I just started bawling.  I don’t know how I could just start crying that hard but it happened.  He scooted closer to me immediately to comfort me and he kept telling me that it was okay and everything was fine.  I kept telling him between sobs that it wasn’t okay and that I was so very sorry for what I did to him.  When I kept crying he asked me if anything else was wrong and I ended up telling him about my dreams and the tall man I keep seeing in and out of those dreams.  He fell silent after that but he kept comforting me and eventually helped me to my room where I then passed out for the rest of the night.
When I woke up this morning Riley had already left for work and he left me a note on the fridge telling me that he called me in sick so I didn’t have to go to work.  He also wrote that he and I needed to talk about something but he didn’t say what.

I’ll write to you all after Riley and I have our talk.  I have a feeling it isn’t going to be good…

~Willow

SEVENTEEN

Hello World.

I had meant to write to you all sooner but I was super busy with work on Friday, I even worked a later shift than I usually do so then by the time I got home I was too exhausted to think let alone write anything.  I noticed something though.  Ever since I’ve been seeing the tall man outside of my dreams, I haven’t actually been having dreams about him.  Instead I’m having dreams which are actually replaying memories of my childhood.  Sometimes they’re dreams of the part of my childhood before I was diagnosed with Schizotypy.  One dream in particular that I had made me question one of my symptoms though.  It was a memory before my diagnosis, I had been playing with one of my friends and she and I were feeding bread to the ducks that lived down by the pond on my parents’ old property.  I was probably 6 or so, I remember it being a few months before my parents took me to the doctors to get me checked out for mental illnesses.  I had ran back into the house to grab more bread to feed the ducks while my friend finished using what bread she had left in her hand.  While inside I ran immediately to the knife drawer and grabbed the biggest one I could find.  I looked it over, admiring its gleam and my own reflection in the blade.  A blank white face could be seen standing behind me and even though I looked right at it in the reflection, I never turned around to actually look at the figure.  I ran out of the house and straight to the pond, stopping a few feet behind my friend, now that I think about it I believe her name was Carolyn.  She had knelt down, soiling her white dress in the damp grass and mud, to feed the ducks by hand.  The ducks, seeing me, quacked loudly and scrambled away.  Carolyn stood up and turned around to see what had scared the ducks away.  Seeing me with the large knife in my hand scared her and she started to back away from me.  I stared at her with a very calm and content look on my face while slowly moving towards her.  I could feel the same emotions I had when I had actually experienced them and the one emotion going through my mind was….hm….I’m trying to think of the correct word to use.  You know that feeling when someone you care about or look up to asks you to do something really important for them?  You feel like you have a huge responsibility to carry out the task at hand?  That’s how I felt.  I felt as if I had some kind of responsibility to kill Carolyn.  I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t sad, hell I didn’t even feel anything but that responsibility. 
Anyway, I backed her further into the pond, Carolyn is crying at this point.  Her cheeks are red and puffy and she’s bawling like a baby.  Her eyes are filled with water and they are squinted almost closed.  Soon enough she backed up so far that she was almost in the middle of the pond, and she was in far enough to where she could no longer touch the bottom.  She was starting to thrash about and scream for help.  She was drowning.  I went in after her and even though she was unable to swim properly she did everything in her power to get away from me.  Before I could even make it all the way to her, she disappeared under the water.  The knife fell out of my hand and sunk to the bottom of the pond and my parents came running out of the house. 
Then I woke up.

I can only assume that Carolyn drowned.  I don’t recall ever seeing her again after that but if she did survive somehow, her parents never let me see her again.  The only thing I remember after Carolyn went under and the knife dropped from my hands was a sense of pure serenity and calmness.  I had accomplished what I was bid to do and I felt peaceful.  I’m going to start keeping a dream journal to write my dreams down and if any of these dreams seems significant enough, I will post them here.

I’m starting to wonder however if my killing fantasies are an actual symptom of my Schizotypy….or if I have somehow always been that way, and if this tall man is responsible for them.

~Willow

SIXTEEN

Hello World.

My doctor’s appointment was today and I hated every moment of it.  I absolutely HATE hospitals and doctors, and none of that hate has anything to do with my being a schizotypal.  I’ve just always found doctors to be extremely irritating and stupid.  Hospitals scare me.  Period.  No more to explain really.  Anyway, the appointment went well despite my resistance to even get out of the car.  The doctor didn’t find anything wrong with me.  What a big surprise there.  Riley was acting really paranoid for some reason and asked the doctor if there was anything I could take to prevent my coughing fits.  The doctor explained some random prescription and wrote a note for the pharmacy so that we could go pick up the pills.  I’m not fucking taking those pills.  I hate pills.  I used to be so tripped up on all the anti-anxiety and anti-paranoia pills I used to take when my Schizotypy symptoms would get really bad.  Sometimes my parents would even force me to take a sedative pill when I was being really hostile, or even when they would be paranoid that I was going to hurt them.  Some parents right?  I don’t even care that it’s a pill for coughing fits.  I’m never taking a single pill ever again. 

The ride home was very awkward.  Riley hardly said anything, and he didn’t even look at me.  In fact he has been mildly avoiding me ever since he caught me coughing up blood in the sink.  I don’t know what the hell his deal is but whatever.  If he thinks that I’m going to hurt him then he’s dead wrong.  I’d never hurt Riley, and in fact I’ve never had violent fantasies about him anyway so yeah…

That had better not change…

~Willow

FIFTEEN

Hello World.

So, I had to stay home from work for the past two days because of bloody coughing fits.  I saw the tall man again a few times after the first encounter I had at the craft store, and the second time when I was in my room with Justine.  He just….watches me.  Sometimes from far away, but sometimes he gets closer.  It was scary at first I will admit but…he hasn’t tried to hurt me yet so I’ve almost grown used to him being around constantly this past week.  I know it sounds strange and I feel like, now that I’m writing it and it’s in front of me, that I have calm feelings about his presence…but…I feel like his presence is familiar somehow.  I can’t quite put my finger on it yet but I’ll figure it out sooner or later. 

Anyway, back to the part where I mentioned I was coughing up blood.  I’ve been having coughing fits and they only get more and more violent, so violent that the past two or three times I’ve coughed up blood.  Riley caught me in the bathroom the other morning washing it down the sink and he flipped the fuck out.  He calmed down a little bit when I explained to him what it was from.  I guess maybe he was under the impression that I had killed something again.  So of course he called me in sick and has made me stay indoors since then.  Unfortunately he told me that he made me a Doctor’s appointment to get me checked out.  I don’t want to go, but I don’t really have a choice.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d bet more than anything this is happening because of the tall man.  I can’t remember a time when I ever coughed up blood before now, but again….I’m not sure if it’s me being paranoid or not. 

I’ll keep you updated on how I’m doing and how the Doctor’s visit goes.

~Willow

FOURTEEN

I saw him!  I swear I fucking saw him today!!!  The tall man in the suit was at the craft store earlier while I was on my afternoon shift!  I was restocking an item on one of the shelves and I turned to grab the empty crate to my right and I saw two very long legs right next to me. I looked up and there he was!  I was startled so of course I fell backwards and shouted in surprise, knocking over one of the boxes next to me.  Dave, the store owner, rushed over to help me and when I turned back to where the man was standing he was gone.  I shook it off as a manifestation that maybe I’m not getting enough good sleep lately but I just saw him again out on the street.  I was sitting at my desk, which is in front of my window, and I noticed that Justine was on the very top level of her cage staring at me.  Not just looking at me, she was staring INTENTLY nonstop for the longest time.  I looked back at my laptop and just above my screen and out on the street I noticed something black and white.  I looked up and saw the man again!  I stared at him for a little while, not sure of what to think.  I have never experienced anything like this before.  I used to not be able to dream but now that I have been dreaming I’m not sure if this is normal or not.  I left the room to get a drink and when I came back he was gone.  I’m not sure if it’s my mind playing tricks on me or not but twice is making me think that it’s not my mind.  I could see him clear as day both times he appeared today.

I don’t think I’ll tell Riley…I don’t want to have to go to the doctors to get myself checked out over some silly guy from my dreams.

~Willow

THIRTEEN

Hello World.

Just thought I would show this to you all.
This is what Justine does when I actually sit down and play with her.  She’s so cute!
I’m sorry about the weird crappy quality stuff that happens as the video begins.

I’m not sure what caused that.

~Willow

TWELVE

Hello World.

I’ve started having those dreams again.  They make me wake up late at night and it takes me a while to get back to sleep so it’s gotten a bit hard to keep up at work.  My social skills have improved so much though.  I’m finding myself actually going out of my way to make sure that the customers are finding everything they need, and I’m also able to give them the proper advice on certain products.  Riley is super proud of me and he says that I seem much happier than I ever used to be.  I feel so much better and so much more confident than ever before.  Justine helps with my mood at the end of long days as well.  Her vet visit went very well and she’s completely healthy.  She’s even caught onto using her litter box so she is able to stay out of her cage for longer periods of time.  She loves to be around me constantly when she’s not frolicking about the room and even if I just go down the hall to the kitchen to get a drink, she follows me to and from.  I noticed something a little weird though, or maybe I’m just being paranoid, Justine is always already awake when I wake up from my dreams about the man with no face.  Every single time.  She’s always watching me as if she’s checking me over to make sure I’m okay.  I can wake up randomly at other times in the night but she’ll be asleep.  It’s literally only when I have the strange dreams that she’s up and alert.  I don’t know, like I said I may just be paranoid so maybe it’s all just coincidence….but still.

I’ll add a picture of Justine here if I can so you can all see her.

 

~Willow

ELEVEN

Hello World.

My first week of work was great!  The couple who owns the craft shop is really nice and they were more than happy to help me with any questions I had about the job.  They made sure that I was doing everything correctly and if I didn’t quite get something right they would nicely explain to me how it would be done correctly.  Everything was so easy after the first two days.  I didn’t really have to talk to anyone who walked in the shop unless the shopkeepers were busy and they had a question about where to find something. 

My birthday was yesterday.  It was so much fun!  Riley bought a bottle of white wine to celebrate and we had a mini party in his apartment.  He had decorated the whole place while I was at work and when I came home he blew confetti in my face and screamed ‘Happy Birthday!’  I had to tell him to shut up because the last thing we needed was for one of his neighbors to complain about noise.  He immediately grabbed my arm and brought me to my bedroom, which was pitch black by the way because he had covered my windows with blankets to keep out any sunlight. He closed the door behind us to make it even darker so I couldn’t see anything.  The next thing I knew he turned on the lights and I found myself staring into two teeny little eyes and a twitching nose.  He had bought me a ferret for my birthday!  I’m not going to lie, I was squealing with excitement for at least two minutes straight.  It was really embarrassing now that I think back, but I don’t care because I have my very own pet!  Riley informed me that it’s a girl so aside from sharing the bottle of wine he bought us and an endless time of video games and music, I spent most of the night trying to come up with a name for her.  By the time we ended up going to bed which was very early this morning, I had decided on naming her Justine.  I remember playing a horror game that I really enjoyed sometime last year and I loved the name so that’s what I ended up calling her.

Right now Justine is crawling around on my shoulders as I type all of this.  She’s extremely friendly and loves to paw through all of my short hair wishing she could somehow make a nest out of it.  Until I get her potty trained though, she can only be out of her cage for an hour or so at a time.  If she stays out any longer than that she’ll have an accident on the floor.  Next weekend Riley and I are going to take her to the vet to get her checked out and to get her the shots she needs.

This week has been very good.  I hope things can stay this way.

~Willow

TEN

Hello World.

I did it!  I got a job!  I also got all of my stuff moved into Riley’s apartment yesterday.  I started unpacking but Riley and I didn’t leave our parents’ house until after dinner so I couldn’t get much done before Riley forced me to go to bed.  He talked to the owners of the craft shop around the corner and they were more than happy to accept my help.  I start work on Monday, even though the shop is open all days of the week; they figured that I should get settled in Riley’s apartment first.  I finished unpacking all of my stuff a little while ago and once I was finished I had a fun time playing with Riley’s ferret, Dexter.  I don’t ever see Dexter that much because mom never really liked it when Riley would bring him to the house.  There isn’t really much else to say at the moment, things are going smoothly and I haven’t had any dreams about the tall man with no face lately.

My birthday is coming up, I’ll finally be 21.

~Willow

NINE

Hello World.

I was able to talk to Riley yesterday.  He had said that he was a little worried about me lately.  I guess mom and dad called him to see if I was going over to his apartment when I would leave the house to go on my walks.  I explained everything to him and he gave me a hug.  I didn’t even have to hear what he had to say next because I knew that he was going to help me find a job.  Riley is staying at our house for the rest of the week to help me go through my stuff.  He also agreed to let me stay with him.  After explaining how I didn’t feel safe in the house anymore and how it would only make me angry to stay there we decided it would be best for my safety and for our parent’s safety that I move in with him.  Mom and dad were a little sad but they didn’t argue.  I guess they would feel better letting me go than risk keeping me around and having something bad happen.  I may not be going to see Dr. Joyce anymore.  I think I have all the skills and know-how to survive in the World now.  Riley can teach me the rest and as for the hostility issues…I don’t need to worry about those unless I’m really angry.  I’m never angry anymore.  Well, except for recently…but that was only because of Dr. Joyce.  She was holding me back from continuing forward in my life.  Sometimes you need to run before you can walk. 

Riley told me that he knows a few people at a small craft shop right around the corner from his apartment building.  He says he might be able to talk to them about hiring me.  I’m happy I won’t have to worry about driving a car to work because I haven’t driven in a few years.  Riley said that after I get settled with a job he’ll take me to get my license renewed.  It kind of makes me nervous to think about being back behind the wheel of a car but I’ve come this far, I’m not about to give up now.

I have to get back to helping Riley go through my stuff.  There’s so much to throw out still before we can pack.

I can’t wait to get out of here.

~Willow