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I swore to myself that I wouldn’t fucking post here again. On this stupid blog. But I can’t just leave it and there’s no-one left to help me record things.

Ray is dead. I can’t process it. I can’t believe it. It’s so open ended... We were in the Magna, one of us keeping an eye on the entrance at all times, when we heard voices. Ray knew who they were straight off the bat, shoved me out of the way and stood infront of me. I scrabbled around a little before getting to my feet and seeing the two. Eulogy and Hammer. I knew their names from Ray's introduction I guess you could say it was. It was more of a mock casual greeting, I guess.

Of course then we turned tail and ran like hell, because I'm pregnant and Ray's human. It didn't work. Like, at all. When Ray'd shoved me out of the way, the two of us lost sight of the entrance. So it wasn't there. Like a fucking Weeping Angel. It buggered off the second it could. And of course the other two were like fucking Olympic sprinters and that bloody moron had to go and be chivalrous and tell me to "Run as he held them off." I really wanted to hit him then. But I realised something. I'm thinking for two. I can't be so reckless anymore. I can't...stand up for myself.

So I let him. I let him "Fend them off" while I fled like fucking Brave Sir Robin.

I had an enjoyable half hour/hour/month/decade trying to find the entrance again, because my senses were skewing themselves left right and center. I could smell and taste things that weren't there, feel things, see things. But I found it. I think it's more a case of wanting it and knowing that this is how the place works. I didn't exit though. I just sort of...hung about in the gap. I think I heard gunshots at a point, but it was so echoey and merely dropping a pencil could get that loud after a while...

Ray came stumbling out from a corner a way away about an hour later, something like that. His arm was bleeding heavily and he was clutching it, when he saw me he smiled a little and

And then there was this thick fog behind him and it made the air smell so strongly you could taste it. It tasted like novocaine.

The fog solidified into tentacles and thrashed around the narrow corridor we were in, I only realised that they'd pulled Ray back into the fog, where I couldn't see him after a minute. I think the fog did more than just TASTE like novocaine. I think they really did numb you...to your own brain screaming at you to flee.

He was screaming, Tony. He was fucking screaming his lungs out. And I felt rain on my face. I ran. I turned and fucking ran for my life, for my baby's life, for my sanity...

He can't be dead. It's too open-ended.

Even though I know he is, because I have Ray’s blood on my face.

I can’t wash it off. In some strange way it’s all I have left of him, so instead I’m left staring at myself in the mirror over the sink, hands bracing themselves for when I throw up. I never do. I’m too numb still. I don’t know if this has something to do with my coma, Redlight's fucking about in my head and it’s repercussions on my emotions, or if believing Ray dead once before was all my mind and body could take. Now it’s happened a second time and I can’t even think anything other than white noise. There’s nothing in my head. Usually there’s something in my mind, something going about, something that needs testing or doing or going to. I just can’t think like that right now, but there’s no grief either. I honestly don’t think I can mourn Ray again.

It fucked me up too much the first time round.

So I’ll stand at my mirror and stare at the blood on my face, and sometime soon , I’ll wash it off. I’ll say a final goodbye.

And then I'll be damned if I don't reassess my priorities. Because I’m staying in Egypt now.

My Anorexic Associate didn't just rip out Ray's heart.

...I found this when I went to post this on Ray's blog. He seems to have written it a few weeks ago. Stupid soppy cunt. (His fucking password was "spesproreliquo", for fuck's sake.)

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Ava, I know things have been difficult between us in the past few weeks and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to help you as much as I wish I could. I wrote this for you in case I died before I could help you get through all this. I know it's not much, but it's from my heart, and, in the end, that's all I can leave you. I love you, Ava. I always will.

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by Raymond Shaughnessy

If you can read this, you lost me somewhere,
But I'll always be with you, so do not despair,
I left you this poem, I knew you would find it,
I hoped you would read it and would be reminded

Of all that we shared, the laughter and tears,
Of all we confronted, the pain and the fears,
Of all we defeated, the chances and odds,
As we danced on the thunder and taunted the gods.

I'm guessing you're crying; it's good for your health
But don't turn the dark feelings in on your self.
I am at peace and you should be too,
And maybe, who knows, I can watch over you.

I cannot promise that I felt no pain,
That my death was as easy as watching the rain.
It may have been gruesome, it probably hurt,
But as long as you're living, my death has some worth.

I know that you miss me and I miss you too
But the life that I gave gave some more life to you.
So, please, do not weep for my final goodbye,
The silence that came when there was no reply.

Reach out.

Thing We Said Today/When I Get Home

Ava and I are in a hotel in Cairo. It's only for two nights, we're not going to waste time dilly-dallying. It's the Magna tomorrow. We've made a decision about what we're doing after the Magna.

Me: -I knock on her door- Ava?

Ava: What?

Me: You didn't pay however many hundred pounds for my plane ticket and accomodation to avoid me like the plague. Let's talk.

Ava: About WHAT, Ray? What is there you could POSSIBLY want to talk to me about?

Me: Don't be like that, Ava. You're smarter than that. Let's talk about our child.

Ava: -she opens the door and goes back to unpacking, avoiding my eye-

Me: How far along are you? Did you get pregnant before the coma or that one night after you woke up?

Ava: After. Of course after.

Me: So you're due in... -I add up the dates in his head- December?

Ava: Thereabouts.

Me: Roughly New Year then. That saves money on birthday and Christmas presents.

Ava: -she whips around and slaps me across the face- HOW can you joke!?

Me: I wasn't joking. I was making an observation. Calm down. -I rub my face-

Ava: -she glares at me-

Me: I think we should drop out of the Run after we explore the Magna. We can't raise a child in hotel rooms, or alleyways when we're low on cash.

Ava: Drop out of the Run? And do what, sit around, waiting for that anorexic shitehawk to kill us?

Me: There are ways out. Chester and Vieve got one. We can't raise a child on the Run, Ava.

Ava: And just what was their big thing? Laser-guided amnesia?

Me: Can you think of another idea? We can't raise a child on the Run and neither of us wants to get rid of it.

Ava: No. No I can't. I don't know why I even wat to keep it sometimes. I just...I don't want HIM near it. But forgetting everything? Everyone? And everything that could be of help? What if someone comes across something about my Egyptian research and has questions? What then? What if that's the KEY and I've fucking LOST it?

Me: We can put the information on the Internet, either in public or in a file we entrust to a few people. Do we have much of a choice?

Ava: I don't know, Ray. -she sighs- I don't even know why I bother, anyway.

Me: Bother what?

Ava: Bother fighting.

Me: -I sit down beside her on the bed- I know what you mean.

Ava: Well..

Me: What?

Ava: Well. Should we?

Me: Should we what?

Ava: Bother fighting, Ray? Should we bother fighting?

Me: If it puts our child at risk...then no, probably not.

Ava: ...

Me: -I hold out my hand to her- You don't have to love me, but will you let me raise our child with you?

Ava: ...Sure.

Me: -I hold my hand out for a few more seconds then curl it up awkwardly and put it away- I do love you, Ava.

Ava: Hmn. -she looks out of the window-

Me: So...the Magna tomorrow then?

Ava: I guess.

Me: "Into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell, rode the six hundred." Minus five hundred and ninety eight.

Ava: Ninety seven.

Me: -I smile- Do you think you could ever bring yourself to not hate me?

Ava: I don't hate you. I just can't stand to look at you, be around you, think about you...it's like someone's jamming a red-hot poker down my throat everytime.

Me: Well, hopefully I can help change that. I do want a life with you, Ava. I know we've only known each other for a few months and they haven't been easy months but...I do love you. I want to give our child a good life.

Ava: I don't know...

Me: What?

Ava: I'm not going to bother fighting anymore.

Me: The only thing I want to fight for is you.

Ava: Oh dear god. -she makes a noise somewhere between exasperation and disgust-

Me: -I look down at the ground- Sorry, I'll just go back to my room. -I get up to leave but stop at the door, hoping for a response, then look over my shoulder when I don't get one-

Ava: -she is still looking out of the window-

Me: -I tap my fingers on the doorframe, then give up and walk back to my room-

So yes, it's official. This is the last mission for Ava and I. Once we've explored the Magna, we're getting out of all this to raise our child. I know it's going to be difficult, but I swear to whatever deity you'd care to name, when I get home, I am going to get a job and support my family. Who knows, maybe I'll even get a happy ending. Tomorrow is the last day.

Reach out.

Ain't She Sweet

I'm in Dublin Airport, and very much alive, clearly. I'm waiting for my plane to Cairo. Ava bought me the ticket since I had to leave all my belongings back at the hospital. Luckily, nothing that will tell them who I am, since I was admitted under a false name, so I won't have any Gardaí on my tail, or, at least, anymore than are already on my tail since I went missing last November.

The face in my room was a doctor, a proxy, though, at this stage, I'm not even sure whether he was one for Slender Man, the Hanging Man or...those things I saw in the wasteland. I don't even know why I'm afraid that they're here already but...it's like...I can feel their presence everywhere I go. It's probably just that lingering fear and paranoia but...I don't know. At any rate, the doctor proxy was sent with a needle, though to kill or capture, I'm not sure, but he apparently wasn't expecting me to be awake. When he got close, I rolled out of the bed, crashed into his legs and knocked him over, then quite literally gave him a taste of his own medicine and bundled him into my bed after stealing his clothes, sans medical gear, obviously. I still don't know if I assaulted or murdered him, but I can't exactly go back to check.

I'll be in Cairo in a few hours but I'm maintaining radio silence for now. I need to sort things out with Ava. A lot of things.

My plane is here. I'll see you all when I see you.

Reach out.

I Feel Fine/I've Just Seen A Face

Bah. I tried to reason with my doctor. Still no luck on a discharge, despite the fact that I feel fine. Pffft. This isn't even worth posting. I'll wait until something interesting happens. No point posting this.

Okay, it's about eight hours later. I see something lurking in the corner of my room. I...don't know what it is. I think I can see a face but...I don't know. It could be Slender Man, it could be Eulogy, it could be the fucking Hanging Man for all I know. It's just standing there. I'm typing this under my blanket. Once I've posted this, I'm gonna try and make a break for it. Fuck, it's coming towards me. I have to go.

Reach out.

Cry for a Shadow

First thing's first; I'm fine. You can stop worrying about me.

I'm in a hospital and, contrary to what that may imply, it doesn't contradict with what I said about being fine. The bloody doctor won't let me discharge myself. He says that I have to be kept in for a few nights of "observation". Even though there is nothing wrong with me. They couldn't find a single thing wrong with me, yet that is apparently cause for concern.

Right, I guess I should probably explain how I wound up in hospital. Apparently, after I got on the bus on Wednesday, I did fall asleep, but I didn't wake up to a bus full of corpses. In fact, I wouldn't wake up at all, at first. I just sat absolutely still. They took me off the bus and to a doctor, where I just sat still, doing nothing, until someone walked into my room with an iPod, at which point I apparently tackled them to the ground, pulled it out of their hands and posted Something.

The doctors then tried to pry it out of my hands, but they had as little success taking the iPod from me as they had getting me to move again. So they did the only thing they could do, which was stick an IV in me. There was no activity from me until the next day, when I started frantically typing again and posted Nowhere Man. Once again, they tried to yank the iPod off me and once again they failed. More hours of silent sitting. Staring into space. No movement.

Then, I started typing like a madman and posted Helter Skelter. Apparently, on that occasion, my doctor was the only one who roused himself to half-heartedly try and get the iPod off me. Apparently, on that occasion, I also pushed him to the ground and did a running jump through a window. Luckily, my room is on the ground floor. I came to about an hour later, but they took the iPod off me and put me in bed before I could post about it. Which brings me to how I got my iPod back.

Eulogy decided to visit me today.

Me: -I'm lying in bed, bored out of my head-

Eulogy: -he walks in with a smug look on his face and throws my iPod down on my table- Turn on your recorder, Reach, you may want to post this on your blog.

Me: -I glare at him but turn on my recorder anyway- What do you want, Eulogy? And how did you get my iPod?

Eulogy: -he smiles- I have them convinced I'm the new hospital chaplain. The last one met...an unfortunate end.

Me: The end of the barrel of Hammer's revolver? Oh, no wait, that can't be it, because the last time he tried to shoot me, I smacked him like a bitch and took his gun. Where is the little wimp anyway?

Eulogy: -he chuckles- Guarding the door and well within ear-shot, as I'm sure you were aware. Hammer is of no consequence to this discussion though. I am here to diagnose you.

Me: Oh? This ought to be a laugh. Go on, then.

Eulogy: -he leans on the end of my bed and the old metal creaks- You think you're the only one who's seen the wasteland, Reach?

Me: -my chest goes cold and my stomach sinks- W-what?

Eulogy: -he chuckles again, obviously enjoying the effect- I too have seen the baked earth, the too-big sun, the acres of dust as far as the I can see. I too have been visited with these visions in my dreams. They stopped a couple of months ago, but only because they moved on to you, it would seem.

Me: You're lying. You got that information from my posts and now you're just trying to freak me out and get inside my head. Nice try, Eulogy, but you're wasting your time.

Eulogy: Oh, really? -he produces a penknife from his pocket, unfolds it and holds the blade to his wrist- Funnily enough, Reach, I don't think I need tricks quite that elaborate to get inside your head. -he holds the blade there silently for a few more moments before putting it back in his pocket- Fine. If you want proof that I too have seen the wasteland, then I must remind you of the things you saw roaming outside the window.

Me: -for a moment, I feel like my whole body has frozen and the crystals of blood are ripping through my veins, then I thaw- Things? What things?

Eulogy: -he leans forward again and eyes me carefully- Don't play coy with me, boy. We both know what things I'm talking about. The shapes that moved across the wasteland when the sun set at night. The nameless things that surrounded the bus once darkness had descended. The entities that clawed and howled in tones so wolf-like and yet so...un. The shadows of what could have been animals that terrorised you every night on that bus, more than the corpses, more than your mother, more even than the Tall One. Those things.

Me: ...you did see it then. You did see the wasteland. You did see what I saw.

Eulogy: Yes, I did. I saw it in all its glorious beauty.

Me: Beauty!? What kind of sick, twisted mind would call that beauty? Heh, why did I even need to ask? A sick mind that's been twisted by Slender Man, that's what kind of mind. I really pity you, Eulogy. You have no idea.

Eulogy: Oh, Reach, loved as that makes me feel, you don't have to cry for a shadow like me. It's not going to make a difference in the end. We will all be but footnotes in the glory of the Tall One's creation.

Me: Creation!? I saw no creation in that wasteland, only destruction. You...you're beyond redemption, aren't you? You can't be cured. I...I have to kill you, don't I?

Eulogy: -he shrugs- Or I kill you. One or the other. It doesn't really matter. Our little spat is as inconsequential as anything else we will do. That will all be swept away soon enough.

Me: Leave me, Eulogy. I need time to think.

Eulogy: -he frowns at me- What makes you think you get to give the orders around here?

Me: I never said I thought that, did I? I just assumed that you'd want to take the dramatic exit and kill me at a later date. After all, public slaughter isn't your style, though it may be Hammer's. Just go.

Eulogy: -he breathes heavily, visibly angered but ultimately decides to storm out-

So yeah. I left something out of my posts. They just...I don't know what those things were but just thinking about them is horrifying on such a deep level that even when I was surrounded by singing corpses, I wanted nothing more than to push that thought out of my head. Which reminds me. I should probably tell you guys what happened in the dream after my last post.

Well, as you can guess, I gave myself a good running start and propelled myself through the front window. I hit the ground and tumbled a few times but thankfully I didn't get run over by the bus. When I got up, it was off to one side, on its side, burning. Some corpses were hanging out the windows, still singing, and I could faintly hear my mother's voice. But it was when I turned back to the road that something even more horrifying happened.

The Hanging Man walked towards me, flanked by two of those...things. Even now, I can't remember a clear shape or size. Just...fear. And yellow eyes. He stood a few feet away from me, shouted at me and then sicced the two creatures on me. It was only when they started ripping through my flesh that I woke up but as horrible as that was, something else has been stuck in my head ever since. The words he shouted at me. More Latin.

"Omnes vidisse abeo venient."

Unfortunately, it was too complex for me to work out, limited as my Latin is, but I was able to get Jean to translate it.

"All you have seen will come to pass."

Reach out.

Helter Skelter

It's not beautiful anymore. It's unbeautiful. It's un, un, un, un, un.

She keeps telling me it's my fault. She's dead and it's all my fault. Shantih, shantih, shantih. No. There is no peace. There is no peace.

The corpses are singing. It's all wrong. Like a choir of crows.

"Behold the ruined beauty
As ashes fall like snow.
Praise be to the end
And He Who Made It So."

No. I don't want to praise him. He is wrong, he is wrong, he is wrong, he is un. He's on the monitor again. Looking at me. Looking at my soul. My sins. The shards of my mother. She's still calling out to me. Telling me it's my fault and it is. It's my fault she's dead. But I can't go to him. Anything but him. Shantih, shantih, shantih. The corpses won't stop singing and he won't stop whispering and my mother won't SHUT THE FUCK UP. Shantih, shantih, shantih. I can't take it anymore. It's too much, too loud. There's one window they can't stop my breaking through.

The front.

Reach out.

Nowhere Man

Oh fuck me. Fuck this fuck fuck fuck FUCK FUCK.

Oh fuck, I'm trying to stay calm but fuck it fuck it fuck it fuck it.

Okay. Fuck. Okay.

This piece of shit won't let me see the last post I made, or anything else, for that matter, but I'll try and pick up where I left off. Right after I made the last post (or at least, I hope I did, I don't even know if it got through), my iPod died again. To be honest, I wasn't unduly surprised, I mean, what else could fucking go wrong? At any rate, I decided to try and see if I was trapped on the bus. I went to the front of the bus to see if I could stop it. Nothing worked. I couldn't steer, the brakes did nothing, fuck, I couldn't even accelerate. I did find the bus driver though, lying on the steps with his ribcage ripped open and the remains of his organs congealing into a solid mass. I don't know is it that I've just become so used to this shit or what but I didn't even feel all that nauseous.

I went back into the main part of the bus and got my hands on a glass-breaking hammer but when I tried to smash the window, one of the fucking corpses grabbed me by the fucking wrist. I shit you not. It started digging its nails into my skin, crushing my wrist, tighter and tighter until I screamed out in pain, at which point it decided to let go. That's when I heard it. His voice. But not in my head. Out loud. I could hear the Slender Man's voice over the fucking intercom. The whispering. It was so...wrong, so...out of tune. It just seemed that no matter what noise it was contrasting with, the hum of the bus's engine, the sound of my footsteps as I backed away, the squelch of the blood pooled under my feet, no matter what noise, it was all discord, never harmony. It was all so un. That's the only way I can describe it. Unnatural, unreal, unhealthy, just un, un, un.

And then, his face appeared on the monitor at the front of the bus. Unmoving, unfeeling, just staring sightlessly at me, standing in the middle of the aisle. He was staring at me for five minutes before it got too much. I couldn't take it anymore. I rushed towards the monitor with the glass-breaking hammer. I only got about four feet before I slipped in a pool of blood and landed flat on my back with an unpleasant crunch. I tried to get up but my back was too

Fuck. No, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. No, fuck. My mother's voice. My mother's voice is playing over the intercom. She's reciting her favourite poem. And it sounds so beautiful. It's harmonising so beautifully with his voice. It's so...relaxing. I feel peaceful. You can feel peaceful too, guys, say it with me. Shantih, shantih, shantih.

Peace, peace, peace.

Reach out.