User blog:GamerNerd i/Ancient Monsters, Urban Legends

The Sorcerer Supreme came to visit Aidan. Well, not quite. In this case it was more like the Sorceress Supreme.

Nadia bangs on the door and taps her foot expectantly. She’d asked Aidan to go walk around the neighborhood with her. It seemed like a fun thing to do until she had to explain to her parents that this was neither trick-or-treating nor a date.

“Come on, Aidan,” she mutters impatiently. “I already told my dad what we were doing. Don’t turn me down after having to give them a sermon.”

Aidan was having his own problems. He’d quickly agreed, but forgot to check the phases of the moon first. Sure enough, Halloween turned out to be on a full moon.

Regardless, he couldn’t walk out on Nadia like that. He packed plenty of his “conscious retainer” in a pouch disguised as a green skull.

Specter Knight walked out the door, coming face to face with Dr. Strange.

“Looking good, doc,” the Knight said. His face was concealed by his bronze helm.

“Same to you,” the Sorceress responded, smirking. “Although you look dead tired.”

“Very funny,” Aidan said, gripping his prop scythe. “Let’s go, shall we? I kinda want to see what my neighbors have done this year.”

The two of them wandered the neighborhood aimlessly. Halloween night was the most active in the year. The normally quiet streets bustled with children and their chaperones. The usually boring houses were interesting to observe, some genuinely scary, some very child-oriented, but most somewhere in between. The full moon above enhanced either the fear factor or the magic of the holiday.

For the Recreators, it did both.

The two shared a deep love of Halloween. Before their first encounter, they lived half their life in reality and half in the fictional worlds of their favorite books and games. Once each year, it gave them the chance to become the characters they loved so much. After gaining the ability to do that literally, the holiday became almost every day. Halloween never lost its wonder, however. Seeing the joy of the little children as they tried to act out their characters gave them a good laugh and heavy nostalgia.

The fear kicked in after certain mishaps in their adventures. Aidan, after his lycanthrope encounter, developed a selective case of remaphobia, fear of the full moon. He knew what its light brought out of him: a literal feral beast. Nadia suffered periodic moments of intense, irrational fear. Initially triggered by an overexposure to a certain toxin, she saw things in ways that were impossibly paranoid.

At their best, these problems became a minor annoyance. Perhaps Aidan’s fingernails would grow into claws for a moment, or Nadia would see a shadow as a threat. At their worst, they cause a loss of control. Aidan’s lycanthropy would overcome his senses, and Nadia’s fear would paralyze her, making her unable to react.

“Hey, N,” Aidan says, pointing to the dark shadows under a patch of trees. “Is that who I think it is?”

“I believe so,” Nadia responds, squinting. “Let’s go greet him.”

As they approached, a man in a suit emerged from the shadows. A man in a suit with tendrils of darkness surrounding his literal blank face.

The Slenderman acknowledged their presence without a word.

Urban legends such as the Slenderman have a pact on Halloween, going out and mingling in peace with people. The sad fact of the matter is, however, that these legends never get the chance to communicate. For most, they are either passed off as festive costumes, are largely intangible, or are too shy to make contact. In the case of Slender, those he wishes to speak with are to afraid of him to listen.

Technically, he doesn’t exist. The very sight of him would scare most, sending them running in terror. At the same time, it’s likely that he would have killed them before they got anywhere. There would be no witnesses, no proof.

However, today was the exception.

Today, he was real. No longer simply something to be feared, a cryptid who would normally be lethal to even glimpse. Today, and only today, on this day that only came around once a year, he was alive. And to his kind, living meant one thing: No more hiding behind the facade of a scary story. They too had emotions, feelings. If only people had the courage to speak to them on that day, and not on all the others…

“Slendy!” Aidan’s tone isn’t what you’d normally use when close to something that struck fear into so many people. “How are you? No incidents this year, I hope?”

The man still made no sound, but raised his fingers. One, two, three, four…

“Oh, I’m sorry about that,” Nadia says. She spoke as if sympathizing an old friend. “I know it’s hard for you to… You know. But that’s down from last year!”

Still silence, only quiet regard.

“Those girls? Yes, they’ve come up in the news again recently,” Aidan says. “I believe they were pleading ‘not guilty’ on account of mental illness?”

The man’s head bows forward, as if in shame.

“Don’t say that,” Nadia says tenderly. It’s a surprising contrast to her normally biting attitude. She reaches up to pat him on the shoulder. “It’s not your fault. None of it is. The unfortunate truth is that there will always be stupidity like this.”

The bow becomes a nod. The man melts into the shadows without a trace.

“I really wish he’d open up a little more,” Aidan says. “He’s really nice, but I think he’s scared of us humans more than we are of him.”

“Certainly explains why he kills, although there are many other ways of dealing with fear,” Nadia mutters quietly. “Anyway, we should keep going.”

The rest of the night was uneventful. The usual Halloween suspects came to greet them, naturally. The cliche’d witches, ghosts, and other monsters leave their hiding to mingle with those who are oblivious to the truth of their existence, all too often passing them off as a mere outfit. Naturally, Aidan was particularly friendly with the werewolves. He knew their kind, and they sympathized with him.

When the clock struck twelve, the Recreators headed home. Being the gentleman that he was, Aidan walked Nadia home first.

“See, that wasn’t so bad!” she told him as they reached her door. “You didn’t even need those silly serums!”

“I’m generating a resistance to the curse,” he said. “I even looked directly at the moon once. I felt its rage stirring in me, but I could suppress it. All I felt was a little hair, and maybe a claw or two.” He laughs. “And even if I hadn’t, the other lycans would have been able to manage me, I’d think.”

“It’s good that you learn to control that,” Nadia responded. “But don’t be afraid to let it out sometimes. Bottling up emotions isn’t good for you, and this should be treated in a similar way.” Nadia opens her front door and steps in.

“We’ll see,” Aidan mutters. “Anyway, thanks for inviting me out.” He starts walking away. “See you around.”

Nadia nods and waves, shutting the door behind her.

Aidan began the long walk back to his house. Nadia’s words echoed in his mind. Don’t be afraid to let it out sometimes, she had said. As he reached his front door, he decided to take her advice.

After Aidan took his costume off, he stood out in his backyard. It wasn’t often that he just sat outside. He looked up at the full moon. He admired its beauty as he felt the beast within him emerge, overtaking him willingly. With a howl, he leaped onto the rooftops to find the pack he and Nadia had met earlier. The world wouldn’t notice one extra werewolf tonight, would it?