Walking the Hallowed Halls

In his first post, Andrew explains that when he was younger, he had dreams about Slender Man emerging from his closet and watching him for any signs of wakefulness, waiting to devour him. Andrew managed to escape such a fate by telling his mother about the man from his dreams, inadvertently causing her to be killed instead.

When Andrew is 20, he is visited by Slender Man once again, and fearfully begs for his life, promising to do Slender Man's bidding if his life is spared. The next day, an unwashed teenage girl appears on his doorstep, one of Slender's "children," speaking of Slender Man with "religious rapture."

Andrew enters into Slender Man's employment while remaining highly lucid. He describes his role as "caretaker, provider, and advisor" for Slender Man's servants, many of whom live on the edge of madness. Andrew lives in an abandoned building with his "colleagues" where they can leech off the free wifi from the nearby McDonald's. Andrew continues to fear Slender Man and copes with his occasional and terrifying visits by getting extremely drunk afterwards.

Andrew helps Slender Man abduct new servants and chase down individuals fleeing from his influence, roles that Andrew feels morally conflicted about. When commenters question Andrew's choices, Andrew claims that it's all in service of protecting his twin brother Ben from Slender Man. Ben sends Andrew regular emails but Andrew never responds, thinking Ben will be safer that way.

Andrew describes living through the events of the Solstice from a proxy's perspective. Essentially, he lies low in a hotel room, having ordered most of his charges to do the same, and hopes that the whole thing will blow over and nothing will come of it. As the reader may know, nothing does.

As the new year approaches, Andrew embarks on a "pilgrimage" with two of his colleagues. As they roadtrip around Australia (the notable setting of this work), Ben is emailing less and less, and Andrew is getting worried. Andrew makes a plan to flee so he can go to Ben. He kills/injures his colleagues and steals their car. Slender Man follows behind him as he travels. Andrew begins to feel more and more in tune with Slender Man, more drawn to him. He begins to feel safe and comforted in his presence, rather than terrified and sick, symptoms he is sure mean his sanity is on a time limit and his full conversion into the cult is imminent.

When Andrew finally makes it to Ben's place, Ben is furious that Andrew disappeared for two years for the sake of a writing project (how he views Andrew's blog). However, after Ben's own encounter with Slender Man convinces him of the truth, the two of them begin to run together. They move from hotel to hotel, spend a lot of time on fast food wifi, and never stay in one place for long. From this point on, Andrew and Ben both make posts on the blog and both respond to comments.

Andrew and Ben return to their childhood home to investigate the closet where their mother was killed. They find Slender Man inside, horrifyingly fused with the space of the closet. He bites Andrew and drags him inside. The world around Andrew collapses and he is, in his words, "mindraped by a faceless alien abomination from a place beyond the comprehension of man." Slender Man communicates to Andrew that because of his betrayal, there will be no more bargains, and he will take everything from them. He becomes furious when Andrew challenges him, but Ben saves him by pulling him out of the closet with a rope, Poltergeist-style.

Ben and Andrew become aware that they are being followed by a proxy referred to as the New Girl. The New Girl leaves them cryptic messages hinting at a final and inevitable confrontation that only one brother will survive. When they stay too long in their next hotel room, the New Girl breaks their door down and starts a knife fight with Andrew. She draws the Operator symbol in their blood, drawing Slender Man to the scene. Andrew is enraptured by Slender Man's presence, once again that much closer to madness. Ben has to drag him out of the room to make their escape.

The brothers continue to travel while Andrew's wounds heal. They bicker, they're both bored and tired of running, they're running out of money. Andrew's sanity is tenuous and his motives suspect. He makes one final post rambling about a new plan, and several days later, Ben informs the readers that Andrew has disappeared. He states that he can no longer "feel" Andrew through their psychic connection as twins, implying that Andrew may finally be dead.

Another two weeks pass, and a post goes up that Andrew scheduled a month prior. This post is an interesting mixture of in-game and out-of-game thoughts. Andrew acknowledges the fictional nature of the blog and himself as the author while still treating Slender Man as a real and present threat. He roasts Core Theory, takes shots at other blogs, self-deprecates his own storytelling, and mourns the losses of dead bloggers as if their deaths were real. The post becomes more and more disjointed as Andrew's mental state slips further. He claims to be acting once again to protect Ben, and tells Ben that he loves him with his final words.

The final post is from someone who hacked into Andrew's account. She claims to be Andrew's girlfriend, and seems to be connected with Slender Man's cult. She reveals that the cult has been trying to contact Andrew, and she blames and threatens Ben for his disappearance. The blog ends there, with Andrew's ultimate fate left mysterious and Ben's future bleak but open.

This story is very steeped in the mythos and references events and concepts from several of its contemporaries, such as the Solstice events and the character Redlight. Some terminology in this work may have been borrowed directly from other sources.

Slender Man is usually referred to with capitalized pronouns in this work, as in He/Him. His presence gives Andrew nosebleeds and migraines, as well as inspiring intense atavistic fear. Despite having no face, Slender's "stare" is palpable and invasive. Even when he isn't present, Andrew feels that Slender Man is watching him. Andrew even blames his compulsive blogging on Slender Man's influence.

Slender Man is described as "unravelling" himself in Andrew's kitchen, revealing another form beneath the business suit facade. This other form is not described in detail, but inspires intense fear and revulsion in the protagonist. Even when Slender looks his most human, his arms are too long, and they taper into curling points instead of hands. Andrew describes Slender Man's height as variable, but he is always the tallest person in a room. In Andrew's childhood dreams, Slender had a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. In a much later scene, he uses these teeth to bite and drag Andrew.

Slender is able to teleport himself and others, an ability which is referred to as Walking in this story. He is also able to read minds and to know his follower's thoughts and plans, although the full extent and limitation of this power are unknown. Drawing the Operator Symbol summons Slender Man to you in this story.

Slender Man has servants in this story referred to as the Taken and the Touched. The Taken have completely lost their minds to their master and thus need a degree of help with self-care. They engage in typical proxy behavior such as wearing masks, chasing victims, and speaking/writing in cryptic code. The Touched have had encounters with Slender Man but remain mostly lucid, like sleeper agents. Both of these groups, the Taken and the Touched, feel fervent love and a sense of religious devotion towards Slender Man.

Andrew himself claims to fall into a third group, Servants, who retain their own mind and serve only out of ambition or fear. A fourth group, Heretics, describes anyone who is fleeing Slender Man or actively working against him. Those who cannot see Slender Man are referred to as the Blind. Andrew uses his platform to speak up for the proxies and characterizes them as tormented victims deserving of mercy and empathy.

Slender Man has a degree of personality in this work. He is often angry offscreen and Andrew frequently expresses fear of angering him. He is also sometimes amused and perhaps impressed with humans. He does not speak but communicates with his followers in a nonverbal, psychic manner. He indoctrinates new followers through a type of psychic process referred to by cult members as "theophany." Slender Man also laughs in this story, a sound that is described as having "a hundred thousand echoes of children laughing with him in the background."

A recurring motif in this work is descriptions and imagery of being hung from Slender Man's Tree, which seems to describe the mystical or metaphorical state of being under Slender's control, in communion with him, or under his attention. Followers, runners, and non-believers are also hung from the Tree as punishment. Once, after angering Slender Man, Andrew was "hung from His tree for days for my insolence." The Path of Black Leaves from White Elephants is also referenced in this story, referred to as Forest Paths by Andrew.

As Slender Man deepens their psychic connection, Andrew begins to feel safe and comforted in his presence, rather than terrified and sick. He is able to hear Slender Man "singing" or producing some kind of subsonic noise that he can barely describe. He says the sound feels like coming home. As he is further converted, Andrew describes Slender Man as beautiful, radiating love, a warm set of arms that he wants to return to. The reader is left with an ambiguous impression of Slender Man's relationship with humans. Are his worshippers truly enjoying an ecstatic connection with a higher being? Or is the warmth and comfort just a lure to draw his victims into a horrifying fate? Slender Man's ultimate goal, as communicated by mental images passed to Andrew during their psychic communion, seems to be the eradication of human life, and possibly the destruction of the entire world.

The idea of "Labyrinths" and Slender's ability to fold and twist space is touched upon in this work. There are also locations referred to as Sacred Woods or Sanctified Places where one is relatively protected from Slender and his followers. One cannot stay in them for long, however, as one's presence dilutes their protective power over time. While Slender Man has a global presence in this story, Andrew describes his "head office" as being in Germany.