My name is Hallie Knudsen and my not-so-great world went to hell the moment I decided to follow a stupid prank that I still remember as something silly and harmless.
It all started that night when we watched that video and the steps to summon Slenderman; it was all laughs to see what would happen in that dumb game the boys were daring each other to do. But since that day we've had nightmares about strange things that end up relating to Slenderman.
I don't know if I'm the only one, but I personally decided not to talk about it because I would look foolish in front of my friends.
But the dreams became increasingly vivid—night after night I dreamed I was in a huge forest and being chased by something I couldn't see.
Those dreams have drained my mental stability; every day was more irritating than the last and everything seemed to be getting worse.
"Am I the only one who's been having Slenderman nightmares?" Hallie finally asked her friends, who seemed perfectly fine.
"You too? I thought I was the only one," Katie Jensen told Hallie, who looked equally exhausted.
Chloe, a girl with fluffy hair, said, "I didn't want to scare you, but I've been having weird dreams too."
"Forget it, it's just a natural reaction to doing something that could change our lives. But it didn't happen—we didn't summon anything, girls," said Lizzie, who was part of the group.
They were all gathered for a school outing that would take them to a site for social studies classes. A silly thing if you ask me, but as long as the lessons weren't behind a desk nobody would complain.
Hallie didn't have time for these dumb pranks; she thought that the less she spoke about it the faster it would pass.
"Come on, have you kept talking to Lucas?"
"Yes, the guy won't stop calling me."
Katie, who had fallen behind the group, watched her friends walk away and found herself halfway along a path that connected to the forest.
That feeling of being pulled by something filled her body.
She wanted to walk to a place completely different from where she was supposed to be.
That's why she didn't continue on her path; that feeling of being called told her that something important was beyond the trail she was on.
And then she walked…
The wind howled forcefully, it seemed like it could rain at any moment, and the trees, thrashing with force, made noises in every direction.
When Hallie wanted to talk about those dreams and looked back, her friend Katie had disappeared.
"Katie?" Hallie's call for her friend alerted the others, who realized their friend was gone.
And that was when they called the police—Katie Jensen had disappeared.
…
"That's crazy. Do you think she ran away?"
"Maybe. She didn't live in a stable family situation to really worry about her disappearance."
Lucas sat in the back seat of the bus full of students and murmured, "They summoned it successfully."
"The ones from Nevermore will be blamed for this."
"We'll see about that."