File 17

Daniel here, everyone. I’m feeling better now. Now, something I should tell you about Elise that she didn’t mention was the fact that when she came in, she was sobbing. Just an emotional wreck. Despite Mistress’s questions, even though I could tell she was just asking as a type of formality and didn’t want her last agent on this breaking down with massive mental problems like her other two.

She apparently, according to Mistress, went to our room and immediately hugged me, still sobbing fairly loudly. And then she kissed me. I’m not going to lie, I’m 15 and apart from the two kisses Elise has given me, I’ve never been kissed. So I responded rather…..enthusiastically. Basically I kissed her until she stopped crying, though in retrospect I don’t know exactly whether it was to get her to stop crying or to stop sobbing, cause her sob is one of those horrible piercing ones that are painful to hear.

She snuggled me really close last night, and I woke up with her not straddling me, but snuggling me really tightly, like to almost suffocation tight.

So I got up afterwards, got dressed, and went to check on Sylvia. She wasn’t in her room. So I went to Mistress’s room to ask. The door was open, that was weird. I looked in and was instantly shocked. Sylvia was stripped down to her underwear, with a collar and leash around her neck. “Bark for me, puppy.” Mistress was sitting on her throne, smiling down at Sylvia.

“Arf! Arf!” Sylvia responded enthusiastically.

“Mistress….what exactly are you doing?” I asked her.

Noticing me, she jumped up, picked up Sylvia, and tossed her into an open closet, closing the door with strings. “Why, whatever are you talking about?” She smiled nervously. I facepalmed. Just another normal day at the Screaming Tower.

“I need more money.” I decided to ignore that event. Mistress gives me and Elise whenever we need it, for travel expenses and things.

“What are you going after today?” She asked, snapping her fingers, a doll walking up with a briefcase with stacks of 100 dollar bills. I grabbed a stack. It was $2000.

“The Mother of Snakes, again.” I rolled my eyes. “We keep finding everyone BUT her.”

“She’s a slippery one. Literally, too.” Mistress sat back down and idly looked at her fingernails. She pulled out a swiss army knife and starting whittling at her nails. “Can’t get my boobs to grow, but these damn nails…” I snickered. “Keep laughing and you’ll be going on your missions dressed as Polythene Pam.” I shut up then.

Going out to the car, Elise already had it started and was lazily sucking on the straw of one of those delicious CapriSun pouches. She already had one for me in the other cup holders. “Thanks.” I said, opening the pouch and she started driving through the Empty City. “Oh yeah, by the way, you said something about a Fear killing your family yesterday. Care to elaborate?” She looked a little sad.

“I guess I need to tell someone.” Elise sighed. “I used to be a normal girl, back when I was 14. Then I met the Blind Man and he erased my memory of my childhood. After that I was a little on the crazy side, but nothing major, except my parents were a little bothered about my memory loss. Afterwards, my sister was turned into a Camper. My brother turned into a Nest. The Fears began targeting my family. We moved away after that. My mom, my Dad, my Gram, My other sis, and me. We moved from England over to the States, Alabama, rural, nonetheless. That’s when it got real bad. One day, The Rake broke into our house and killed my mom, my Gram, and Eileen. My Dad and I were able to flee the place. Then I had to kill him. He was possessed by the Red Cap and…” She stopped, fighting back tears. “He tried to rape me. I shot him. Afterwards, I wandered through Louisiana, running from The Rake and The Red Cap. I ended up a homeless 15-year old girl in Houston. I was almost raped by a gang of thugs in a back alley. Then The Choir showed up and killed them all. I was grateful to them, so I became a Grayskin. Most of them are controlled, but not me.” She explained.

“Well, now I feel kinda bad.” I replied. “I feel lucky now.”

“Did your family die in a less painful way?” She asked me.

“My…..family is still alive.” I replied.

“Oh.” Elise blinked. “Then why’d you become a doll?” She asked me.

“Long story short: I was hit by a car and she saved my life.” I replied.

“Makes sense.” Elise replied.

After that, we just had pointless conversations, about Pokemon and Legend of Zelda and other Video Games we both liked. We ended up driving through a Door and ended up on a freeway. Which was confusing. The Empty City can be fickle at times. We didn’t know where we were going, so we just chose a random exit and got off there. We ended up on country road somewhere in British Columbia. We were the only ones on the road, so we just completely disregarded the speed limit and went about 80 miles an hour in a 45 zone.

Then we saw him. He was a man, dressed completely in gray. He seemed to be searching for something. We pulled over and I rolled down my window. “You look like you need help with something. Mind if I ask what?” We were more curious than anything.

“Uh, hello. I’m actually looking for a shard of ‘The Dying Man’ if you know what that is.”

I was a little startled at that. “I’m quite aware. Which shard?” I asked.

“The Liar. I want to get her back. I’m Grey, and I’m gonna try to get all my

shards back.” He said.

“Hmm. Well, if we find her, we’ll let you know. You don’t seem that

hostile.” I replied.

“I’m not. The others are, though. The Liar and The Animal? Stay away from

those two if you don’t have a weapon.” Elise obfuscated a shotgun to prove her point. “Very well. So what are the two of you doing out back here?” He asked.

“Oh, I’m on a mission to observe every Fear. I was looking for the Mother

of Snakes, but…” I trailed off, having failed so many times.

“Oh. You haven’t observed me yet, have you?” He asked, his lips curling

into a smile.

          “Can’t say I have. Mind if I do so?” I asked.

          “Not at all. But I want something in return.” Grey responded.

          “That being?” I replied.

          “A ride back to town. I really don’t want to walk back.”

          File 17: The Dying Man

          Alternate Names: The Host, PRE15, Fossil-Type LAZARUS, Subject Delta Mike, The King Without a Kingdom, The Soul, Finnegan’s Wake, Noctus, The Skin Within

          Attitude To Humans: Dependent on the Shard

          Control Over: N/A

          Decay. That is the Dying Man’s MO. He has no servants, because they all die. He is alone. Supposedly he was once quite a powerful prince, though he then disappeared, supposedly that was when he shattered. There are dozens, possibly even hundreds of shards, and some aren’t even documented. The Shards basically inhabit various people, and they take control of them. Then the body begins to decay. Once that body is dead and used up, they jump to the nearest person. If one kills a shard host, they will spread to the killer almost immediately. All shards do this, though some are friendly to humans. They have to in order to survive, much like EAT requires her Campers. The Dying Man Shards is generally not present at Fear meetings, as they apparently angered the Empty City at one point.

          Recently I’ve been having problems with writing long observations. I guess it doesn’t much matter. I’ll let you in on a little secret: I don’t post the whole report here. Most of my reports are 10 pages or more, but these days they hover around 7 instead. I just post excerpts, as does Elise. Do you really think we’d give you EVERYTHING we have? That’d be silly. Anyways, nothing else much happened, except Elise kissed me in front of Mistress and she started playing “She Loves You.” By The Beatles on the CD player. Anyways, I’m gonna sleep. More tomorrow. Night everyone.

~Thompson out.