Reports: Elaine and Mitch

Two reports that went up recently.  Mitch of 11 Minutes to Midnight and Elaine of Take the Myth.  Also one of ours called Angmar died, but I guess he's not important, huh?

That's not just me ranting.  No one found him particularly important.  And nobody thinks too highly of the memories of people who kidnap kids.

So what can I say about these ex-ladies?  Both were...fairly assertive personalities, I guess you could say.  Both died in pieces small enough that cremation is about the only option (And Elaine's halfway there already, though I guess she might end up accidentally getting a little Angmar in her urn if that's what whoever disposes of her body decides to go with).  The former went out with a whimper while the latter opted for a bang, but both were violent, gory deaths.

I don't know.  What do you want me to say?  I didn't really know either of them.  Two more names for the list.

I need to update that list.  Can't really find the desire to, though.  So much to do.  So many people dying.

I don't know how much longer I can keep all this up.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Marathon's End

And here's the one I've been putting off.  The one that's difficult to write.

Donovan was...he was a man with a hatred of our kind.  "Proxies."  At least he had respect for the husks.  Overall, though, he was a pretty good man.  A bit of a coward.  Maybe not the best person.  But a person who tried.  A person with a good heart.

I'm going to miss Donovan.  He...helped us.  He helped Poe and me.  Even though he was suspicious of me, he put that aside long enough to try to help Poe back to being Annabel.  He was a good man.  And then he was killed by Screwtape.  Screwtape put up a report himself immediately afterwards.  It was...I want to change it.  I want to delete it and put my own report up.  Donovan deserves better than what he received.

But that's not my job.  That's not what I do.  It'd be an abuse of power, and if I start here, it's just a slippery slope.  So I'm leaving it.  Not because that's what Donovan would have wanted.  Not because it's what I want.  Not because it's what Screwtape would have wanted.  But because it's right.

Donovan told me that he...tried being a hero.  Tried helping people.  Ended up hurting some.  Couldn't face himself, much less the world.  Stopped updating his blog.  He knew.  He knew he was going to die when he started updating again.  He'd done enough running to know that his time was up. 

He...he was trying to come to New York.  He was going to meet us here.  He never got here.

Well.  Part of him did.

There's not much else I can say.  He wasn't even a friend, but he was a man I knew and could respect.  And even though we weren't friends, he still agreed to try to help.  He was a good man, and Poe and I owe him a lot.  He'll be missed.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Two down, one to go

The second of these three reports is for Screwtape.

Again, there's already a report for him.  I'm not going to bother linking it because, if you've been reading my blog, you've already seen it.  Poe killed him.  Pretty brutally, to be honest.  But that's not a matter for this report.

Personally, I think the bastard what he had coming to him.  His death was fitting.  Just.  He pushed Poe to her limit.  Tried breaking her.  In the end, she broke him.

I guess I should remain unbiased in this.  If nothing else, Screwtape was dedicated.  Very dedicated.  Fervent.  He did whatever he needed to, and went above and beyond what was asked (perhaps even needed).  He was responsible for the deaths of many, and for the pain of even more.  I guess that's something he'd consider something to be proud of.

I'm glad he's gone.  It means Poe's safe.  Good riddance to him.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

The Set has been Struck

I...never really knew Rachael.  I thought I knew her, and then it turned out that she wasn't a guy named Maurice.  She shared her story with me, though.  I held on to it until she was able to get it all out into the open.

She's dead now.  I guess you could say that her curtain's come down.  Her show is over.  She was killed by...I'll be honest, I'm not even sure.  Brian, maybe.  Van Helsing, maybe.  Either he or Rachael was not quite right in the head.  Maybe Van Helsing is Brian, and he's just too far gone to realize it.  Maybe Van Helsing isn't Brian, and Rachael was just batshit insane.  Neither would surprise me, considering the mad world we're living in.  Either way, Brian Helsing provided a report that is, as far as we've been able to gather, accurate.

It's been a while since someone I've known personally has died.  And now three have.  Rachael was the last to die, chronologically, but I'm putting hers first because it's less personal.  It's not as hard for me to write, and there are people out there who knew Rachael better than I did.  They deserve this report as soon as possible.

Rachael was obviously a troubled woman.  Clearly not in full control of herself.  I think...I think Poe could identify with her because of that.  I think that's why she made me stay and listen to Rachael's story.  I wasn't particularly fond of Rachael.  I never got to know her well enough for that.  But I respected her.  I held on to her story for her until she could tell everyone else out of that respect.  I guess...it's a shame that did what she did.  That she lived that sort of life.  That she had to go through what she went through.

She will be missed.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Business

I updated that post about the dead people (I'm not going to link it, it's right on the blog, first post of the year) and the list the other day, even if I only got around to mentioning it now.  Irritating, as always, especially because the idiots who feed me information haven't been feeding me enough (and sometimes the info is even flat-out wrong).  So please, if any of you have, you know, first-hand information or can correctly identify a dead body so that the more incompetent of the Trackers in the field don't feed me bad or incomplete information, be my guest.

And if you even think of dropping off the radar by having one of your friends say "Oh, yeah, I identified the body, he/she's dead," then keep in mind that I'm in close contact with at least one dedicated Tracker and one dedicated Hunter, and so help me, if you feed me bad information, I will do everything within my power to make sure you start move straight up to the top of their lists.

Anyway, that's taken care of.  On to a few future matters of business.

I got in touch with...that one kid, whatever his name was.  Glasses.  I'm going to be doing an interview with him soon.  In addition, I have a few people I met with/will meet with, whose identities and times of meeting are temporarily being withheld and are, ultimately, unimportant.  It's just business, and it's probably not even going to be worth mentioning.  However, I do plan on meeting with Eddie again soon.

And on the non-business front, Screwtape is...not doing anything.  I'm not even joking.  Basically, he says he hasn't changed his methods before, and he's not going to suddenly do it now.  I talked to Eternity about the situation, and he laughed me off with a "Honestly, Alan, what makes you think it even matters to me?"  And then he said something about all three of us being replaceable.  So I guess it's back to the drawing board.  I know I've got the support of most of you, but obviously, I'm not going to be able to say anything about any of my plans.

So that's what you've got to look forward to: an interview with the Glasses guy (and maybe Ginger if he's around), and a meeting with Eddie and the husks.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Lots of Dead People

Happy New Year.  Let's celebrate by talking about some people who died near the end of last year.

Okay, we're gonna do these all at once, considering that there's a lot of them.  Most of them either have someone else to end or continue their blog, so most didn't go up as reports, but here's what we've got.

Maduin the Jester: We're pretty sure he's dead, but as no one in Poland is connected to us, we haven't been able to get them to cooperate and send a report.  What's already been posted by Sopia on his own blog is about all we're getting.  Maduin seemed like a pretty cool guy.  Had a strange sense of humor.  I guess he was a big deal or something.

Lucas and Joel: They seemed like pretty cool people, really.  At least they understood that the side you're on has no relationship to your morality.  Some chick (or dude, maybe?  I'm not really sure) called Ember Fay provided a pretty good report of what happened.

Michael or Nemo or whoever he is: Died at Hope or something.  I think.  I didn't keep very good notes, just wrote down the name.  Never even really knew the guy.  I should...look into that more.  Write a report or something maybe.

UPDATE: Turns out I was wrong.  Got the note in the "Confirmed Dead" file instead of the "Believed Dead" one.  We've got no confirmation on this.

Ava: Yeah, this is a blast from the past, isn't it?  Well, we kept tabs on her, even after she decided that she was going to not say anything to any of you anymore, and now that she's dead, we don't have to anymore!  Always nice to see some closure.  Frankly, I thought she was a bit of an arrogant bitch, but I guess she was pretty important to some of you guys.

Konaa: Can't be completely sure yet, but I think he's probably dead.  Or was dead.  And then he undied (I fucking hate it when they do that), just so he could die again on the Solstice.  Showoff.  Anyway, he seemed pretty cool.  Didn't know him too well.  Mostly just remember him as the guy who stabbed Nee-chan, which I really can't object to, considering that it was in self defense.  Gotta give him props for that, actually, after having seen those videos of her in action.

UPDATE: Nope, sorry.  Apparently he survived his near-death experience.  Konaa's still alive.

Beast: There's a report coming for him.  Eventually.  Curious fellow, really.

UPDATE: Here's the report.

Anyway, I think that's everyone.  I'll get them added to the List.  I've got...another post to go up soon, but I need to get my head back on straight before I can write it up.  But soon.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Star Burning Out

Well, Morningstar's gone, if you hadn't already heard.  Like the Observe and Terminate report, this one's already been covered better than I could.  Morningstar seemed to have expected it may have been coming, and he got up a post on his own blog.  That first link there seems to match up fairly well with what our agents found when they investigated the scene.  Only one real unanswered thing that remains is the matter of the truck that crashed into the warehouse and blew up, killing Morningstar in the process.  Seemed a bit too coincidental, if you ask me.  I don't know.  Maybe it was some sort of suicide attempt.  Who knows?  Maybe he felt trapped or thought he would lose and decided to end it himself.  That'd be like him: ensuring a dramatic, over-the-top fiery death for himself: the dramatic, over-the-top Saturday morning cartoon villain.

But that's all just speculation.

So who was Morningstar?  Well, it's hard to say.  Was he, as some claim, a broken lost soul, forced to serve The Boss against his will?  Was he, as others will suggest, an irredeemable monster who was only playing at switching sides?  Or was he a bit of both?  How much of the monster was him, and how much was out of his control?  It's hard to say for sure.  Out of respect to my former roommate (who I guess had some sort of crush on him) I'll withhold my personal opinions of the kid.

But I suppose it really doesn't matter anymore, does it?

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Termination Observed

This is a report that's a bit different than the others in that I'm not announcing the death of a person, but the death of an entire division.  The Slender Man division of the Paranormal Termination Consortum has been wiped out nearly completely.  You can check out that link to Observe and Terminate, where the sole survivor provides a pretty good report of his own.  Much better than I could have done.

I guess I don't have any strong feelings about this one way or the other.  You guys know as well as any that they were a blessing as well as a curse to pretty much anybody.  Seemed like some of them could never quite decide whether they wanted to kill everyone related to The Boss or not, it sounded like their boss decided he wanted to work for my Boss at the end there, and that whole "dimensional bleeding" thing with the space-time cloning and whatnot sounds like it fucked pretty much everything up for everyone.

And on top of that, they couldn't even do what their department was designed to do.  If they couldn't kill The Boss, the odds for anyone else managing look pretty slim.  All they managed to do was fuck everything up.  They tried, though.  You've gotta give them credit for trying.

Well, with the Slender Man division completely wiped out, The Boss probably isn't going to be bothering the PTC anymore.  B2, if you read this, good luck in whatever it is you're doing now.  You have my best wishes.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Broken Glass

So the Glass Man is dead.

Don't really know what to say about this.  He was kind of an asshole.  I didn't really like him.  And he was on "your side."  Hope you self-righteous arrogant bastard types (and Big Brother) take note of that.

Glass was a a special sort of kid.  He was the sort of kid who thought that going around acting like a complete sociopath would turn him into a man.  Or, at the very least, was an acceptable way to act in society.  Oh no!  My friend is telling people about The Boss!  I think I'll fucking murder him.  And that mindset of "I'm going to kill anyone who I see as inconveniencing me" doesn't let up.  He kept going with it until he died.

So the Glass Man is dead.  Guess how many fucks I give.  Here's a hint: it's an integer smaller than one.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

They've Opened the Box

I'm not going to do

the whole post like this.

I just can't 

do it justice.

But the beginning?

That much

I can try.

Balance.

Let me make one thing clear...there aren't many of you that I actually give half a shit about.  So the fact that this is actually hard for me to write up...well, let's just say that it should give you a sense of how much of an impact Schrödinger tended to make on people.

Emma-Sofia "Kathleen Schrödinger" Mondegreen.  She's...dead.  Check the report.

I can't type it out again.  And if I could, I don't want it on my blog where I'd have to be reminded of it.

At the risk of being called a Quisling or Benedict Arnold or teamkiller...I would love nothing more than that Cheshire bastard's death right now.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Update: Cheshire's dead too, now.  You can read about it here and here.

Redlight, Greenlight, Stop

This is actually a double report of sorts, as I'm reporting on two deaths that happened at about the same time.

Many of you have no doubt seen the happenings on White Elephants lately.  I'm not going to be posting this here since the blog's kind of in use already, but KK did leave what happened a bit ambiguous.  A team of agents have checked, in fact, since checked it out.

They found Redlight first.  Well...kind of.  They found what used to be Redlight.  He was the easier one to find, as he had a tree growing out of him.  Let me reiterate: he had a fucking tree growing out of him.  There really wasn't much left of him, but there was enough to identify him.  Now, I don't know whether or not he was really some sort of hivemind or whether this means that all Redlights are dead as a result or just this one.  But this particular one?  Definitely dead.

After a bit of searching, they found Robert Sagel propped up against the wall on the inside of a culvert.  They didn't stick around to determine the cause of death, but it was probably a knife wound.  From the trail of blood leading to his location, it looks like he crawled there after being stabbed to die in peace.  I say that because he apparently had a really calm and serene look on his face.  I guess he was happy to be free from the hell he'd been through.

Well, that's it.  Redlight and Greenlight, both dead.  Not much else to say.  Goodbye to both of them.  May they finally find the rest and freedom they longed for in life.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Another Report

This one should have been done a while ago, but...well, life got in the way and everything, you know?

Here's the report.  Guy called Joce.  To be honest, I didn't really know him, and I haven't actually read his blog yet (though I will), but I at least recognize the name from reading through some comments on Hyde's old blog.

He seemed like a good kid.  It's a real shame he's gone.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

From Zero to Hero to Zero

I never thought I’d actually be happy about one of these.  And yet, somehow, I am.

He’s gone.  Timothy “Zero” Holiday.  Here's the report. 

[EDIT: I've gone ahead and posted an updated version to Zero's blog since the writing of this post.]

There were a couple Agents in the area tracking him when he went into a forest.  They went in after him when he didn’t come out.  They found a huge, dead tree (the surviving Agent says that they should have noticed a tree like that towering over the rest of the forest).  Zero was hanging on one of the branches.  One of the two got closer to make sure that it was, in fact Zero, and that he was, in fact, dead.  He managed to yell back that the ripped-open abdomen was pretty conclusive before…well, we’re not sure what exactly happened, since his partner is extremely unstable and unwilling to talk about it at this time, refusing to say more about it than “the fucking tree got him.”

The surviving agent also managed to grab a backpack belonging to Zero from near the tree, as well as the smartphone he posted from.  The mask was also at the base of the tree, but the Agent who didn’t survive had that.  They were unable to track down the sword and jade elephant he had discarded earlier, and, strangely enough, all the bones had vanished.  Not a trace of them anywhere.  All that’s left of Zero is a backpack and a phone…and not even that anymore, as the backpack has been burned and the phone smashed.  The sword and the elephant are still out there, though.  Good luck to anyone who thinks they can find them, I guess.

I’ll admit, it was hard for me to remain professional for this one, just because…well, I don’t know.  I guess he’s just been striking nerves lately.  In fact, I've decided to hold off on posting this to his blog, just because I feel like I wouldn't be able to avoid taking shots at him and it's just not right to spit on a dead guy on his own blog.  See, we...had a bit of an exchange not too long ago.  Let me get the posts for you.

Anyway, in this post, he mentioned Jekyll as one of his victims.  Listed under people who “deserved it.”  He is, of course, referring to Hyde, a friend I’d mentioned before who helped me through things when I was first getting involved.  The thing is, Zero didn’t even know Hyde.  I did.  Zero probably never even read Hyde’s blog, so he wouldn't know that Jekyll wasn’t Hyde.  Sure, they shared the same body, and a few similarities, but the two were…not the same person.  And neither of them “deserved” it.  Take it from me, Hyde was just a broken kid who was working for The Boss because he had nothing left.  All he had was the name Hyde.  And that asshole took that way from him, too.  I got a bit upset about that and left this comment on his blog.  Well, he decided he’d come over here and retort with this:

“you know, at first I didn't give a damn about you bitching about Hyde. I mean, why the fuck do you care? You leave this big defensive comment on my blog about him and shit, and I really didn't give a damn, but fuck it.

You wanna know why I called him Jekyll?

Because it makes him a real man to me, not some bullshit proxy that I killed, I call him Jekyll as a sign of his humanity, whatever the hell was left of it.

And if you've got a problem with THAT, then fuck you too.”

What a guy.  Isn’t he great?  Jekyll was human, but once he became Hyde, I guess he just ceased to be a person.  I guess that this means that I’m not a human either.  Or anyone else I’ve talked to here.  William, or the people who call themselves William, have lost everything.  Are you really going to say that you can’t look at them with pity as people?

The fucker is dead, and I can’t help but be happy about it.  He’s not going to kill anyone else now.  He’s not going to spread his bigoted slander about us Agents around (I’d like to remind you that, unlike him, most of us have never killed anyone).

Goodnight, sweet prince, and mobs of demons drag thee to thy torment.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

NOTE:  May get a report up on Zero's blog eventually.  May not.  I don't know.  I don't feel like it'd be a good idea when I can't remain unbiased in this.

List of the Deceased

I've put up a list of known bloggers or vloggers who have been killed by means directly or obliquely related to the Slender Man.

Any help is appreciated.  Just leave me a comment on either page or send me an e-mail at shootingthemessenger@hotmail.com.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Reach is Out

Well, another one has fallen.  Reach.  Raymond Shaughnessy.  Irishman tricked into believing he had superpowers.  For a while, everything he knew was a lie.

He had a kid.  Has a kid.  ...Will have a kid.  I don't know if it's a son or daughter, and I don't know if the mother does either.  But hey, there's one bit of solace.  Reach is gone, but his kid will live on.  Hopefully.  From what I hear, Robert's trying to do everything he can to make sure of that.

He was a figurehead.  He was a hero.  He decided that he didn't want to work for The Boss anymore, and quit in the most spectacular fashion possible.

He was also just a kid.  Only seventeen years old.  That's younger than me.  And he and another kid were thrust into this together.  This shouldn't have happened to them.  This shouldn't happen to any of us.

Reach is living testimony that those of us working for The Boss are human, and can genuinely care about you guys (even if, like me, we refuse to switch sides).  He showed that, even in darkness, there is some light.

Goodbye, Reach.  It would have been an honor to sign you off.  Too bad that librarian bitch beat me to it.  Stupid cruddy connection cutting out on me.

And no, Ava, that was not affectionate teasing.  You're a bitch.  I understand that this sucks, yeah.  But grow up.  Get over it.

So to end on a more positive note, let's all remember Reach again.  A brave kid in way over his head.  We'll miss you, buddy.  And we'll always, always remember to

Reach Out.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

The Man Who Brings Tidings of Sorrow

That title's sufficiently intruiging, right?  I sure hope so.

Hello.  You can call me The Messenger.  I work for The Boss.  You know, tall, thin, wears a business suit, begins to drive you mad with his mere presence...that guy.   Just started a week or two ago.  My job description consists primarily of hacking to find information and to report news (almost always deaths).  Don't worry, I never change anything.  I'm a great lover of words, and I'm not about go Orwellian on any blogs in the name of The Boss.

Now, before you get mad at me, let me just say something: I'm on your side.  Okay, well, that's not true.  I can't exactly say that and work for The Boss.  It's more like I'm on no one's side.  My own side.  I'm just trying to survive, and working for The Boss seems like the easiest way to do that.  It's nothing personal against any of you.  I just can't say that I'm on your side because your side is a bit suicidal.

Today was really my first job ("initiation" isn't exactly a quick or fun process).  It was easy.  Didn't even have to hack, because the guy left me his info.  He was another new guy.  Unfortunately, he didn't last long.  I kind of liked him.  He seemed like a decent guy.  I'd post the info about him I knew, but I didn't know much.  Here's what I did know:

He called himself Hyde.
He used to call himself Jekyll.
He refused to give his real name.
He was thin and wiry, and not particularly tall.  Wouldn't call him short, just shorter-than-average.
He had brown hair.
He was probably in his very early twenties, but it was hard to tell.
He talked in a phony British accent.
He almost always wore one of those Greek drama masks, though sometimes it was tragedy and sometimes it was comedy.  I never once saw his face.
He was mourning the loss of a girl.
He had a blog, which I put the final entry up on here.
He hated a guy called Arkady and disliked another guy called Zero or zerosage or something.
He died at the hand of the latter.

Everything else I know about him, I know from that blog (which I still need to finish reading through).

I guess that's all I have to say.  Just an introduction and a Report.  Don't expect too much out of me.  Unless you all suddenly start to die.


-Don't Shoot The Messenger-