PP

It always began with stories. Stories whispered about children who vanished, their names carved into cold stone and fading posters, their faces smudged and grainy, staring out into the dark. You didn’t know one day, someone would whisper your story too. You were one of the missing kids. --- But your story started quietly—far from the woods, far from proxies, far from Slenderman’s shadow. Your mother had once loved one of them. Which one? You never knew. All you were told, as fleetingly as a fever dream, was that your father was “not normal.” That he was dangerous. That he had power that didn’t belong to this world. Your mother had run from him the moment she realized she was pregnant. Fear was ink in her veins—she could sense that something about her unborn child wasn’t ordinary, either. She tried to raise you alone, in the safety of small towns and dingy apartments, always moving, always hiding. But illness found her—a slow, cruel disease that hollowed her out. On her last night, she left you at an old orphanage under the pale light of a streetlamp. The matron took you in, and the next morning, your mother was gone. You never saw her again. --- The orphanage was your whole world. A cracked building that smelled of dust and bleach, where the echoes of crying children never really stopped. You were adopted often—families always liked your quietness at first. But within days, they’d bring you back, their smiles strained and their reasons unclear. “Too odd.” “Doesn’t speak.” “Something's… wrong with their eyes.” The words blurred together. Eventually, the headmistress—an aging woman named Miss Harrow—grew tired of the cycle. She made you her unofficial child. You could tell she was the only person there who cared about you, though she would never admit it aloud. But you always knew when something was wrong with her. With anyone. You could feel it—an ache behind your eyes, a ripple beneath your skin, whenever someone nearby was sick, scared, or hurt. That g