//------------------------------//
// Don't look or it takes you 
// Story: The legend of Slendermane, the tragic guardian of The Everfree 
// by MidnightFMare 
//------------------------------//

	"HEY! Are you okay (KKKKKZZZZSSHSHSH!!!!!!!!!)?" Bio asks, waving the drawing over my face 
"Uugh... Ahm okay just... sleepy. Ah need to get home" I say, trotting away
"Oh, okay, see you tomorrow?" he asks, looking at the sky
"Sure, bye"
I trot down the path when something rustles behind me. I turn to look and see nothing but a few bushes "Come on, Ah mus' be losin' mah mind-Oof!" I look up and I swear I feel my blood freeze
"AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" I yell, running away from the slender, not looking back
When my house comes into view, I speed up 
And crash right into it "Oh Celestia Ahm doomed"
It extends a tendril to my forehead "You KnoW wHAt I Am..." its voice comes from inside my head
I gather my wits and stare at its eyeless face "Yer th' thing that's been killin' folks all over. An' Ah know that yall've been followin' me since mistah plate died"
"It is My dUTY to KILL ThOSe that SEE me... incLUdinG YOU" it shivers and melts away as a light comes towards us "I will get you..." its voice fades from my head
"Are you okay?!" A voice calls but I feel myself lose consciousness

"Wh-where am ah?" 
"Your room, how are you feeling (KKKKKZZZZSSHSHSH!!!!!!!!!)?" Bio must have been the one who found- "The Slender! I saw it! it talked to me it-" my head spins and I lay back down
"You... saw it?!" Bio jumps and stares at me, worry in his dark blue eyes
"Yeah, and it spoke to me 'You know what I am', 'it is my duty to those that see me... including you', 'I will get you'" he shivers and pulls out his notebook "Anything else you remember before blacking out?"
"He looked like how they described 'im, tall, thin, nothing on his face, a tie and jacket... Wait! He had the feelers of darkness or sumthin' growing from his back! And when they touched me he spoke to me inside my head" he writes faster than I can see, his forehead creasing in worry "Anything else?"
"The voice was weird" I reply
"Weird how?"
"Like somepony chopped it to pieces and put it back together again all wrong... kinda..."
"Disjointed?"
"Yeah! And I slammed into him but he barely moved and I was running" I say, rubbing my head
"..." Bio's eyes lose focus as he rubs his own head "Y'all all right?"
He shakes his head slowly "I... I don't know how to stop this... is there anything else, anything you've seen?"
My never-serious, always calm and planning friend Bio Lateral...
Is scared
"I thought that he was following me yesterday but always out of the corner of my eye and near the forest" I shiver "D-do we tell the guards?"
"No... even if we did we would be dismissed or questioned. And if we say I was using recording spells and soliciting information from officers like I've been doing would get us in trouble... we're on our own here" he sighs "Mala suerte...
"'My la shirt'? What's that mean?" 
"It's sponish for 'What luck' as in; 'What luck, we're on our own against something no one has encountered before'" I raise a hoof "'And lived'" he adds
He pulls out a map of Ponyville and the Everfree forest "Okay, Point to where you saw it, in order"
"Okay, first was when you were sunnin' yerself... right around here. And out of the corner of my eye when ah left. Ah ran into him around here... and where you found me last night" He marks each spot with a circle and a time and connects them, muttering to himself
"Bio?" he groans "Urrnnghh... we still don't have enough! I need some kind of idea of where it might be safe... here and in town aren't options, the guards are a no-go and the surrounding towns are out of the question... if only we could get to Canterlot or Trottingham, but there aren't any merchants going those ways" He lays on his back "I have no solutions..."
"Hey, why not the cave? That's safe!" the cave was an old, unused mine going through a hill that we explore
"... I guess that could work... but we barely know how deep it goes"
"Then that thing won't know either!" I say, grabbing the map we've drawn
He smirks "Why not? Come on, we have a trap to set"

"Okay, the path makes a circle ahead so we place these explosives here and here; that should cause the cave to collapse, keeping it inside. We get the guards to follow us, they dig it out and take it away!" Bio concludes
"Seems like it could work... but how do we get it in the cave?" He smirks "Simple, we use you as bait"
"WHAT?!" I yell, my voice echoing around the cavern
"It wants you, I'll cast a retraction spell on you from outside the cave. That will yank you towards me and we enter the cave, lead it into the circle and it activates a tripwire fuse, collapsing the first side, and I'll blast the second set, closing it in"
I nod slowly "Okay... sounds like a plan. Wait, where did you get the explosives?" 	
"From the hardware store" he shrugs and turns towards the exit and his eyes widen "...Run!!!" I look up and standing at the entrance is The Slender "Oh buck!" I gallop after him, The Slender moving above the ground like a levitated pony
"Duck!" Bio half-whispers, the explosives coming into view. I lower my head and pass under it , The Slender hot on my tail; with a near silent snap, the wire activates and a loud boom fires me forward, deafening me
Bio holds out a hoof to me, his voice lost in the ringing in my ears, I take it and he yanks me forward, his horn half-levitating me and half-priming a blast. We reach the explosives and a black tentacle hits him in the side of the face, knocking him forward and dispersing his magic
He drops me from his grip, my legs shaking in strain. I try to move but a black tentacle wraps around my neck, making my blood go cold. He raises his head and readies another blast, a black tentacle whipping him again
"Stop it! You'll kill him!" I yell and The Slender speaks to me "THaT Is THe PoiNT"
"Fine... Split" Bio starts glowing and stretches. the light dies and standing where he was are two identical unicorns "Hello Slender!" they say in unison, blasting the tentacle to bits
"What just-" The left one glares at me "GO! We'll hold it off! Go get help!"
I scramble to my hooves and run towards the guard station
"Help... mine... Slender... fight... cave-in...help..." I pant, my legs collapsing under me
One of them exits and lifts me into sitting "Calm down, what's going on?"
I inhale "Mah friend is fighting the slender in a cave in a hill... ah need your help" The guard immediately casts a spell "All guards, follow me, we have The Slender!" he looks down at me "Lead the way"

We enter the cave, and standing covered with bruises and scratches are the twins, their horns charged with deep blue magic "LAPIS NOOSE!" they yell, running around The Slender, roping it's legs together. A guard pushes one of them out of the way "We can handle this" the pushed twin jerks like he lost concentration "No! We need-" the rope dissolves, The Slender launching a tentacle straight at the guard
The guard yells and falls to the ground with a thud, moaning in pain. The Slender steps over him and looks at me "I wiLL GeT yoU..." it says, a rip appearing where its mouth would be
"No you won't!" The twins say, one levitating the fallen guard and preparing a blast and the other dashing towards it; bracing for a tackle. It connects, launching The Slender back into the circle, at that moment, his twin fires a bolt of magic at the explosives, causing an avalanche on it, screams echoing through the cave
All from one source
"If i DIe... HE wiLL TaKE mY PlaCE..." a roar of defeat blows us back as stones fall on it
"RUN!" the twins yell, the cave crumbling around us, but what it said echoes in my head