Hisao Plays Slender

[Roamin12]

I was writing the next chapter for The Foreigner earlier, and this idea randomly popped up, I couldn't get it out of my head so here you go.

Hisao plays Slender
The room is almost pitch black, the only thing illuminating the space is a digital clock reading 01:12 A.M. and casting a faint, orange light from its readout, but after a few moments, a monitor begins to lighten up the room a little more, revealing the my face, with me sitting in a chair in front of a desk that bears the laptop my paranoid hallmate, Kenji, gave me for my birthday, although how he knew when that was without me telling him is somewhat frightening. How the hell he ever managed to gather up the funds to pay for an Alien Ware laptop imported from the United States is beyond me, and to be completely honest, I don’t want to know. And it is also his fault I’m playing this damn game to begin with; he wouldn't leave me alone all day until I finally agreed to play this in the dark, with a headset on (which he somehow managed to pay for as well), alone, and he wouldn't even tell me what the game was about or the goal of it, just that it was “the perfect anti-feminist propaganda,” when I asked why, he said “it will make a man out of the pitiful of men,” when I told him that sounded completely redundant, he shrugged and said “redundancy is merely brilliance in disguise,” I just dropped it at that point.
Apparently he wanted me to play this game so bad, he came to my room at midnight, picking the lock with a “Yu-Gi-Oh!” card, which led to him complaining about his “Red-Eyes dragon” getting bent, whatever that is, and forcing me to install and boot up the game called “Slender”. Only after all that was done did he leave my room. And now here I am, silently, and tiredly, watching the word “Slender” appear on my screen.

I have only played one or two of the games Kenji also bought to go along with the laptop, so it took me a moment to acclimate myself with the controls.

Once I get that done, I take in the land the monitor displays. For all intents and purposes, the landscape is unimpressive. It is a dark forest with little detail and drab colours. As soon as I start moving however, I hear the spot-on crunch of leaves being crushed by the footsteps of my character, I feel hairs on the back of my neck beginning to rise. Understanding then dawns on me after realizing the landscape is drab, silent, and bland on purpose, this is a horror game! Goddammit Kenji! He knows I have a heart condition and a single scare could bring an abrupt end to my life. Despite my better judgment, I continue on with the game, a big mistake.

I wander around the dark forest for about a minute, occasionally sprinting and turning off my flashlight when I can see just fine. I’m not sure why I am conservative with both functions; my instincts tell me to, so I do it, whether or not that will change anything is yet to be seen. I eventually come across what appears to be an empty bathroom, and I enter it with a few moments of hesitation. It is without out a doubt, the most terribly designed bathroom of all time.
I got lost in there at least twice, and I didn’t see a single toilet in there, not even a urinal, although I did get a flashback of the time when Kenji barged into the bathroom naked without warning, that was without a doubt far more frightening than anything this game could ever throw at me.

I do come across one room in that damned bathroom that causes something to happen, I find a piece of paper attached to the wall of one of the rooms of the bath room, depicting a picture of what appears to be a man made of spaghetti, with the words, “can’t run” hastily scrabbled on it. The image creeps me out a little bit and I press the button shown on the screen to collect it, words saying “Pages 1/8” appears on the screen. I turn around and find the hastily find the exit to the bathroom, that is when the beating started.

I can’t exactly place what produced the sound, but it sounded like a deep drum was beating at regular intervals. The sound did nothing to alleviate my nerves and only served to raise them.

I sprint out of the bathroom or whatever that place was, and back into the forest. I hear my characters heavy breathing for the first time, and it sounds extremely feminine, I guess that means Kenji’s “anti-feminist propaganda” or whatever he called it is based on a female protagonist, man is he going to flip his shit when I tell him that.

I also notice that the sky has darkened some, before it appeared that the sun had set beyond the horizon, but not enough so that it was pitch black, but now it was well on its way to getting to that point.

I head back into the woods, the atmosphere of the game completely chilling and engrossing, without me ever seeing anything really scary. After a few more moments, I see a tunnel of some sorts in the distance, maybe a pipe. I head toward it, not bothering to sprint as something tells me it would be a waste to use it at this juncture. I enter one side of it, and…it’s empty. I had come around the corner expecting some kind of scare or another, but nothing. I enter it fully, and see a piece of paper taped to the wall. Just like that last one, it looks as though it has a man composed of a stringy substance, once again instantly reminding me of spaghetti, maybe ramen noodles. This time the note has “Help Me” written on it. I am yet to encounter anything in these woods, and yet I already fear whatever being is depicted on these pieces of paper. I collect it the piece of paper and once again the read out says how many I have collected. The music and beating both rise in intensity a little bit, but it is enough to set my teeth on edge. I eagerly exit the tunnel.

While all the ambient noise is starting to set me on edge, I am yet to encounter anything to set my already off heart beat out of control, but given the fact that nothing has happened yet and I am ready to piss myself at the slightest provocation, I should probably have quit and exited the game then and there, but me being the idiot I am, I allowed myself to get so engrossed in the game that the thought of quitting in the middle of the experience never even occurred to me.

I walk around for a minute or two, constantly looking over my shoulder, both in game and in real life, looking for something, waiting for something to happen, and then I see what appears to be a farm silo. It is rusted all to hell but it is still recognizable, and just like every other anomaly I have seen in the game, there is a note attached to it. I read it just like the other, and just like them it has the man and a message on it, this time is say “help” repeatedly. Now I feel my pulse speed up a little, wondering what was going to happen when I take this one. I pick it up, nothing. Nothing noteworthy happens.

I turn around and head back into the woods, in what I hope is the opposite direction I came out of.

I wander through the woods for a few minutes, looking for anything that may be considered different from all the trees in the forest. After a little while, I look over my shoulder, and what I see almost makes me shit myself. It’s the spaghetti/ramen monster, he just sits there, staring at me, his body completely black but somehow I see it clearly despite the dark surrounding him, and the face is unrecognizable, I can’t make it out, but there is something about it that chills me to the bone.

Without hesitation, I turn around and run, not caring if my sprint runs out. After about twenty seconds of running, I finally turn around, expecting the worst, nothing. He’s not there anymore. I pause the game for a moment, and let my heart rate settle, it had spiked up without remorse when I saw spaghetti man or whatever the hell his name is.

I look around and I notice for the first time that not only is the forest getting darker and darker, but that my flash light is getting dimmer and dimmer, that is another thing to worry about, not only is there a spaghetti monster chasing me, my flashlight is dying and the sun’s last vestiges of light are fast fading, and then I’ll be stuck in the forest with spaghetti man and without any light. I also notice a blue truck and quickly make my way towards it.

I look back and there he is! That bastard is still following me. I sprint towards the truck, quickly looking around it and seeing nothing in it. There’s no note here! I look up from the side of the truck I was on, and I see spaghetti man’s face through the staring at me through the window. I literally shout at this point, the shout is filled with surprise and terror, for now I have a good look at his face, it is muddled, making its features hard to discern, but a face is clearly there, with eyes and a nose, but not enough to say any details about it. The screen begins to fill with static, and all the ambient noise disappears as well as the static fill my headset. I turn and run, my dysfunctional heart trying to break out of my chest with terror. I run as long as possible and after once my character stops sprinting I can’t get her to start again, so now I can’t even run, and the flashlight is now dimmer than ever. This time I don’t pause the game or quit, once again a huge mistake.

I see some fuel barrels or something like that head there wearily, not wanting to encounter the man again. I enter the group of scatter fuel barrels, keeping an eye out for a note and the spaghetti man. It only takes me about 10 seconds to find the note, and I pick it up, not bothering to read it, wanting to get moving as soon as possible. As soon as I pick it up and the words “Pages 4/8” appears on the screen, a loud piano screech plays over the beating and the music, causing me to jump in my seat, making my heart rebel against my chest once again. I turn around quickly, wanting to forget that happened, and the spaghetti man is sitting there watching me.

That was the last straw for my heart, after that, it failed. As the static fills the screen, I topple back in my chair; falling on the floor and seeing the little light that remained in my room fade to black, a feeling of panic enveloping me.

After what feels like an eternity, I feel consciousness begin the return to me; it is not immediate, but slow and tedious, with a feeling of pain still gripping my chest. I slowly open my eyes, and I couldn't have chosen a worse thing to wake up to, the reason I ever went through that in the first place, Kenji. He is sitting there in my chair, the one that fell backwards when I had a heart attack, reading a magazine of some sort, and from the cover, it looks like one of those “Guns and ammunition” magazines you see in stores.

He looks at me and the look on his face borders between a smirk, and a frown, if that is possible. “One little scare and you’re done, Hisao? Man, you’re screwed whenever you have to confront the feminists.” His smirk/frown disappears and is replaced by a disapproving frown, “You really should work on that.”

I feel anger begin to well up, but I give up on that emotion, I’m too tired for anger, and getting angry after a heart attack is not a good idea. Instead I reply with: “It’s not my fault I have a heart condition, if you can fix that then sure, I’ll work on it.” I say sarcastically.

He nods, as if considering it, “Maybe I can work with the other members of the Swollen Eyeball on that, I think there’s a bio-engineer in the group,” he says thoughtfully, stroking an imaginary beard.
“Swollen what?”

“Maybe I shouldn't have said that in front of you, forget I said it,” he says the last part hypnotically.

I shake my head, wishing I could, “Sure thing.” A few moments later, “You know the character you play as in that game is a girl, so much for your ‘Anti-feminist propaganda.’”

“I know, and it’s okay, she’s a bro,” he replies without missing a beat.

“A what?”

“A bro, you know, a chick who is one of those damned feminists.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Yeah you do.”

I don’t respond.

“Oh, one more thing…” I start.

Kenji frowns “What is it?”

“Fuck you”
*****************************
I'm not good with horror so I skipped out on trying to make it scary and focused on Hisao shitting bricks.

[Eprlide]

I've played Slender, and this is quite the accurate portrayal of someone with their first horror game and of Slender itself. Me, on the other hand, had already experienced Amnesia, Doom 3, F.E.A.R 1 & 2. and Silent Hill so I was ready for Slender when I got my hands on it.

Nevertheless, this was a good read.