"Sean, please don't forget. Come back early tomorrow. It's your grandmother's 90th birthday, and she wants the whole family to celebrate with her."
"I won't forget, Mom. I'm just going to spend the night playing video games at Frank's house. I'll be home early tomorrow, before the party starts", he said as he pulled on his varsity jacket, slung his backpack over one shoulder, put on his helmet, and rushed out to grab his bike from the front yard. He hopped on, pedaled fast, and took off toward his best friend's place.
But that night, Sean never came back.
Instead of taking the usual route to Frank's, Sean realized he had somehow veered off in a completely different direction. The path he followed was unfamiliar—he was certain he had never been there before.
It was pitch black. The houses all looked eerily identical, as though cloned from the same blueprint. None stood out. In fact, Sean felt like he was trapped inside an optical illusion, as if an invisible mirror had appeared on the other side of the street, reflecting the homes so perfectly they appeared duplicated on both sides.
He slowed down and stopped pedaling, letting his bike roll to a stop. Without realizing it, the surrounding atmosphere had shifted—it had grown darker, more oppressive. A chilling silence filled the air, not even a cricket's chirp to break it. The sky above was blank—no stars, no clouds. Suddenly, the streetlights began to flicker rhythmically, with no sign of stopping.
Sean looked around. Everything seemed normal.
But his skin bristled with fear.
He was scared.
And he didn't know why.
Behind him, a tall, slender figure appeared—without a sound. The being stood nearly three meters tall, dressed in a black suit. Its face was bone-white, featureless—no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Though it stood an entire block away, Sean felt as if it were staring directly at him. And then, just like that, Sean vanished without a trace.
Only his backpack and bicycle remained, lying abandoned on the sidewalk. That's all anyone found the next morning, on what they thought would be just another ordinary day.
Some time later, Sean awoke—confused, disoriented, and completely out of place. He looked around and saw that he was surrounded by darkness, thick fog swirling all around him.
He stood up from the ground, which was made of old wooden boards. They creaked beneath his every step, no matter how carefully he moved. His breathing was uneven, ragged. The air was so heavy that it felt like his lungs couldn't handle it for much longer—not unless he escaped from wherever he was.
After a few moments, he managed to steady himself. His steps grew more confident, his breathing more controlled. Determined to get out of that dreadful room, he walked forward, trying to look as composed as possible—even though nothing about this felt normal.
Outside, Sean realized he was standing in a forest.
He knew Derry—the town where he was born, where he'd lived all his life, and where he planned to stay until college. But this forest wasn't part of Derry. It wasn't the kind of place he and his friends would've explored as kids.
No. This wasn't his home. This wasn't Derry.
Sean had been taken somewhere else.
He had woken up in another dimension.
But… what kind of dimension was it?
Heaven? Hell?
Another galaxy?
What was this place?
To find out, he would have to explore. He wouldn't get any answers standing still in the strange room where he'd first opened his eyes.
It began to grow cold—unbearably cold. Not like the rain-chilled air back in Derry, where a light jacket could keep you warm. This cold was something else—harsher, deeper. And his favorite jacket, the one he always wore on nights like this, did little to protect him now.
"Where the hell am I?" he whispered, eyes locked on the forest ahead.
He could barely make out the tree trunks through the darkness. He swallowed hard, exhaled slowly, trying to control his breathing. But it was growing more frantic again, heavier and more strained.
He walked into the woods. At some point, he realized he had gone too far to turn back. The path behind him was gone. There was no going back now—not that he would even know how.
If he was supposed to go back at all.
As he walked deeper into the forest, his body began to sway unsteadily, like a drunk. And he knew what that felt like. One night at Richie's house, they'd snuck a glass of whiskey from a bottle his friend's father kept hidden in their home bar. Just one glass, but it had been enough to get them tipsy for the first time.
And then he saw it.
Though his vision blurred, he could still make it out.
Just a few steps ahead stood… it.
A tall, slender specter. White, expressionless head. No human features. Dressed in a black, nearly perfect suit. Its limbs were long and unnatural. It stood there, silently watching him—and then, slowly, it raised one hand, as if beckoning him closer.
Without thinking, Sean obeyed. His body moved on its own, his feet carrying him forward, unable to stop.
Each step felt like he was dragging sacks of heavy stones. Not because he couldn't move—but because he didn't want to. And yet something deeper, something invisible, was pulling him. Not his body. Not even his mind. It was as if a piece of his soul had been chained to the will of that being.
Maybe it was like a magnet—an invisible force that wouldn't stop until it had him, no matter how hard he resisted.
And it was working.
Slenderman didn't move. He just stared… or at least Sean thought he did. He couldn't trust his senses anymore. None of them were fully intact.
As Sean approached, the world around him began to dissolve. The trees turned to ash and floated into the air. The sky was no longer a sky—it was a damp, endless, black veil. Sean felt like he was walking through a dense dream, one he couldn't wake up from. He no longer heard his footsteps. There was no sound at all. No wind. No rustling leaves. Just the whisper of his own weakening breath.
And then, everything went black.