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The Rake Hunters: Part Two

Three week later, I started to feel a little better, my sense of life returning, in part because of Elly, God bless her, supporting me, she was a Water Elemental, and she had total control of water, ice, steam, and so on. She moved fluidly, almost like she flowed across where she stepped, and Dawn would always make fun of me and her together.

“My GOD! YOU’RE EATING HER FACE!” She screamed once when she saw me kiss her on the cheek. I silently glared at Dawn for that, and then I laughed. That was a week ago, and it was the first time I had laughed in a while. It felt good, it felt good that I could laugh again, and that some part of me was coming back, the part I was most known for, my sense of humor.

Kiba played a great role in it as well, with her pranks and the like she would pull on me. Once, she put on a Troll Face mask, and stood about a foot from my face, screamed, and I, in response, punched her in the gut and ran out of my room, before walking back in and saying sorry. I got back at her though, and let’s just say she looks better with eyebrows then without. She tends to avoid me at barbeques now. 

I still felt a bit bad about Dark, and I decided to E-mail him afterwards, after I felt like living again. Shit. I could not remember my Email password, well screw that idea.

I heard a soft, soothing, female voice behind me, and I looked, a half-glare, half-smirk, at the Water Elemental now in my room.

“Elly…why didn’t you warn me?” She smiled softly and simply said

“Meh, didn’t feel like it.” I smiled, she would always cheer me up, even if she tried not to, she could. I guessed Dawn heard Elly, maybe she was walking right past the room, because I heard her yell.

“NO SHENANIGANS YOU TWO!” I couldn’t help but laugh. Oh, Dawn…well, she never clearly defined shenanigans. We all just assumed she meant nothing sexual, don’t break anything and so on. But I didn’t care. None of us did. I picked up the nearest object I could find, and I threw it, a plush teddy bear, and I hit Elly on the head, she smirked, and threw a pillow at me from the bed she was sitting on. I laughed and I walked towards her, the pillow in hand, smacking her across the head with it lightly. She giggled at me and poked me on the gut, making me step back a bit. I  HATED it when people did that to me, I honestly did. Then Dawn poked her head in through the door, she had obviously heard the play fight.

“I SAID…NO… SHENANIGANS!!!” She screamed at us, Elly laughed loudly at Dawn, laying on the bed as she laughed. I just sighed and put my face in my hand, a facepalm towards Dawn. I walked over, sat on the bed near Elly and kissed her hand quickly before leaving to face the wrath of Dawn. Hell hath no fury like an angry Dawn. I didn’t care, I had been to hell once (long, LONG story, let’s just leave it at that), and I think I could take whatever Dawn threw at me. I took RakeBane for safety, and because it looked badass, I ran my finger over the blade, the ever sharp bone claw of the Rake, I looked sadly at it, some of the guilt coming back at me before I silenced the screams.

MURDERERMONSTERMURDERERKILLOFCHILDRENWEILDEROFCORPSESWEHATEYOU!

I silenced them again, they would not haunt me any longer, I needed to move on, let it go, Jared, we have moved on. No more Rake Hunts and no more being an Elemental. I sighed and looked at Dawn, she just chuckled.

“Hell hath no fury like an angry Dawn, Jar Jar, but I am not angry.” Then I mentioned her screaming at me, and she simply said “that was more towards Ellymental.” I sighed, her nickname for Elly had grown tiresome and rather annoying. I just looked at Dawn, chuckled myself and walked away, to the phone. I picked it up and I called Dark.

“Yo Darklek, how ya doin’?” There was silence.

“…Jared…” He sounded solemn and very, very sad.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“You know what happened…after you left me in the woods?” I simply said “no, I don’t”

His voice got much sillier, taking on it’s normal tone of a silly, mostly happy person.

“I GOT GANGRAPED BY AN ENTIRE DEN OF RAKES! AN. ENTIRE. DEN! ALMOST SEVENTY FIVE RAKES PLUS THE THREE YOU KILLED!”I laughed heartily, imagining Dark running with almost seventy five Rakes after him.

“Pffffffffffft HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAHHAAHHAHAHA” We both laughed and I was talking and laughing “Oh-g-god, I can just, hahah, imagine you being chased…pffft haha, by like, seventy five ra-rakes!” We both laughed and when the laughing was done I felt the weight of a brick wall on my shoulders, each brick make of the soul of a dead Rake. I hung up after telling him bye and I just sighed, half content and half guilty. I stood up and I walked around the house, looking for everyone. Dawn was in the kitchen, working on the latest batch of cupcakes, and Kiba was out in the yard, just staring at the flowers, I went outside and crept up behind her, and then I yelled something I had not said in a long, long time.

“GLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMPPPP!!!!!” I tackled Kiba, jumping on her, and hugging her as she fell over into the grass, yelling at me

“JARED! GET OFF ME!” She started punching me, and I got off of her, smiling, I could tell some part of her knew what it was about, but she didn’t reveal that she knew. She sounded…well, as I have described her before…very British. “What the ‘ell was that for!?”I smiled and looked her in the eyes.

“The glomp you gave me yesterday.” She sighed, and shook her head, I walked away, she tackled me as I walked, pinning me to the ground, despite my being several inches taller than her, I was…admittedly, weaker than her. I decided to play one of my really old cards, the one that pissed her off no matter what.

The British Accent Card.

“Allo, allo, guv’na! ‘Ow are ya? Now, can ya try explain’ to me wot the ‘ell this is all about?” She slapped me, got off of me and walked in the house. I guess that would be counted as a shenanigan. I walked back in the house, and Kiba was silently glaring at me. I had offended the Gov’na I guess. I walked back to my room, Elly still on my bed, smiling as I walked into the room. Water soon washed the mud off of me as she manipulated the water to clean me.

God, sometimes I was envious of Elly’s abilities. While I could control water as well, not to the degree or with the grace she could. I sighed, sitting on the bed. Elly patted my back gently.

“Jared, if it’s those Rake Hunts making you feel bad again, don’t depress yourself again, the past is the past, you know that.” I looked at her, sighing again, it was not that, but she had brought them up, and that just…broke me…I felt the tears flooding in my eyes again and the anger and guilt and the self-hate rush through my being once more.

Every Rake I had killed, every Pack I had split apart, every family I had crushed and every mate I had left dead in my wake, their screams and their hate and their desire to see me a bloody corpse came and rushed back at me in seconds, my face turned red and hot, the tears flowed from my eyes and Elly took it as her cue to leave. I felt a mist, a spray of ocean water, and a salty smell fill the air as she vanished into vapor and left. I fell back on to the bed, the tears still flowing.

Why did God chose me for this? Why didn’t he just let me die and go to heaven, not get reincarnated as a being born and bred to kill the innocent beings that simply wanted what every human, every animal, every being on this earth wanted?

What was my purpose? What was it? Why was I here? Why was I left to wallow in self-hate and pity as nothing more than a pathetic shell of what I used to be walked and talked with my friends as if he was their friend, as the shell of me acted like me, the shell of me kept who I was shunned and hidden away?

I looked at my sword I held in my hand still, RakeBane. I put it to my neck, and I considered it…one swipe…is all it would take…to end me…end what monster I had become and make it pay for everything it had done to me. I pressed the blade closer, the bone of the Rake Claw pressing against my skin and I felt my hand slowly slide it across my neck.

Even though the valley of death is so close

And peace is well within my grasp

I know it is not yet my time

I must gather all my strength, and all my will

And gather myself for the one final fight

And give meaning to my shallow and unfinished life.

I looked at that poem, the entire thing, word for word as a poster on my wall. I felt the pressure of the blade relax and I dropped it. The blade clanged on the floor, the ringing noise barely audible to my ears. The blood had rushed to my head, my face felt hotter and the tears streamed still.

I was too weak and I let the monster win. I cried, and I let the screams in.

MONSTER! MURDERER! KILLER OF THE INNOCENT! RUINER OF PACKS DESTROYER OF MATES! YOU SIN TO EXISTENCE! RID THE UNIVERSE OF YOUR FILTH AND JUST DIE!!

“I WANT DO DIE! I JUST WANT TO SLIT MY THROAT AND DIE!”

THEN DO IT YOU MURDERING FILTH! KILLER! ENDER OF CHILDREN AND KILLER OF MATES!

I screamed at the nothingness. I wanted to die, the guilt overwhelmed me and could barely take it! I wanted the void to take me and for the torment to end.

“JARED! WHAT IN FATHER’S NAME ARE YOU DOING!?” I heard a shriek come from the other side of my room, and I looked blindly, not knowing nor caring about who stood there. The tears were clouding my vision to the point where I could not see either way. I heard a male voice though. Daemon…it was Daemon…I could tell, he said Father instead of God…he was an angelic being, a Fallen Angel, but an Angel nonetheless.

I just stared at him, the tears slowing down a bit but never stopping. He helped me up and into bed, and left the room. He had turned from crap yourself if you see himish to a kind and caring person, you felt safe around him when he was like that…unless you were me, then you just felt a little scared of him, at any time. I had a broken arm once because we got into a play-fight, to show off our powers. I lost. Heh…

I was remembering the good times we had, me, daemon, fob, Dawn and Kiba, all together, the good, the bad, the everything we shared…that was what stopped me, I thought. But the waves of guilt still eroded at my sanity.

And that, no matter how good my life was…that would never cease.

MONSTER. MURDERER. KILLER. WE. HATE. YOU. WE. DESPISE. YOU. YOU’RE FILTH. YOU ARE A STAIN. A TAINT.

The screams would never leave, they would never leave. Nothing could silence them. It was a matter of waiting no longer, it was a battle or sanity I was slowly losing. I lay there in bed, drenched in my own sweat and tears, my face still burning and my mind a wreck as I tried to find something good I could hold on to. Some memory of mine…most of the ones I had were bad or my friends life nearly ended for them. I could find almost nothing good to hold on to. Meeting Elly? I found that and held on to that…but it provided no ground for me to brace against the guilt…the crashing, crushing, black waves of guilt that surrounded me every passing second…the storm of guilt that would never stop, only calm for a day or so before coming back with a fury.

I looked back, much further back than I ever did before. I was running, running through the woods after a killer, a Rake, with Dark, the shotgun that would become Ol’ Reliable in my right hand, the trigger being pulled slightly by my index finger, Dark running opposite to me, rifle in his hand, and we both aimed at the Rake, firing shell after shell, bullet after bullet, into its hide. Dark was screaming in pain that I had shot him. I walked up to the bloody, mangled, corpse of the Rake, and I detached one of its claws, finding out it really was bone, not iron. And then I tore another one off…those two claws became RakeBane and Justice. Ironic name for the second one, Justice…what Justice was done by those hunts? What was gained?

Quick pleasure, followed by a need for more hunting, to staunch the growing hunger I had for violence and bloodshed. I curled up in my bed, trying to rest, but the waves kept crashing.

I had no rest that night. Maybe if I waited, it would leave. If I cut all contact with Dark away, maybe the guilt would ease slowly and I could return to my “normal” life.



It was all a matter of waiting now.

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