Epitaph

Today, the 22nd of February, The Rapture should have occurred. Ragnarok. It didn't, all because of the sacrifice of one man. He had arrived to the clearing in the forest, or The Stand as they call it, equipped with weaponry he chose, and he chose well. They waited for him before noon, and before noon he came. Seven of Servants and their Master, clad in armor, looking down on the child that stood beneath him. The most foolish of the servants went down first.

Antioch swung his sword, only to die of it, even his fellow servants smiled at his death.

The old man came next. He stormed at the young man, only to bounce right back. He couldn't hurt him, and soon he was vanquished too. The watchers were becoming tense, even though they did not like the man.

Then came The Lady, cold and confident. She gave the child a struggle, since he had issues hurting a lady, yet she was cast down as well.

Timothy, forever quiet, raged at the loss of his loved one, but his demise layed in his anger.

Gerald came next, heartless, muscular, and dangerous. He took the young one's ear, finger, and broke his leg, however, he was still unworthy.

At the sight of death, an unlikely one fled: Death ran from death.

At the end came the most faithful one, and the youngest as well. The Traitor, that was his name. Even though he had changed much, it gave him pain to see that he must take down his old friend. He fought reluctantly, yet fiercely. But, in the midst of battle, his Master lifted his many arms, and ordered him back. The Traitor smiled at the young one, but it was a false smile, and he knew what came next.

It was time for the end-game. The Master let the lesser ones play their game. It was time for the real battle. He did not care much for the Slaves, they were expendable.

The Master saw that the child's arsenal couldn't do him no harm: a piece of earthly steel and a firestick, all toys in his eyes. What he didn't see, was the water. The child hurled water at The Master, to the other one's horror. A scream was heard, and the child's ears bled with juice of death. There was more water to be thrown, as The Master flailed about. He had to change, yet He couldn't. He used a brief window of clarity to change, and now the water did him no harm. Now he was the raging fire no water could stop. But the child was smart. He had brought another weapon The Master didn't notice, and it was pure luck that He turned to the shape he did: the child shot the cold powder at The Master, and it was too much for Him. He was gone, and the child thought he had won. As he went back through the woods victoriously, he felt cold. He was back to torment him once more, for the final time. The Master took him, ripped him apart, scattered his limbs, detached his head, and burned it all in his rage. As the False Hero burned, all his pride burned with him. He succeeded, yet he failed. The whole forest was destroyed, yet He felt content. The Rapture would have to wait, but what is  time to Him? Now, he must recruit new forces. He was alone, and when he is alone, he is infinite, he is everywhere, and everywhen. He enjoyed it.

And where was Robert? Casually sipping tea in London, on the February 22nd, 1878, thinking about dead Heroes and broken weapons.

And you, dear readers, should stay for more. For even though this is the epitaph, it doesn't mean it is the end.

-J (not the real one!)

Decision

I decided. I will fight him. I don't even care if it's a trap. At this point it's the same. He's going to hunt me down until I die, better to die saving the world than in your bed. I'm bringing all sorts of weapons: I have a knife, a gun, baseball bat and fire extinguisher. I'll also bring water along, since some say he hates water. I'll face him in the clearing in the woods. Not a good place, I don't like it, but I'll do it. If all goes well, I'll get back to you, but it probably won't. Thank you for staying with me, and farewell.

-J

Coming of a Rapture

Wow. You know what happened? Well, here's the story. So I decided to go to the woods, even though it looked like an obvious trap. So, I walk up to this big, burned clearing, and see someone waiting. I approach warily, but the figure greets me warmly and shakes my hand firmly. It was Robert. He told me that an event he explained as 'The Rapture' will occur on the 22nd, and that I must stop it. The only way to stop 'The Rapture' would be to distract The Master until the 23rd, local time, comes. Then he started babbling about weapons, how I'm not the one, whatever. He said I must have time to brace myself. And then he looked at me, told me to sit down (I didn't, unfortunately for me) and did something with his hands, and swoosh, I fell down, hurting my head. I stood up, noting I was in the place I stay at. But here's one thing: when I departed to the woods, it was the 21st, now it's the 19th. I don't know what to make of this, I don't know whether I should trust Robert, and I don't know how accomplish what he told me to. I'll come back to you once I get some sleep and plan this out.

-J

Me again

Hey guys! I hope you haven't been worried, since I promised to get back to you ASAP, but I couldn't, since Internet was down and I've just fixed it. It's cold here too. There isn't too much left here for me to look at. I learned that some people moved away after the house burned down, there have been two reported cases of missing children, after which some more families moved away. Joe's house is abandoned, I went back there and found nothing. I investigated the houses of others who took part in the incident in the woods, most of them are abandoned now too. The only thing I found was in a burned house which belonged to one of the guys who killed himself, a notebook, presumably previously used as a journal. It was heavily burned though, and all I could see were some drawings of The Master along with some scribbled text, it was mostly HE IS CALLING ME repeated all over. I don't think I'll find much more in the town, but an old lady told me about a fire in the woods today, and how the hell would a fire naturally light during such a fucking freezing winter? I'm going to check it out right now, I hope I'll be able to tell you of the outcome since I don't know if Internet will stay active for long.

-J 

Travelling Abroad

I'm moving from The US. I'm going to Canada, to learn more of this story of The Rake. I won't be going to my friends', nor will I even contact them in any way. I don't want to bring death upon anyone. Before I leave, I have one more place to visit. The Hometown. It attracts me so much it's sick. I have dreams, either bad or neutral ones, of the place every night. And every night I wake up covered in sweat knowing I will have to go back there. That's where it all started at, and maybe it will end there too. I don't even care anymore, I have made peace with the fact that He's gonna get me one day, and when he does, I will die. There is no escaping it, and I'm even turning suicidal. When I stay at a high place I can't keep my eyes off the window, thinking to myself, 'How much would the fall hurt? Will it kill me?' and stuff like that. It's better to die answering questions, I guess. If I make it to Canada, I'll never go back here. I'm even thinking of travelling to Europe and trying to settle down there somehow. Maybe all of Them don't exist there? Highly unlikely. I'm leaving my current location tonight. I will post an update as soon as I can. Not much has happened these days, just the fucking cold. I'll get back to you.

-J

Search

Ok, the only lead I have now is Hausa and Mattatu, so I spent the last couple of days doing research on this, and I found some things. What we know as Mattatu, apparently showed up everywhere during the ages. Englishmen called him Grim Reaper, the Poles called him Śmierć, Lithuanians called him Giltine, so on and so forth. I don't know if it really is him, but all of these characters almost match his description completely, with several exceptions. Just why is Mattatu hiding under all those robes and a skull mask? The meaning of his name is 'dead', so is he truly dead? Or is he the angel of death? One couldn't know, but I feel all of these creatures/things/whatevers have deep roots, and that they've been stalking people since the dawn of men. The Master? Schlankwald, Grossman, Fear Dubh... There is even a tale I've heard of a Rake-like creature: when I stayed at a friend's in Canada, they told me a story of a creature of great intelligence and evil: the Hossholor. The Norse, who first discovered North America, settled in a location in Canada they called Vinland. They established a settlement there, and things went rather smooth, until the Hossholor came. It was a small grey man-like clawed creature, who raided the settlement and killed men, raped women, and took children. The Norse tried to fight it off, however, all their attempts angered the creature even further. A hero emerged, a man known simply as Calder, who claimed he could fight the Hossholor and put an end to his hostilities. As the night came, Calder waited for the monster. He failed to show that night. Calder waited there for seven days, until the Hossholor, hungry for flesh, attacked. They fought until dawn, however, Calder saw that he couldn't beat the creature. No matter how deep he cut the Hossholor, the creature continued fighting with even more ferocity. Soon, Calder saw there was no stopping it, so he yelled to his woman, Brenda, to quickly gather the people and escape back to Iceland. He continued fighting the Hossholor until evening, when everyone left. However, what Calder didn't know is that Brenda didn't want to leave him. Just as Calder decided to give up and die, Brenda stormed at the Hossholor with a flaming torch. The Hossholor was set on fire and rushed for water, which Brenda and Calder used to run for the ship, which was backing off. Somehow, they reached the ship and returned safely to Iceland. 

That's it for now. I decided to stay in Florida for the time being, the temperatures elsewhere are not to my liking. I'm going to try and dig up more until the next update.
-J

Mistakes

God dammit. Hey guys, want to know something about my life? EVERYONE DIES. Everyone I ever team up with fucking dies. It's like reading a Song of Ice and Fire book, every good guy dies. Except Joseph. But I guess he died in a sense of the word. Bill is dead. Robert visited. He says Bill went looking for Agents to kill, he found the tall, sullen guy (forgot his name), and guess what happened? Yes, he tried to shoot him, yes, he failed, and yes, the dude fought back. Fucking fuck. Robert wasn't too much helpful other than that, he was somehow, let's say 'absent', during the entire conversation. His answers were indefinite, when he spoke he didn't make any fucking sense. And, at this one moment, he just disappeared. Just to make something clear: I don't trust him. The fact that he didn't kill me when he could and that he helped me out when I hung don't change anything.

Also, I looked at the weird language written in the journal. Running it through Google Translate told me it's Hausa, and further Google searches told me Hausa is spoken in Nigeria and Niger. Here's what it told me:

Weird entry 1:

Death will come in and you wake in the dawn of the night you will burn slowly as you look deliberately and who died

Weird entry 2:

Quick death spare him from the pain, I pray, I pray kill me

Drawing:

Mattatu is saying 'you will burn' repeteadly, and the guy is saying 'kill me'.

I also checked Mattatu. It means 'dead'. Well, rather logical, I guess. But what does it mean? Why is that his name? Too many questions, too little answers. Hitting the road soon. I'm thinking about my next location. Jon out.

-J

Survival Guide

Something happened. I don't know what. I got drunk for New Year's. When I woke up, Bill was gone. He didn't even leave a note or anything, like he did before when he went outside before I woke up. I checked his belongings: His journal, his laptop, and his handgun are missing. I haven't heard of him since. My original plan was to get Bill drunk and ask him questions. The problem is, I got drunk too. I hate myself.

Anyway, from my personal experience of almost six months of being a runner, I decided to write a guide of some sort. Here it is:

Chapter I: Running

You have seen the Master at least three times. Chances are he's either after you, or after your friends/family. At this point, you will run. You must gather things that will help you: knife, money (as much as you can carry without screaming 'I have lots of money and am an easy target for robbers'), gun (if you have one, you'll probably need a license for it), energy bars, a flashlight, clothes (when you pack these, go for functionality: consider you'll probably be running for the rest of your life. Also consider your climate.), and other things you might find useful (laptop, phone, accessories). Travel as light as you can, you don't want to slow yourself down too much.

About friends and family: leave them. Think about it this way: if you stay with them, they will die.

Where to stay?

Consider cheap motels with rooms up high. DON'T stay at friends. Don't stay at the same place for too long. If your area has high buildings, go up on top of them and sleep there. He needs some time to adapt himself to heights. Above all, you must BELIEVE in it. The reason why it failed when I tried it is because I didn't believe it was gonna work. It worked fine until then, when I had Joseph with me. I think he truly believed in it. That's what you wanna do.

Travelling with other people

Don't do it, unless those people are stalked by Him. Good thing is, when you travel with other people, the chances of survival are much higher. When you're alone, if they send a Puppet (brainwashed individual, some of you might call them Proxies) after you, you could get killed or captured, because those things don't sense fear. However, when there are a lot of you, Puppets are doomed, because they have no way of communicating with each other.

Chapter II: Self Defence

I'll bitch slap The Master

Are you out of your mind?! I often hear people doing the 'If that son of a bitch goes after me, I'll shoot him' talk. DO NOT TRY TO HARM HIM WITH YOUR REGULAR WEAPONS! It WILL piss him off, and he WILL try to kill you even harder. His Agents are also invulnerable, so don't even try.

How to Tell Agents from Puppets

Agents have feelings, Puppets don't. Agents can't be killed, Puppets can. Agents can speak (with the exception of Mattatu, who you can easily recognize), Puppets can't. Agents change their facial expressions like normal people, Puppets look dull all the time.

How do I kill The Master/Agents

You don't. I heard that if you have a 'special' weapon, you can harm them, but I don't know too much on the subject.

Choice of weapons

Choose whatever you want, as long it's practical, lethal, and not too big and bulky. The perfect weapons are handguns, knives, machete, etc. If you buy a handgun, buy a silencer with it too.

Chapter III: Other important stuff

Appearance

Try and fit into the crowd as much as you can. You don't want to stand out, because this will bring unwanted attention, both from his Agents and from other people from the street.

Transportation

Anything that uses electricity is bad news. He can mess with stuff like that. Use a bicycle, it never runs out of fuel, and it helps you stay fit too.

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That's pretty much it. If I remember anything else, I'll put it in a blog post in the days to come. Sorry about the delay, but secretly, I was hoping Bill turns up. He didn't, obviously. I'm leaving his place today. I hope this guide helps someone.

-J