Filename: ENSNARE.TXT

<<transcript intercepted @ 18:24 on 12/22/12>>

<<process_DCRYPT active in memory.>>
 
[I'm... going to leave the rest of these for another time after this one. Yes, E's notes on this one were garbled, too and cryptanalysis is hard, sometimes headache-inducing work, but that's not the only reason why. Re-reading some of these transcripts has been making me feel kind of nauseous and paranoid. I'm taking a break from this little project for now to recover some, but I'll be back with more when I get the chance. There has to be a reason why ⊕ wanted these transcripts  made public, and I'm going to find out. After some time off to ease my mind, of course. - Willow]


<<opening attachment: ENSNARE.TXT>>

The hallway. The dark, dark hallway of my unlit home, harboring the darkest of night – that’s what greets me as I fling the door open in a panic. A dark hallway that seemingly stretches on for miles before me, that ratches my anxiety up to eleven and makes what remains of my leftover courage falter. I really don’t want to walk into that empty blackness that makes my familiar daytime home into a claustrophobic evening nightmare, but I have no choice. I have to get inside, and quickly.

 

Because I’m being followed.

I don’t remember much about the run home, but I do remember the fear. It was a faint feeling at first, a soft and whispering anxiety as I walked home from work through the misty gloom of night. It began as nothing more than a simple, slight uneasiness down the very back of my neck that turned gradually to the sick, cold fingers of fear twisting in my gut. A mocking tingle of eyes on my back that became the slow, searing sizzle of pinpoint precision lasers. A vague, human figure, stretched to ridiculous height and slimness, caught by my eyes as they flicked sideways in growing nervousness. And a whispered, cold voice that nipped at the edge of my earlobe, caressing it in a sinisterly seducing manner, speaking to me what I longed to do most.

 

Run…

And so I did, anything to escape that awful gaze that followed me, those icy fingers gripping my spine… My legs burning with tiredness and my breathing short and ragged, I ran all the way home, and flung the front door open to find the darkness staring back at me.

The pricking fingers of fear slide leisurely down my back, and the voice whispers to me once more.

Get inside, now. Hurry, hurry. He’s coming.

I vaguely wonder who “he” was as I stumble inside, spinning dizzily on my heel to slam the door shut. The deadbolt slammed into place, and I begin to tremble in the pitch darkness, feebly searching for a light switch with one shaking hand.

God, I hate my house at night. Every settling baseboard sounds like footsteps on the wooden floor; every tree branch tapping gently on the windows looks like a hand reaching out to grab me. Nervously, my hand finds the light switch and rapidly flicks it on, but no light greets me.

A burned out fuse. Wonderful. Because that’s exactly what I need right now – even more crushing darkness.

Wait, something… is…

I-is someone tapping on my front door?

The blood drains from my face so rapidly that I swear I’m going to faint, and a jolt of pure dread skitters down my back, through every nerve in my body. Oh, God. Oh God, I really was being followed…

The basement, the voice whispers conspiratorially. The fuse box, you need to get to the fuse box. Quickly, before he gets inside!

Something like a whimper escapes my throat at the very thought of the front door rattling open, at revealing my pursuer, at being found and… and then what? That was the worst part of all, I not only didn’t remember who was following me, but I didn’t even know what this person wanted. But I can’t let him find me, I knew that much. And there was a flashlight in my basement, just at the bottom of the steps. If I made it down there, I’d soon have some light, however miniscule…

Steeling myself, I start to jog nervously down the dark hallway, to the closed basement door, to the shiny brass doorknob that seems to leap into my hand as I grab it and turn. Behind me, the front door rattles.

Move now get downstairs now hide hide hide!

I pull the basement door wide open and run into the stairwell, slamming the door shut behind me. I’m totally surrounded by darkness now, totally enclosed.

From behind the basement door, I can hear another door click open. The front door…

My eyes widen in panic and my pulse leaps like a terrified jackrabbit. Inside. He’s inside the house…

Quickly get the flashlight trip the breaker switch now now now now,the dark isn’t safe, the dark is his ally…

Panic grips me, clawing in my chest as if begging for release as a scream. But I can’t scream now, my pursuer will hear me, and besides that –

Oh no. No. No no no.

He’s heading towards the basement door. I can hear footsteps above me, the leisurely tapping heels of polished black dress shoes on the wood panel floor…

I launch myself down the steps as if possessed, running for the flashlight I keep in the corner by the stairs. My shaking, fumbling fingers reach for it, I feel my hand closing around the metal shaft…

There! It’s mine! The light is finally mine!

Turn it on dear God turn it on turn it on now!

I press the soft, pliable plastic button down, hearing the satisfying click as it depresses… but no light springs from the bulb.

No. No, please. Not now. I know your batteries are old, but you were working fine just the other night, don’t give out on me right now!

It’s no use. No matter how many times I press the button, the flashlight refuses to do more than faintly flicker. I stare in complete and utter horror as my  thumb frantically clicks the button over and over and over and over and over and over.

I feel something slowly slither across my bare leg. Something mildew slick and incredibly cold, something that leaves my skin numb where it touches…

Oh God, no. I remember now. I remember what scared me so badly earlier. I remember him… The blankness of his face, the stare without eyes that pierced my heart as thoroughly as if it were tissue paper, the suit as black as absolute midnight, and the hundreds – no, thousands of pitch black, slimy, branching… Christ, the only way I can possibly describe them as is tendrils. Writhing, twitching, slithering, sliding tendrils, reaching for me from all angles, just about to brush my pale, horror-stricken face with their curious, numbingly cold tips…

My white-knuckle grip on the flashlight tightens even further as another thin, oil slick tendril brushes mockingly against my ear, trailing furtively along my scalp, entangling itself in my hair like a snake in undergrowth…

The voice in my head whispers softly once more, sending pure panic through my veins with its words.

He’s here…

I turn on my heel, spinning with the same sick motion as my stomach, desperately trying to make the flashlight work. I constantly press the button, praying that this time – just this once – the flashlight will turn on. I just want light. Give me light!

The flashlight slowly flickers to life, a dim circle of light spreading across the dark room. I wish to God it hadn’t turned on at all.

Everywhere. The tendrils are coming from everywhere. They writhe and wave smoothly from the shadows clinging to the walls of the laundry room, they’re thrashing around on the ground like irritable, sentient weeds, they’re slithering along and across the ceiling towards me like shadowy snakes. They wind over my feet and around my legs, their greasy slickness sending shudders of revulsion through my whole body. It’s sickening to watch them spread, infection-like, engulfing and chilling everything they touched; God, there has to be at least a hundred of them, if not more…

As soon as the flashlight’s beam hits them, they all snap towards me, twitching, grabbing, reaching…

Found you.

I can’t bear the sight of them any longer. I run. Up the stairs, towards the door. Their coldness is chasing me; I can hear their slimy motion just behind my back as they move! My hand grabs the doorknob, gripping it in a stranglehold, but refuses to open. Locked. It’s locked.

… Something’s touching my bare feet…

I look down, and recoil in horror. Black tendrils are sliding from underneath the door, grasping eagerly at the air in front of my feet, slimy tips squirming around my toes as they try to grasp my leg…

I almost fall down the stairs as I turn to run, taking the stairs two at a time. And all the while, the whisper speaks softly to me, now mocking me where once it had guided.

Don’t run away. There isn’t any point… no reason… no escape…

It’s horribly, painfully right, I realize as I back away from the stairs, from the cold tendrils forcing me away from the door. My only possible way out is blocked off by… by those things, those black, slithering, slick tendrils of night, backing me into the corner by the dryer, reaching out to claim me for their own… I can feel something wet and salty slide down my face, followed by more and more in small rivulets. Tears of fear, of mortal dread, of an indescribable panic I cannot break free from…

I watch in horror as a tendril slides leisurely along the floor towards me, watch as it wraps around my ankle, three, four, five times. A sudden icy numbness grips me, spreading like poison through my veins and up my leg. Not yet. Oh God, no, please no, not yet!

I yank my leg back in defiance, trying to escape the tendril’s constricting grasp, but to no avail – the more I pull away, the more it pulls back, sending still more branching tendrils out to cling to me. And the unearthly chill only spreads further and further up my leg, my back, my neck… Still more and more tendrils reach out from the shadows to wind around my arms, my other leg, my torso, my neck, all pulling me inexorably into the darkness that they spawned from. My hand are growing so numb from the deathly cold that I can’t hold onto the flashlight anymore; I feel it slipping out of my fingers and I watch as it rolls slowly away from my grasp. No, please. No, come back, please; don’t abandon me to the dark! Don’t let them take me!

Please, I need the light. I need the light! I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I can’t scream…

Come to me, the voice hisses, abusively gentle. Don’t fight it. There isn’t any use…

I claw at the floor, trying to regain the pitiful safe haven that was my corner, but to no avail. They’re far too strong. He is far too strong. The numbness and panic fills every part of me, spreading so far and so fast that I can’t think. I can’t feel.

I watch the ground fall away from me as the tendrils pull me into the air, as I squirm in a desperate last attempt to free myself, as the tendrils constrict around me so tightly that I can no longer move. And as suddenly as a light bulb flickering on, he is there, holding me captive with his tendrils, no more than a foot from my face. His blank nothingness scans me thoroughly, scrutinizing my fear as if slowly drinking in and savoring a finely aged merlot.

I can do nothing but tremble. Never before have I felt so much like a helpless, scared child. Never before have I so badly needed to scream but been so unable to do so, anything to remove the awful dread tearing into my mind, to stop the rising panic in my chest, anything to make it all end!

O-Oh my God… he’s laughing at me. He positively radiates a sadistic sense of amusement, a dark and morbid glee at my entrapment, as if he’s grinning without a mouth.

No, the voice whispers, the sick realization of its owner dawning on me as it speaks. Not just yet…

My skin itches terribly where the tendrils grasp me. Burns. Oh my God, it burns, it stings, something is squirming its way beneath my skin, up my arms and legs, burrowing deep beneath the muscle and sinew to wrap around the bone, what in the hell is he doing to me?

My eyes flick warily down to my arms, seeing the tiny slits each twining tendril tip has made there, watching them slide beneath my fascia as easily as roots through soil.

Oh, Jesus Christ, I’m going to be sick…

My intestines reel in revulsion, unless that’s just the tendrils coiling in my gut like blind snakes, resting just between my liver and stomach, growing upwards through my ribcage to wrap tightly around my rapidly beating heart and burning lungs. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.

Why do I feel so weak? So tired, so weary, so drained and unable to struggle any longer… The pain… the searing cold pain of the tendrils around me, inside my body, sapping every last bit of strength I have… He’s feeding on me. Feeding off me. Oh God, someone help… I can’t bear this pain, it racks my whole body, sending high voltage agony down my spine in constant bolts… the tendrils, I feel them, I can feel them twining around my spine like it’s a trellis, sliding upward and around the vertebrae, spreading slowly into my skull, slithering between my meninges like a sentient infection…

Oh God, the visions, the horrific things he’s showing me… T-the children, dead children, hung from the branches of trees, impaled, eviscerated, eyes plucked with surgical precision from their sockets… T-the missing, the overtaken, the slowly destroyed! He devoured their minds, their bodies, their souls, their blood his wine and their panic his bread… And still, still I can’t scream, he won’t let me scream! I can cry in silence, my body beset with pained whimpering, I can quiver, I can beg him with my eyes to spare me, but the one thing I so long to do, the one small noise I want so much to make, he won’t let me emit. The Devil… he surely must be the Devil, come to take my soul… no, no, not even the Devil would torture me this horrifically, for this long! Not even the Devil himself would have an aura this menacing, this alien, this terrifyingly evil!

Oh, no, no, no. Eternal damnation would be far more preferable a fate to this, far better than what he had in store for me, than the hell I’m suffering now in his sinister, inescapable embrace…

The tendrils in my mind clamp onto my cerebrum, and I sob in agonized dread as I feel them digging into the delicate tissue, rooting themselves in firmly to control all I feel, all I see, all I hear…

I swear to God I just heard him laugh, a low, deep chuckle. I’m going to black out, I can’t bear this… I can’t endure…

The voice is the last thing I hear, whispering into my mind a final time as my consciousness fades out.

Now, my prey… Now you have my permission to scream…

<<end transcript.>>

Filename: PURSUIT.TXT

<<transcript intercepted @ 18:24 on 12/22/12>>

<<process_DCRYPT active in memory.>>

[Once more, the plaintext version of E's normal notes on this transcript were unable to be decrypted, just giving strings of gibberish. For context this was one of the first I tried to make more legible. For some reason the transcript and the file name were encoded in a much more breakable cipher than the notes. It's the same case on the next transcript as well. My guess is that E's trying to hide his connection to the Sycamore Foundation, or they've caught on to whatever⊕ was doing to intercept their messages. - Willow]

<<opening attachment: PURSUIT.TXT>>

She had to keep moving.

The trees whipped by her in a blur, bark blending with leaves blending with brush. Her legs’ aching muscles complained as she ran; her lungs were afire from the lack of oxygen. Her mind thought only one obsessive thought as her panicked blue eyes scanned the forest for her pursuer.

I need to hide.

Nothing. Nothing but the branches above her met her frightened gaze, and still she could not shake the feeling she was being watched, the sick dread that rose in her throat to choke the air from her lungs. But nothing at all is what she found, and nothing at all was watching her panic. And that was the worst possible position in the world that she could have found herself in.

She racked her brain for reasons why she decided being here would be a good idea before finally remembering it. Her curiosity. Her own damned curiosity and skepticism had been what brought her out here, to this forest of fear. She’d heard the stories her friends told her about this particular park, about the kids who used to disappear around here (and sometimes, still did)… about him. He was called by many names, too many to count, and every person gave a different description of him, but a few things remained constant in every story she’d heard. He was switchblade thin, inhumanly and impossibly so. He dressed impeccably, a black suit his ensemble, a skinny necktie the only adornment. And he was incredibly, enormously tall, so tall that, if he got too close to you, you had to crane your neck upwards in order to see his non-existent face staring back down, pinning you where you stood, keeping you paralyzed. Of course, she didn’t believe a word of it, not for a second, no matter how paranoid the stories made her feel on the inside. After all, how could something without a face really, possibly exist? And so, she’d come here alone, to this unassuming little park, her camera phone in hand and capturing everything with its mechanical eye, and she’d set out deep off-trail to debunk this urban legend for the myth it was.

Such a shame, then, that she actually found him, and that she discovered that not only were the stories all true, they were all so much worse than she’d been lead to believe. After all, it was terribly hard to deny that the man, whom she’d thought five seconds ago was another off-trail explorer, was slowly closing in on her. And it was terribly difficult not to scream when he finally got close enough to reveal the blank canvas that passed for his face, the shadows that followed him like a thick cloak, the abyssal black suit with the red necktie that seemed to suck all light from the world around her… Most of all, it was abundantly clear to her, as she backed away slowly from the immensely tall and slender figure, that he was very definitely not a man, let alone a human being…

Some sick feeling of being observed penetrated her chest to shoot down her spine as she ran, the camera phone still recording as she did so. The prickling dread was her only cue that he was still after her, the only warning that she wasn’t safe yet. Her feet launched her forward with a speed born only of the worst kind of fear, and she ran until she could no more.

That was when she found the grotto – small, carved from the tree’s base by age. If she was careful, she might just be able to fit inside it, provided she kept quiet and covered it. Her frame was certainly small enough to fit…

She scampered quickly into the grotto, curling her small-boned frame up as much as possible and pulling thick pine brush branches over her hiding place. Hopefully, he hadn’t seen her run inside, and didn’t know where she was. Hopefully…

Speak of the Devil, she thought morosely as he appeared in the small clearing, standing eerily still as he flickered into existence. The one thing on his body that did move were the black, purely dark shadows that swirled and curled furtively around him, tentacle-like. They moved seemingly of their own accord, flowing like inky waves behind him, breaking off and dissipating in the sunlight that shone through the canopy as he slid frictionlessly forward, gliding slowly around the clearing and towards the tree… towards her.

He knows, she thought fearfully as she buried her face into her arms, too afraid to look any longer. God, he was close. So close, she could feel the dark energy radiating from him, sending waves of ever more intense nausea as he slid gradually closer. So close that she could see the impeccable polish on his black dress shoes, so close that she could have reached out and touched the smartly folded cloth of his black pants cuff…

Oh yes, he knew where she was hiding, surely he had to know. Every legend she’d ever heard, every story she’d ever read, they all had one thing in common – his victims never escaped. Not for long. He was fully aware of exactly where she was hiding and he could clearly see her despite his lack of eyes, she was sure of it. The cold prickling on her flesh and the dizzy, anxious nausea in her intestines told her so. He knew exactly where she was, and any second now he would reach down and tear the flimsy foliage from her hiding place, exposing her. And then… then she’d have no place to run to.

Tears sprung fresh in her eyes at the thought of being in such an awful position, unable to escape from his darkness, unable to hide, and she bit her tongue to hold back a fearful whimper.

He must not have heard her, instead gliding away from her hiding spot and slowly melting back into the shadows he came from, the writhing black shadows that enveloped his emaciated frame, and he vanished entirely from view within seconds. Just as slowly, he flickered back into view a few feet back, far enough back that she could see the entirety of his rangy figure, standing eerily still in the tree line. Staring, right at her, through her, into her through the brush covering the grotto. Staring, with no eyes, set in a face he didn’t have.

That was one thing the stories didn’t tell you about, she thought morosely as she squished herself further against the far wall of the grotto. They never told you what it felt like to be watched by him, to have that eyeless stare lock onto you, searing holes into your very being. Reading you. Scanning you. Those stories never said a word about how childlike and scared he made you feel, or about the awful, cold dread that dug its claws into your heart when he was nearby. And all because of the laser-like intensity and precision of that hellish stare…

He tilted his head ever so slightly, as if amused by the panicked thoughts of what he was to her, and slowly faded from existence, a mirage dissolving into nothing.

She didn’t move for about five minutes. She knew far better than to assume that he’d left her alone. She knew well enough that he played mind games with his targets, baiting them, tormenting them… sometimes for years. He was probably still close by, waiting for her to move, waiting for her to let her guard down… But what other choice did she have? She could either wait here for him to come back and drag her, screaming, from hiding… or she could make a break for it, and have a chance, however slim, of getting away from him for at least a moment. Anything, anything at all would be far more preferable to the raging nausea that roiled in her stomach now, anything to escape that bedeviling gaze of his…

She inhaled. Exhaled. Counted slowly up to five.

And burst from the grotto with speed to rival that of a scared jackrabbit’s.

It wasn’t long before the prickling down her vertebrae began again, cold and unforgiving, increasing in intensity as she ran. He was breathing down the back of her neck; he was closing in slowly, getting closer, closer… There was no way she’d ever outrun him at this rate, not in his own territory. He knew it far better than she could ever hope to know. She’d have to find somewhere that he couldn’t easily get to, or at least somewhere that he couldn’t easily reach…

She noticed the tall elm slightly before she almost ran into it.

Her nervous blue orbs scaled the elm urgently. That lowest branch would be a bit of a jump to get to, but this tree had to be a good 30 feet tall or more. Certainly, it was much taller than he was…

Steeling herself for the jump, she ran at the branch, launching herself upward to grab it. Her hands slipped and groped feebly as her arms wrapped around the thick limb and she nearly fell back onto the ground again. No, not now, she couldn’t fall now, if she fell now she’d never get to safety in time…

C’mon you can do it, just climb up, please climb up, please please please please please!

She slowly, shakily hoisted herself up and onto the branch, stabilizing herself against the tree’s sturdy trunk. The prickling on the back of her neck was intensifying, she didn’t have much time left before… before he…

Limb by limb, branch by branch she clambered up the tree, never daring for a second to look down for fear of vertigo claiming her… She had to keep moving, had to keep climbing, had to get as far away from the ground as possible… she had to be at least a good 25 feet up by now, nearly at the top of the tree. She could see almost the entire forest from here, surely he couldn’t reach her here.

She sat on the branch she stood on, carefully ensuring she didn’t fall as she clung to the limb and edged herself against the trunk to make herself as small as possible.

 

It was at that moment he flickered into existence before her again, his blank head swiveling back and forth as he searched for her before finally swinging upwards to the branches above. His sightless gaze scanned the canopy, seeking out his terrified, shaking prey…

And found her.

She shrunk down even further, as if she could meld with the branch to camouflage herself. Even a thick tree limb couldn’t stop that awful gaze from piercing her, rending her, ripping her apart with its intensity… and… frustration?

Yes… she felt it now, clear as day – definite frustration emanated from that hellish gaze of his. Frustration, and deep thought… The uncannily dark, fluid shadows around him seemed to thrash irritably as he flickered in and out of sight around the elm’s sturdy base, first here, then there. It was as if he was judging the best angle of approach, the best method of attack to retrieve his prey from the treetops…

She no more than blinked, and he suddenly seemed to be twice as tall as he was before, his blank canvas face only ten feet from her, his long arms reaching upwards to grasp her.

She let out a bloodcurdling shriek of fear as she backed into a small junction between the trunk and tree branches, curling into as small a ball as possible. She didn’t dare look down for fear of finding his blank mask of a face staring back at her through the branches again, staring with no eyes, staring with that unbearable, blood-freezing gaze.

 

C’mon, girl, don’t panic now, she thought fearfully, burying her face into her arms. Panic is exactly what he wants…

Long, icy fingertips brushed her legs and feet,  sending an unearthly chill up into her spine. Her body quivered in fear at his touch, her heart clambered into her throat; her stomach twisted in nauseous knots…

She dared look down at him, only to see him staring upwards at her, now standing at his original height. The shadows around him curled and twisted leisurely. Had she done it? Had she really managed to beat him at his own game?

His head inclined in thought as his gaze continued to pin her to the branches above. The shadows flowed gently around him, moving even slower now as if he’d realized something…

Slowly, one inky tendril of shadow extended from the black mass around him, reaching for the nearest branch. It wrapped one, two, three times around the limb, clinging stubbornly. Another shadowy extension followed suit, gripping the next branch up. Then two more, clinging higher above as he lifted himself from the ground like a disproportioned spider, then another, gradually pulling his absurd and lanky figure upwards towards his prey.

Her heart sank, and a weak little sob that was nearly a sad laugh escaped her throat as she watched him creep awkwardly closer and closer. She really should have known better.

Of course a forest dweller would be able to climb trees.

<<end transcript.>>

⊕00111001⊕

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WVVoU01HTklUVFpNZVRrelpETmpkV0pYVm10aFYwWnRZVmhLYkV4dFRuWmlVemd2WkZkSk1Ga3lUbmhpYWtaeVkwZHdkRTlYUm5FPQ==

Filename: BLANKMAN.TXT

<<transcript intercepted @ 20:45 on 12/18/12>>

<<process_DCRYPT active in memory.>>

"This is the last one for tonight. - E"

<<opening attachment: BLANKMAN.TXT>>

The Blank Man

A child grew lost within the woods
As fog swirled thick and deep,
And so she fell unto her knees
And softly began to weep.

But as the tears flowed from her eyes
And quenched the forest floor,
She noticed a man, a strange Blank Man
Who was not there before.

His frame was like a tall, thin birch,
His suit was black with dread.
His sightless gaze turned to the girl,
And this is what he said:

“Poor child, you are very lost;
Your home you cannot see,
The daylight left is fading fast –
Perhaps you should come with me?”

The child found herself comforted by
The Blank Man’s sure persistence,
And saw no reason to ignore
His calming, soft insistence,

But still, she did not trust the Man,
And was too scared to try,
So she stood and wiped away her tears,
And this was her reply:

“O Blank Man of the forest, I
Cannot just go with you –
I could become still more lost yet,
And then what shall I do?”

“I would be there,” the Blank Man said,
Now standing twice as tall,
“I know the forest very well.
You shan’t be lost at all.

Now come, dear child, the hour’s late
As you can clearly see –
You mustn’t run away from fate.
It’s time to come with me.”

“But Blank Man,” said the child, “I
Cannot be out at night!
My parents shall be worried sick
And surely die of fright!

I couldn’t bear to go with you
And leave them both alone –
I’m sure they must be missing me;
I simply must get home!”

“But they will understand, my child,”
The Blank Man spoke to her,
“And I would have you home by then,
Of that you can be sure.

Now come along, child, the hour’s late
As you can plainly see –
You mustn’t run away from fate.
It’s time to come with me.”

“But Blank Man, I’m afraid of the dark
And all that lurks inside
The shadows of the forest deep!”
The child, now frightened, cried.

“There’s monsters out there in the dark
That crave my flesh and bone!
I’m too afraid to go with you –
Please, just take me back home!”

“The monsters of the forest, child,
Are far too scared of me.
I’ve too many arms,” the Blank Man said
To her, reassuringly.

“Besides, my child, it’s far too late
As you can surely see –
You cannot run, this is your fate.
It’s time to come with me.”

And the frightened child ran away
Into the forest so deep,
Now seeing the Blank Man for what he was
And praying her soul she’d keep,

But the child could neither run, nor hide,
Nor escape the dark pursuit
Of the Blank Man of the forest, dressed
In very blackest suit,

So, choiceless, she took his hand, and then
Vanished, and was never seen again.

<<end transcript.>>