One Knight

I was sitting in my small apartment. I was waiting in the dark for Him. I knew He was waiting outside; He was always waiting for me. Ever since I stopped running, He was waiting for me. His thin arms, His blank face. I held the gun in my hand and I waited for Him.

And then there was a knock on the door.

Whatever the Slender Man is, He does not knock, I know that. So I got up and checked the peephole. Then I set the gun down and opened the door and let Tom inside.

I've known Tom for a while, I guess. I met him when I first started running. He was just as mad then, but somehow he was always able to figure out the best places to stay to avoid the Slender Man. We drifted apart, but then met again when the Skeptic recruited us for a war. That didn't last long and the last time I saw him was almost a year ago.

He smiled at me and said, "Hello, Peri, my little sun dog. We must go, we must rush towards a meeting, a collision. We must meet the meat."

"What are you talking about, Tom?" I asked. "Why are you even here?"

"We must tilt at windmills, Peri," Tom said. "We must meet our ghosts and shadows. We must run together."

"I've given up on running, Tom," I said. "I'm just going to stay here, in one place, until He decides to kill me."

"You are a knight," he said. "A knight of the running table. A night knight. We will pick up ghosts and shadows along the way. Come with me, Peri. We will be Abraham's Men. We'll pretend to be mad and trick them all!"

"I'm not joining a runner's group," I said.

"You're our knight, Peri," Tom said. "Our knight of ghosts and shadows. Come with me, Peri."

He wasn't going to leave me alone. I looked at him and saw someone who wasn't insane; no, he merely pretended to be mad in order to throw everyone off. That's how he survived. And how he was offering me another chance at survival.

I took a look at my dark apartment and decided I no longer wanted to stay there. It never felt like home.

So here I am. On the run again. Ready to meet up with ghosts and shadows.

Here we go.

The Moon's My Constant Mistress

With an host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney,
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end –
Methinks it is no journey.

Good evening, gentle-persons. I am Tom O'Bedlam, Mad Tom, the Ticking Clock, the Twisting Spire, He of the Dis-tempered Brain. I am here to welcome to something new. We are beggars, we are thieves, we are wanderers and vagabonds and wayward travelers. We are runners and we run from that which everyone is running from: the terror of the unknown.

We are mad, all of us. But we can reach out to each other. We can go mad together. We can run forever without end and become like the stars, burning in the sky.

We are knights, ghosts, and shadows. We are rich men, poor men, beggar men, and thieves. We are the madness of crowds.

Welcome.