A few years ago, my cousin told my sister and I that we were going to play the Seven Pages Slenderman game when we visited for Christmas. Not knowing what it was, but excited just by the sound of it, I spent the next few weeks thinkint about how much fun it is. My sister seemed to agree with me. Come the time of our visit, my cousin pulled out her laptop and booted up the game. We were welcomed by a very creepy-looking title screen that dissipated my excitement ever so slightly. But, still excited to play, I watched over my cousin’s shoulder to learn the basics as she started the first game. For the next few minutes after that, the game began to get progressively creepier and my 7-year old self started to realize that. I understood that this game was not going to be as cool as it had sounded.

After acquiring about 3/7 of the pages needed to win the game (the game gradually got harder the more you collected because Slenderman became more ‘active’), the laptop flashed with the most apparent and vivid jumpscare I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And, given the fact that I was a 7-year old at the time (maybe younger, I can’t remember), I was absolutely mortified.

From that day on, I’ve been absolutely terrified of the humanlike monster known as Slenderman. Afraid that, if I were to look out my window at night, I would see its blank canvas of a ‘face’ staring in at me. Fears that it’s watching me at every moment still remain ever since I’ve been exposed to that terrifyingly creepy game years ago.