Author's Notes
Word Count: 217 words
TW: Slight depictions of gore, murder

Toby's gloved hand wrapped around the doorknob of the back door. He'd done this many times, but every time a new sense of dread settled in his stomach. What would he find lying in wait for him inside? An easy job, or a near death experience? A shaky breath left his lips before he pushed open both rather heavy, wooden and metal doors. It slid open without much noise and Toby stepped inside similarly.

He glanced over his shoulder to spy Masky with the white mask harboring a blank stare concealing his (likewise) face. The pair entered the home together and Toby felt his jaw clench at the sound of something crunching beneath his boots. He peered down, eyebrows furrowing, as he inspected the old potato chips that littered the floor of the kitchen. Masky brushed past him to venture further into the house, but Toby was rather intrigued by the state of the home. Could one even call this a home?

The space resembled Toby's depression bedroom back when he was younger. Just.. maximized to cover an entire household. Empty bottles, wrappers, and containers seemed to have been thrown about in a rage induced crisis. Old food attracted flies on the stove, and every window was either covered in duct tape or concealed by dark-out curtains. Slowly and carefully, stepping over piles of trash rather skillfully, Toby followed Masky into the living room. The older man was holding a sheet of notebook paper in his gloved hand, the scribbles on the page appearing all too familiar to him.

Toby waited impatiently for Masky to break his focus, but to no avail, so he decided to snatch the paper from him swiftly. "We find these at every house, Wright, relax." He hissed quietly, crumbling it up and tossing it across the room.

Every house. The Proxies (not including just Toby, Tim, and Brian) caught on quickly to the Slenderman's motivation for who is targeted: Obsession with The Operator. The Administrator. The Slenderman. A mere interest is not enough to put a pin on your back. No, every target handed to them has reached an obsession to a point of no return. The Operator's goal, among many, is to keep Its proxies safe; but this does not intell physical safety. Should a proxy die, they will be revived. Should a proxy be discovered, they will never return. It helps to shield its proxies from discovery, but ultimately, which ones live or die is irrelevant. Toby would never let this protective nature fool him. He knows all too well just why The Operator so-called values the lives of Its henchmen.

The exposure process takes years. A decade at least, three at most, but an average of two. Proxies are not plucked from their cozy lives at random. They are selected from birth, and stalked, toyed, and tortured for however long it takes for them to finally snap. Once they snap they are deemed ready, and The Operator takes them into his uncaring tendrils. The process is long and costly, and what The Operator truly values over their lives: is time.

After clearing the first floor, Toby made his way to the second floor. He listened to the creak of the stairs under Masky's steps behind him, and noticed the silence his own produced. Masky was a lot different than Tim. He was far more reckless, and reminded Toby of a hungry grizzly bear with zero regard for others. In the end, it was still Tim, but under far more Operator influence than usual. Toby had never been more jealous and relieved that he didn't experience his role as a proxy the same way Tim was forced too.

Tim happens to be what is known as a "sleeper." This kind of proxy (Brian also being one of them) is a person who falls into a trance when under The Operator's influence. They have no recollection of the events that took place when under it, and nearly become a different person until the trance is broken. It has lasting effects, one of which being amnesia, which is only worsened by the medication Tim takes. (Or... took. Come to think of it, Toby hadn't seen him shake any pills into hand recently.) Yet, he envied him at the same time. There are things he had done that would force him into insomnia, praying to whatever God there might be to erase it all from his memory.

In the end, though, Toby would never know who exactly he was praying to.

When Toby opened the door to what he presumed to be the master bedroom, the stench of alcohol was so strong it nearly swept him off his feet. Instinctively, he slapped a hand over his nose and yanked up his mouth guard to help filter out the putrid smell. He gagged as he stepped inside. Quickly, he located the source to be the mass amount of empty beer cans that made up the floor of the room. The sheets appeared to be practically soiled in it, and he could practically picture a man spending endless hours drinking away his paranoia and dawning insanity for one taste of normalcy. He felt a pant in his chest.

The smell was driving him mad. He knew the smell all too well and he never wanted to smell it again. The specific brand of beer haunted his senses, and he'd smell it in his dreams, and it never meant good things. "Masky, can you take this-" Toby coughed, and began to turn around to speak to the man directly, but paused upon seeing no one there. "... room." He let out a low, defeated sigh that hitched in his throat when his neck involuntarily cracked to the side.

His facial muscles twitched against his will and he felt annoyance prick up his spine. His hands itches to grab at the hatchets strapped to his utility belt, but there was no target to use them on, so he instead shoved them deep into his pockets and trudged into the bedroom. The hairs at the back of his neck pricked and his face scrunched up as he inspected the bedroom. Hoping to find something like a gun or a knife, or any weapons that Masky would utilize (the guy didn't have his own weapons, and instead used whatever the target had at his disposal), he plunged his hand beneath the mattress.

His fingertips brushed something hard, and he yanked it out, only to open his hand and nearly throw up on it. Sitting in the palm of his glove, rotted and twisted unnaturally, was a disembodied ring finger; ring still intact. Toby swallowed hard to keep the bile in his stomach before dropping it on the cluttered floor. "What the fuck-" he hissed under his breath and took a few uncoordinated steps back. His back collided with something solid, and he turned around swiftly. Masky stood there, to Toby's pleasant surprise, and cocked his head with curiosity.

Toby found no time to share his disturbing findings. His head jerked to the sound of the front door downstairs unlocking and swinging open. He clamped his jaw shut as Masky pulled him towards the stairs, and his hand held a tight grip on his arm. Toby recoiled from the pressure but the man's grip did not loosen, and he wasn't about to throw a fit with their target just down the staircase. They made their slow descent to the ground floor when Masky suddenly stopped. Toby didn't need to question why.

Two voices could be heard. A man's, and a woman's, and they were undoubtedly wasted. Toby noted their slurred speech and the disgruntled responses that followed after clumsy footsteps. A quick peek around the corner confirmed that this was in fact their target, and he had brought home a girl... bold move, given the state of his house, but she was far too drunk to care or even notice for that matter. The sting of alcohol wafted from then, and it reached Toby's senses with a curiosity that just about drove him mad.

Alcohol has always been a trigger for him, for as long as he could remember, and even more now given the face that flashes in his mind every time he smells that putrid scent. His hand curled around the handle of the hatchet on his hip, his jaw clenched, and his breathing ragged. He felt Masky's gaze burning deep into the side of his head; it was the only thing holding him in place. The scene before them unfolded and they remained unnoticed.

The man was, in Toby's best description, greasy. He obviously had not showered properly in weeks, and normally Toby would have felt empathetic towards him. Afterall, he hasn't showered very recently either. He watches as the man, who he learned was named Daniel from the files provided, turned on the TV. The screen flicked on and bathed the room in a blue tint, and silhouetted the pair as they sat on the couch. They kissed, but, as Toby would rather attest to later, they seemed rather to be eating each other's faces.

"Heyy.." Daniel's voice, drunk and slurred, purred out between their make-out session. "Since we're here.. let's have a bit of fun, yeah..?" Toby couldn't make out anything happening in the darkness. He could only rely on the black outline of their bodies on the couch together, with the TV playing some old sitcom at a low volume. Masky's hand curled around Toby's shoulder and he brought his hand up to overlap his; trying to acknowledge him. He watched the two begin to kiss again, and Masky shifted his weight to approach them. He reached out to grasp onto the lamp on the table when the woman let out a small gasp. The room froze.

"Danny," she murmured, holding up his hand to inspect it in the light of the television. "What uh.. what happened here..? Looks fresh.." Toby squinted and noticed a detail in Daniel's shillohette that both answers a question, and raised many more. His hand was missing its ring finger. Toby thought back to the disembodied finger up in the bedroom.

Daniel pulled his hand back and held it up, almost admiring the blank space where a digit once was. A small, freshly nub protruding awkwardly from his hand. "Don't worry non' 'bout it, doll, just leaving part of my past behind me."

Toby wondered if Daniel's Slenderman obsession drove away his former spouse. The wedding ring that remained wedged on the decaying finger was no accident. Could he not get it off? He swallowed thickly at the thought that being distraught about a failing marriage was enough to bring a man to mutilate his own body. He shuddered, and ticked, the blade of his hatchet thumping against the staircase railing. He froze.

The room was quiet for what felt like an eternity. Toby had no recollection of how exactly he traveled from point A to post B, but as soon as Daniel's head had turned to inspect the darkness of his home, but instead, his head met the floor. Or at least, half of it did. The sickening sound of metal gnashing through bone and flesh, the thick blood that splattered across his face and splotched on the goggles shielding his eyes, and the blood curdling scream that erupted from the woman... excited Toby. Entranced Toby.

The next few seconds went by in a flash of fury and gore. When his vision cleared, what was once a man lay beneath him, reduced to nothing but a pile of ground meat. Saliva dripped from Toby's lips and he lifted his arm shakily to wipe it away before it splattered onto the floor. His peripherals were dark, and his vision was tinted orange through the lenses of his goggles. With a heave, he raised his hatchet above his head, and brought it down with a wall-trembling blow to the already mangled face below him. His entire body tensed when he felt a hand on his back. He snapped his gaze towards Masky, whose main interest was getting Toby back on the ground.

Hazel eyes searched the room. He saw the motionless body of the woman, then returned his gaze to what used to be Daniel. "I-" he quickly clamped his jaw shut. He felt sick. Masky noticed this, and within an instant Toby hoisted up over his shoulder. Toby watched the floor spin beneath his head. His head was pounding violently, and he could practically feel the hammer inside of his head, whacking relentlessly at his skull. His arms dangled, extended towards the floor, and he watched his gloves and sleeves glisten with clumps of flesh and gore in the moonlight that protruded through the window shutters.

He could faintly hear Tim's voice in the distance. Reassuring him. Comforting him. The sound began to lull Toby into a state of unconsciousness. He wouldn't describe this as sleep. Alongside the hum of Tim's voice, static filled his ears. He smiled.