youwillnotfindme

you will not find me
you will not find me
you will not find me
you will not find me
you will not find me
you will not find me
you will not find me
you will not find me
you will not find me
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME
YOU WILL NOT FIND ME

November

NmU2Zjc3MjA0OTIwNjg2MTc2NjUyMDc5NmY3NTcyMjA2MTYzNjM2Zjc1NmU3NA==

I'm done.

I'm sorry, everyone, but the time has come for me to disappear. This time, it's planned, so I can at least let you know why.

I'm hunting him down. I'm tired of running from that bastard Xerxes, especially after what I learned about him. I can't do this anymore, so I'm not going to.

I'm coming for you, you bastard. You took my brother away from me, you tried to take me down too. And you did it all on the orders of that fucking monster. Well, you played your hand, and you're on your own now. You think he'll save you? Because I know he won't. I saw what happened when your back was turned.

You're dead, Xerxes. The only difference is whether I catch you first, or our mutual tall friend does.

See you around.

This is not possible.

There is no way that the date can be right, and yet, there it is. October 16th. It's really been two months since I posted here last. And yet, here I was, thinking that it was almost four. I don't get it, but then again, I lived through some bizarre things. And I kept a record. It's going to take time and effort to get it together, but I'll do what I can. I think things have gone far worse than I'd ever intended.

Two days of searching.

Still nothing. Jackson did leave his camera in his car, though, and I did take some video, but there's a problem. First, there's nothing of interest around here. I've seen where he filmed, but I found nothing. The other problem is that my voice doesn't...record properly. I damn near went deaf when I played back a short recording with me talking over the camera. The same when I try to film myself. The camera goes haywire.

I'm really not supposed to be here, am I?

I would stumble into this 'verse and not know what day it is.

I suppose I'll wait until Monday for Jackson to show back up. Or his roommate. For fuck's sake, anyone.

Awakening.

It's like I only have a few minutes at a time to be here, and most of the time I'm not actually "here" in so many words, I'm, well... I feel like an echo on the surface of the deep.

But this time, I'm here. I know I am. I'm sitting in front of Jackson's laptop right now, typing this in. I have been for hours. This place...this place is deserted. He's gone, his roommate and her child are gone, and it looks like it's been this way for weeks. The kitchen is caked with dust, the fridge has only a little bit of food in it, and it's long since spoiled. Though, I suppose that doesn't matter to me. I haven't eaten in months. Haven't wanted or needed to.

And yet the laptop is on. Looks like it's been used recently, but that doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense anymore. I don't understand what's going on here. If Jackson or his roommate don't come back by the morning, and if I'm still here to take action, I'll call the landlord and find out what's going on.

This is too much, even for me.

riding the rails

escape

dialtone

Rereading some of the older posts, trying to figure out what's going on, and the one thing that bothers me about them? Nick lied. In the manuscript he was writing. Maybe he was just trying to hide his identity ("Mike"? Really? As if I didn't know that's your middle name), but there was a big deal about things.

Our parents died in 2009, not 2004, as bystanders in a car wreck. They were eating lunch in a diner when a largish truck plowed through. They were killed instantly, along with around five or six others, including the driver.

Shit like that bothers me.

Edit: Also, I'm getting annoyed with the changes to my profile. It won't let me change my picture back to what it was when I first started, but I think I can redo the background so it's not so blinding.

Rain.

Re: laughing

Ugh. Woke up this morning to a notice in my email saying that I have a video response, and sure enough, that's it. Hopefully people can see it now. It's...well, it's creepy. And quite frankly, it pisses me off.

laughing

What the fuck even is this shit anymore.

This was blank. But...but he did give me something.

laughing

I don't know what it means, and for some reason I can't actually embed it, but...I guess you'll just have to watch it. The email said he sent it to someone else. I don't know who. I hope they can see it.

Just a quick update.

Tad tipped me off about this website, where apparently lots of people gather to talk about video series, like Marble Hornets, which I used to watch before all of this started happening. It's called Unfiction.

I lurk there from time to time, and I discovered something: there's a thread about this blog. Nothing special yet, just a few people commenting about it, but there are two things I'm noticing about the place.

First of all, you treat these all like they're games. I can't speak for the people in the Marble Hornets and EverymanHYBRID videos, but if they're going through anything like what I'm going through, I can't help but think sometimes that it's disrespectful to treat it as though it's a game. It's not a game for me. I spent days and weeks drinking and hiding in the woods. It happens, I know people who do it because they don't have any other choices.

Second, there's a post there by a guy named UberTaco, who said something about my politics. Won't go into exactly what he said here, if you want to know, look it up. Basically, my response is this: I'm sorry if I offended you. I have my political beliefs, which include a heavily Democratic slant, yes. And you have yours, which appear to run the opposite direction. And that's okay. I'm not trying to convince you of anything here, and in the beginning, I was just ranting and raving about things that were annoying me in a stressful election season. And drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. Looking back on it, I don't specifically recall posting a lot of the things I did during November, so there's a better-than-average chance I was at least a little intoxicated.

And yeah, I remember talking about maybe bringing back the politics, but after that past few days? I've got bigger fish to fry.

The Final Video

And, of course, thankfully I anticipated just this event, and put together a little transcript of what's actually being said.

"So, for a little while,  this is the last time I'm gonna use the camera. Every time I record a video and watch it, on the camera it looks fine, but when I put it on my laptop and watch it there, there's some bizarre distortion. And when I upload it to YouTube it's even worse. So I'm gonna record this last video, and then I'm gonna put it away, and then I'm going to hope it goes away. All of this. I might still keep the blog up, I don't know.

I don't really know anything anymore.

I am going back to the park, though. I think that's something I'm going to do next week sometime, if I can find the time. Otherwise I'll probably go sometime early in August, I don't know. I'm going to try to get one of my friends to go with me this time, though, because I don't want to go alone. Not after what happened last time.

So yeah. No videos anymore, and this is it for the time being. If the camera clears up and this one doesn't fuck up like all the rest have, then maybe I'll do something else. Otherwise, I may just put this camera in storage and never use it again. And then, really, what would have been the point of giving it to me in the first place?"

July 13th -- An Update

In which I am bizarrely tired.

I spent until three in the goddamn morning searching this video for any sign that what I see in the video is actually there. Nothing at all. When I'm in an editing program, or a splicing program, or anything, it just plays normally, like it did on the camera.

I'm just so frustrated.

June 27th

How do I get home?

I woke up this morning on the couch, and for the first time in more than half a month I felt okay enough to actually fire up my laptop. Apparently my roommate found my new camera (more on that in a bit) yesterday and happened to have it on her to record something bizarre, which turned out, in the end, to be me, showing up passed out on the floor in front of the door. (There's more to it, I've seen the video, but I don't know what to make of it.)

I've read the updates, I've seen the video on my new YouTube account (that, while I don't remember making, I have the password to. It's registered to my email, to boot), and so far as I can tell, on June 27th, I became aware long enough to record about five minutes of rambling, splice it together with a bit of the other footage on the camera, and render it into a ready-to-upload file, but before I could actually, y'know, upload it, I was gone again. My roommate said that early in July, I used my trimmer to basically shear most of my hair off and then disappeared, leaving a note with rent money and an assurance that I'd be back. And then last night happened.

Anyway, the camera. I had taken my old digital camera to the park with me. Can't rightly remember why, I think it was because I thought I saw something in the trees the day before. Everything that happened on the video that was posted (from my camera, I might add) is what I remember. I walked into the pavilion, walked by that table, and it was empty. When I turned back around, the camera was there. It's a Flip, white, and appears to have a one-hour memory. I reached out to pick it up and see what it was doing there, and the next thing I remember is waking up this morning. I don't remember...well, anything you'll see. I don't remember recording a video on June 27th, and I sure as hell don't remember whatever happened that made my Mystery Poster happy.

Whoever attacked me, left me there, made me forget everything, also took my original digital camera, and left me with the Flip. Normally, I'd be happy to have a new camera, but right now? I'm just angry. I don't like losing time, and I especially don't like to apparently do things that I don't remember doing. It's infuriating. So, mystery man? I'm going to find you. And when I do, I'm going to hurt you. And you're going to tell me what you know about yourself, and about why my brother is missing, but apparently still able to post to the internet. Just remember that.

June 27th was such a wonderful day.

I miss it.

Jackson won't. The poor boy. Soon, he'll understand what he has to do.

Like staring through a block of frosted glass.

I can see the world, though the view is flimsy and always threatening to break.

Oh, God, Jackson, where are you?

What do you fear?

It rained today.

Fuck that.

So I've been sick a few days, right? And on top of that, for two of them I can't even access the internet. I come back, and this happens. Whoever this W. G. guy is, I'm not very happy with him right now. I've undone that...image. (Yes, it's of me, but I don't remember doing that at all. Honestly it's a bit fucked up.)

The internet (which, yes, we were leeching, wasn't my system) died on us, so the roommate and I finally decided to get good internet. So we had to have a new cable line installed. Kind of sucks, but hey, in the end I have excellent internet and connectivity to continue to berate you all for...really whatever the hell I want.

Been hearing noises in the crawlspace under my apartment. The landlord swears he doesn't know a thing about it, and the cable guys got the fuck out of there really quickly, but I still haven't been able to figure it out. Maybe I'll go down there and take a look.

And maybe I'll get a chance to go to the park soon. You never know. I've been thinking of uploading some of the silent 360x240 video my digital camera takes to YouTube. If I get a chance, I'll upload a video of the park. It really is a nice place.

And, just so I remember, here's the picture that was uploaded to my banner:

Always change the facts slightly. The truth is never fit to be written about.

-W. G. Vye, GVz

I hate being sick.

On the plus side, I found my camera. On the minus side, I've been sick the past week. Can't even get outside much without feeling like I'm going to puke. It's fucking ridiculous.

Outdoor expedition has been put off, but oh, what's this? Michelle Bachmann is seriously running for President?

No, I think I'll leave that alone. Too easy.

Well, that's just peachy.

I was going to head out to the park nearby today. (Well, one of the three.) Technically it's a conservation area, but there are miles and miles of trails running through the place, and it's pretty damn awesome. Was gonna take my camera and get some crappy shots of the place.

But I can't find my camera. Likely the kid just ganked it and misplaced it, but I haven't had the ability to ask my roommate about it just yet. Hopefully I'll find it. Otherwise, I'll just go tomorrow with or without it.

Sucks, though.

So I checked, and yeah, that picture is the one from my camera. I didn't even upload it before I went to bed last night, and I sleep on the fucking couch right next to the laptop. But sure enough, C:\Users\Jackson Toth\My Pictures\P4280003.JPG exists, right there. It's even rotated already, even though I had the camera turned sideways.

I must be sleeping heavier. Have to ask my housemate if she did this.

Getting sick of this.

I wake up after eight hours of sleep, roughly, and I find something (once again) posted to my blog after I went to sleep. Why should I even be accepting this insanity?

Don't know who posted this...

Tired as hell.

Why the hell am I still awake? (Right, can't sleep because your brain is wired to be up until 1:30 every night. Silly me.)

Don't want to be awake, might try sleeping soon. This apartment unnerves me. Thought I saw something in the light reflecting off the shower tile in the bathroom. I ducked out of the way and took a picture of it. I'm so fucking skittish now. This place is making me insane. I haven't looked at the picture just yet. Saving it for the morning.

Fuck this. Need sleep. Later all.

More of the same.

One of these days I'm going to get a proper amount of sleep. One of these days.

Was out sometime last week driving, and I thought I saw something. Had my camera (was shooting low-quality video of the area) and managed to snap a picture.

Sorry for the immense resolution, but I thought I could see something just to the right of the left grove of trees. Pretty much exactly in the center up there. I just don't know.

I need to take a different route.

Just Another Manic Monday

God, my head hurts. It hurts worse than I can recall it ever hurting.

Two weeks. Two weeks sober and I don't necessarily want to kill anyone, but the thought is occasionally there. Even if I'll never follow through on it.

Plus, it's late, and I can't sleep, thanks to the sounds of a child keening and in general refusing to fall asleep. Because, see, it bears mentioning that I don't actually have a lease right now. I'm renting, well, essentially couch space from a single mom. Don't remember what she does for a living, but I've taken care of her little girl a few times in the past few weeks. Cute kid, but I'm not one for children. And right now, she's screaming.

So I'm awake, and bitter, and afraid to open the blinds. And to top it all off, for whatever reason, I can't access the internet. I've tried, more than once. If I do manage to get it working, I'll probably only fire off this post and then try to sleep again.

Starting to wonder if Nick is ever coming home. I just don't know.

What am I supposed to say?

Is this just a blog for me to bitch about the politics of the situation, or do I get to talk about the weird shit that happens to me? Like the fact that my brother's still missing, and everyone but me has just assumed he's dead? They had a funeral and everything. I was invited. I didn't go. Said I was drunk. They believed me. It was true.

In the week before I had to throw all my stuff in storage, I got another five or so pages of that manuscript, and read them. Including the bit that was labeled "Night Seven." Other than that, I don't have any notes from the nights, just from the days. And it's gotten...rather strange. I don't know how else to say that. I don't really want to think about the implications for all of this, but...if my brother isn't dead, he's in a very bad place.

And then I left the old apartment. Got a truck, took everything to a storage unit, and walked away. I've been living off of years and years of insurance payments from my parents, and got quite a bit when Nick disappeared as well. (I know I said that I had "very little money" before, but that's just not the case. I just have very little money that I haven't been using to drink away my problems.) I could have bought a new car right away, or I could have gotten a new apartment, and moved, whatever. But instead I just walked, and I spent around two weeks in the fields and woods, wandering, and drinking, and every once in a while sobering up and getting a meal at Denny's, or IHOP, or whatever was closer. Hell, McDonald's, fuck it.

And then...about two weeks ago, I'd say, something happened. I think I drank too much, or maybe I smoked something I shouldn't have, ate something I shouldn't have, hell, maybe a mixture of all of the above. And I did what I've been doing. Wandered away from town, into the trees and fields to the west. I'd sleep under the stars if it was dry, and in the trees if it wasn't. You'd be surprised, but there's quite a bit of woods in Northern Illinois for someone to disappear into, if they're so inclined.

But this time...this time was different. I didn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. Fuck, I drank an entire bottle of Smirnoff trying to make it go away. But there was something in the trees. Something...wrong. I don't know how else to say that. After I'd drank the entire bottle, and it was still there, I started trying to get away from it, but staying in the trees. Being, y'know, drunk, I started panicking, and running aimlessly, until I...ran into...something. I looked up, and I saw it, and I don't know what I saw because I remember nothing at all about it. I know I pushed myself off of it, got caught, and started sprinting. I know that I opened my hand once I was in the moonlight, and saw very clearly what was in my hand, and I know that I damn near got run over by a car when I sprinted across the road.

The police were called, I was panicked, and I spent the night in the drunk tank. And, in the intense shine of the flourescent lights in the police station, I know I opened my hand again to find it empty.

The next morning, I checked my bank account, realized that I had a lot of money there that I'd been ignoring, and I paid my fine. I bought a car, and went through the process of renting an apartment. Prorated for the month of May. Unfortunately, the only apartment I was able to find was in the closest thing to wilderness as can be found within two hours of Chicago. And so I'm still concerned. I stay sober now. I'm hoping that whatever I saw was just an illusion brought about by my drinking. But just in case it isn't? I keep a machete by the door, just in case. And I park right by the door. And even though this is a small town in the middle of nowhere, I still lock my doors. And keep the shades drawn.

Because I never know what's out there.

NIGHT SEVEN

I SHOULDN'T BE HERE I CAN'T BE HERE WHERE AM I WHERE AM I WHERE AM I I CAN'T SEE THIS PLACE THIS PLACE CANNOT EXIST IT DOES NOT EXIST THIS IS A HOLE IN REALITY IT MUST BE BECAUSE THE HORROR OTHERWISE WOULD BE TOO MUCH TO MANAGE OH GOD HELP ME OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD

---

I SEE HIM

---

HE WILL HELP ME

This is just bullshit.

You ever feel like you've woken up still drunk? Because that's been every night this week. And of course, drinking again tonight. I'm even taking pains to type, and retype, every single thing, because I'll be damned if I screw this shit up. It's just not happening.

Officially, I've got two days. Two days until my lease is up. I have no job, very little money, no prospects for a new place, or a new job, for that matter, and what am I doing? That's right, getting drunk. Again. Fuck all of this bullshit.

Fuck typing.

I've beeen getting packages for a few weeks now. Each is really stupid, a whole bunch of tape inside a box, with a folded up page inside. And each page is a new entry, a new "day" in my brother's life. Why am I just getting this now?

Eighteen days, I think. I can't remember, since I put the damn things away as soon as I get them. He was there for eighteen days. And I've...I've been reading some insane things in this manuscript. Things that don't make sense, can't make any sense. And I refuse to believe in them.

The police finally are convinced that nobody is dropping these packages off, so they basically called me a crackpot and told me to fuck off. Not the nicest way to end my working relationship with the cops, but hey. At least they didn't tell anyone else. I'm pretty sure that my brother's friends and girlfriend don't know about this. If they did? Then I'd have to explain why I think he's alive, and why I won't give up on him, something they're all willing to do.

And that's okay. Really it is. It's just...not for me.

Maybe I'll get another package soon.

So Confused.

I didn't add Nick to my authors list. In fact, as far as I know, he's still missing and presumed dead. But that was one of the entries from his manuscript that I've been reading. I've only got around ten pages thus far, all of them are notated with "Day x" or whatever, starting with Day Four. So I suppose you could say that I'm still hopeful about this whole thing. I'll read more of the story as I get it, and maybe that will put things together for me, and I'll find out who took my brother, and why.

But there are other issues. Tad's had at least one post and one comment on my blog that appear to have come from late December. Being that this is early April, I'd say I'm a bit concerned, as Tad said that he believes they were lost in the queue. I have no idea, myself.

Also, about the manuscript. I asked the Detroit police if they could please go through that abandoned house again to see if there's anything there, a body, whatever. They asked me why, and I told them about the manuscript, and now I've got undercover Crystal Lake police sitting outside my apartment 24/7 trying to catch the guy who has been leaving pages in my mailbox. Maybe then I'll know who took Nick, and maybe who's posting as him on this very blog.

Day Four

It's been a long week. For that matter, a long month, year, decade, and really, when you get right down to it, I've had a pretty fucking long life. And at twenty-five, that's saying a lot. And here I am, watching the end of it. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself here, just a bit. Yes, just a bit.

Like I've said before, I'm twenty-five. I'll be twenty-six soon enough, if I manage to make it through this. Damn it. I really need to stop doing that. Really, really do. I'm already having trouble keeping my hands from shaking. If I lose the ability for rational thought, I think I may not get it back.

I'm sick of running from this. Running from my life, my death, my in-between. For the longest time, I haven't even had anything which a sane man would call a life anyway. But I'm not what any sane man would call sane. Oh, hell, I'm not even what an insane person would call sane. I'm one of the flock, the fold, the fallow folk who can't get through life without fucking shit up. But most of all, I'm a fellow who just wouldn't shut up when it was good for him. Hi there. You can call me Mike. It's not my real name, but by the time the police find me, I won't have any need for any kind of name, real, legal, nick, made-up, or otherwise. You see, I've been shot. It's not anything terribly bad, like a sucking chest wound that I'd have died from immediately, but it's been bleeding fairly steadily for about three days now, and every time I move, it opens up again. I'm sure one of these days, or hours, or minutes, I'm going to run out of luck, and run out of blood, and breath, and life.

I suppose I'm lucky to have packed enough food or water to keep me alive for a month. That's what happens when you're planning to leave town on a hiking trip. I've only needed to live off of it for the past few days, and I still have a wallet full of cash, so if I manage to make it out of this alive, I'll be able to really treat myself to a nice steak. But the problem isn't food, or water, as I've said. The problem here is that I can't find myself. On a map, I mean (though I suppose the other interpretation is true enough). I have absolutely no fucking clue where I am. I don't know how I got here, either, because this isn't where I was shot. I was shot in the city. The west side of Detroit, if you must know. Just east of McNichols and Greenfield, to be all too specific. I was leaving a friend's house, and I'd had to park about ten blocks down, as I had been there for a surprise party, and didn't want to alert the birthday boy to anything wrong when he came home. I had come out onto McNichols, and was walking toward my car. Got about halfway, too, and then the guy came out. Don't know if he wanted my wallet, or if he was just tweaking, but all I know is I took a bullet to the leg. I stumbled to the first house I saw, and I guess it was abandoned, because I managed to open the door, and nobody was there. Walked through a few rooms, I don't know what I was looking for, and then I fell down.

When I woke up, I was in a crude shack. Looked kind of like I could have been in the same room, but I'm almost 100% sure that I'm not. Besides, I crawled my way to the door the first day, that'd be two days ago. I'm on an island in the center of a fucking lake. A fucking lake. I shit you not, reader. I have no idea how I got from inside the borders of the city of Detroit to an island in the middle of a small lake, but I swear to God if I survive this, I will fucking find out. I can even see a house on the shore. Can't be more than a quarter mile from where I'm at, but I haven't seen anyone there. At least, I think it's a house. Can't shout, either. Hell, I've tried, and I can't even speak. And all the water I can drink won't help. I've completely and totally lost my voice. And my throat hurts. Badly. All of that put together? I either was infected was laryngitis or, and this is something that disturbs me deeply, I've spent some time shouting or screaming at the top of my lungs. I hope that it's the infection. I really do.

I don't remember any screaming.

I don't remember anything.

I'm just writing this document in an attempt to rationalize something, anything about why this could have happened to me, or who would have or, for that matter, could have done something like this. I don't have any enemies that I know of, nor do I really think I've pissed anyone off lately. But the problem here isn't so much that I don't remember pissing anyone off. At this point, it's that I don't remember.

I'm pretty sure that it was dark out when I was shot, but... it was bright out, very bright, when I came to. But that's not the really disturbing part. I had packed my car full of warm things because I had planned on going hiking, and it was winter. Now? It must be eighty degrees, and there's no heat in this cabin. It's that way outside, too. And the sun is really the crux of my real problem with what's happened. I've been here long enough to gauge general directions, and that's led to a very real problem: the sun is too far south in the sky. I'm still in the northern United States. Which means I've lost over six months of my time. And that possibility, probability, fact, or reality, whichever it may be, bothers me. A lot. Especially since my wound is still bleeding like it's damn near fresh. It's clotted a bit, but not enough.

I think I'm going to die out here.

So I'm going to use this document, if it's ever found, and if it's readable should that happen, to express my sorrow to my family. Of course, they're nameless here, but I'm sure the word will get to them what happened. And I suppose that, if I'm still coherent when I'm done, I'll just start telling my life's story, and hope I have enough sanity to finish it.

My parents... I'd like to say I have parents to thank, but cancer took them both. Most of my friends were shocked, and to be fair, they're right that I am far too young to not have my parents anymore, but I decided a long time ago that what I could do about it was nothing at all, so why bother letting it get me down?

My brother... my kid brother lives in Illinois. Oh, who the hell am I kidding? He's... twenty-one now, I think. Not much of a kid. He didn't take the deaths of our parents very well, and he moved away from home almost immediately after turning eighteen. And hell, I don't really blame him.

I've got assorted aunts and uncles all throughout Michigan, and most of the Midwest. Even got some cousins down in the south. And my girlfriend... I'll miss her. I really will. If she reads this, I want her to remember that I love her above all things, and I'm sorry about what happened to me.

I also want my friends to know that what happened to me was nobody's fault, except for possibly the crackhead who shot me. Might be his. Might not even be his fault, either. As a matter of fact, had I woken up in Detroit in December? I'd have been in and out of a hospital in no time. So no, I have no idea whose fault this is. But if I make it out of this? And if I find them? They will be in pain for a very, very long time.

I was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in the mid-1980s. I grew up in a little town named Plymouth, and so did my little brother. We lived there, we went to school there, et cetera, and everything was fine and dandy, until our parents both got cancer. We'd been telling them for over ten years that smoking as much as they did was a bad idea, but they never stopped. It had gotten bad enough that we spent most of our time at friends' houses, and in 2003, when they were both diagnosed within six months of each other? Nobody was surprised.

Yes, I grieved when they both passed remarkably quickly the next year. Don't get me wrong about that. They were my parents, and I loved them. But let's face facts. They left me, a twenty-year-old young man, alone with my seventeen-year-old brother to “raise”. Nobody was surprised when he split town right after his birthday. But a few people were surprised at how little they saw me grieve. But come now. They didn't see me grieve because I did it in private. But they also didn't see how goddamned angry I was at my parents. They never listened to us. They could have possibly stopped the cancer before it got too much into them. But no, instead they decided for our entire lives that smoking three packs a day on a workday was a brilliant idea. On the weekends, they went through an entire carton between the two of them. They took themselves away from us far before we were ready, and if it weren't for the fact that my brother got himself a scholarship to an out-of-state school, and if I hadn't gotten myself an excellent job, one I hope I still hold if I get out of here? We never would have made it. Ever. And that's really, really depressing.

It's getting dark out, dark enough that I can't see, and given that the floor of this cabin is covered in debris, I don't want to move in the dark to get moonlight, so I'll pick this back up tomorrow.

This Can't Be Happening.

My brother is missing. I stand by that. The police have long concluded their search of the northern Michigan woods known as the Seney Stretch. They're convinced he's dead. Even his girlfriend is convinced that he's dead. But I'm not. I can't be, especially not now. I have proof that he's not dead. At least, I hope this is proof.

A few days ago, while I was writing something, someone dropped a package at my front door and ran off. It was wrapped in plain brown paper, and there was some scribbling on it. In retrospect, I should have saved it, but I tossed it out. My own damn fault. Inside it was a manuscript. I've spent the whole time since I got it reading it, stopping only to sleep and eat, and I just finished it, for the twentieth time, this morning. It's an incomplete manuscript, apparently titled "Day Four", and it appears to have been written by my brother. It references myself, and his girlfriend, and the intentional trip to the woods, but it tells a slightly different tale from what we've been given to understand.

Apparently, he went to a surprise party for a mutual friend (his name is Alan; I was also at the party), and on his way back to his car, he was shot in the leg. According to his manuscript, he managed to crawl to an abandoned house (possibly the same one the police found his car in?), and passed out. When he woke up, he was on an island. And...so far, that's all I've been able to understand. He wrote down five days' worth of rambling storytelling in the process of describing what happened to him.

I'm really worried now.

Christ Almighty.

Christ almighty indeed. I have no idea how to even begin to describe this.

A manuscript. It's a fucking manuscript.

Like waking up from a dream.

I can hardly believe it's been four months. I mean, in retrospect, it makes perfect sense that it would be, but still. That said, it's been a long few months.  To say that a lot has happened since November would be the understatement of the fucking decade. And I feel like I'm unqualified to solve the myriad problems that I have, let alone begin to form plans to put what remains of my life right. But I suppose I'll have to start. But first, a little update.

(I've been reading Tad's blog since I "woke up", though I wasn't asleep in any sense of the word. I just feel myself again for the first time in a long time. I suppose that it's my fault for falling out of contact with him.)

It's been a damned long time since I felt I had the ability to just sit down and write for as long as I have. I feel somewhat bad for doing it, even now, because I should probably be looking for work at this point. Which, of course, brings me to the first of many life-changes that happened to me over the past four months. Sometime between mid-December and mid-January, I lost my job. I don't know exactly when, because I wasn't officially "fired" until the middle of February, by which point I really didn't give much of a shit anyway. And really, why should I? I had thought that perhaps I would go home to my native Michigan, but I...I just don't think I can do that. Not now. Not ever. (And, for once, there are no political motivations here.)

And it's not like I really have to leave. My lease is up end of April anyway, and if I don't have a job then, I suppose I can just...disappear. Not that I want to, mind you, but because it does really seem to be the best course of action. I can...well, hell, I haven't gotten to that, yet, have I? I don't want to, and it's painful for me to even think about this, and goddamn it, it's not like anyone who reads this has a right to know, but hell, I have no other venting apparatus, so I'll roll with it.

I got a call one morning early in January, from my brother's girlfriend. See, Nick was supposed to leave just after Christmas, to go on some ridiculous hike in the northern Michigan woods in winter, for his job. I don't pretend to understand why he does that sort of stuff. But apparently he'd set up some sort of system where he'd contact his bosses every few days to keep in touch to make sure that he didn't need help, or rescue, or other shit like that. Good idea, but apparently he hadn't contacted them in over two weeks. I mean, it's not the first time he's plain forgotten to do that, but they couldn't get a hold of him, and asked his girlfriend. She tried with no luck, and asked me. I tried, and again, no luck, no joy. Nick was just out there. But I've seen him last longer than two weeks in harsher climates.

But then they found his car. See, that was when we realized we had a problem. Nick's car was found parked in the garage of an abandoned house in Detroit, not too far from where he was last seen. It was still locked. In fact, that's the strangest thing. The entire house, though abandoned and ransacked years ago, didn't appear lived-in. It was almost as though the local homeless actively avoided the house (and in fact, I was told exactly that by one of the investigating officers late in January), and nothing in his car had been touched or moved. Not his cell phone. Not his tent. Not even his rations. Which meant that whereever Nick was, he was without his things, and that's when I started to worry.

I'll add more to this tonight, but I'll post it now. I just heard my door buzzer.