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The moon was full, but clouds hid it, leaving Cedar Grove shrouded in a darkness that seemed to swallow the light from the few working streetlamps. Ticci Toby didn't need light. He knew the darkness like an old lover. Knew its corners, its secrets, the way it concealed things like him.
The axe in his hand wasn't a tool. It was an extension of his arm. The steel, cold and familiar, weighed less than the memory of Liu's touch on his skin.
Slenderman wanted everyone in the residence dead. A simple order. Clear. The house was the last on the street, isolated from the others. Easy.
Toby entered through the back door, a simple push and the lock gave way with a satisfying click. The kitchen smelled of sour milk and lavender. A half full baby bottle sat on the counter. A small rag doll lay on the floor.
He found her in the living room. Sarah Mitchell. Dirty blonde hair tied in a messy ponytail, eyes wide with terror. She was standing, holding a phone with no signal, her body trembling violently.
"Please," she whispered, the words coming out like air bubbles from a drowning person. "I have a baby. Please."
Toby tilted his head to the side, a tic that jerked his right shoulder. His eyes behind the amber lenses traveled over her body. Small. Fragile. A mother.
The axe moved.
It wasn't a killing blow. It was a horizontal cut, clean, surgical in its lethality. The blade opened her belly like a macabre flower, and for a second, before the pain hit, Sarah just stared at her own open flesh, at the insides beginning to reveal themselves.
Then she screamed.
Toby smiled. The sound was good. Real. Human.
He let her run.
It was a calculated decision, not an act of mercy. Refined sadism. She held her stomach with both hands, trying to keep her insides in, and ran. Up the stairs. Each step left a bright red trail. Each breath was a wet, agonizing moan.
Toby followed at a slow, deliberate pace. His heavy footsteps echoed on the wooden stairs. He could hear her gasping upstairs, doors slamming. Searching for an exit. For salvation.
The upstairs hallway was dark, except for a strip of light coming from under a door at the end. The baby's room door.
Sarah reached the door. Her bloody hands found the knob. She turned it, pushed.
And fell.
Her body couldn't take it anymore. The blood loss, the shock, the pain all converged and dropped her on the threshold of the room. She fell face down, her face pressed against the soft carpet, her fingers still twitching, trying to drag herself inside.
Toby stopped in the doorway, his large body filling the gap. His eyes adjusted to the soft light of the room.
It was a baby's room. Pastel yellow. Animal mobiles spinning slowly above the crib. A nursing chair in the corner. The smell of talcum powder and breast milk.
And in the crib, crying softly, was the reason Sarah had fought to get there.
Toby entered. His steps were heavy on the soft carpet. He passed Sarah, who was crawling now, a trail of blood behind her, her eyes fixed on the crib.
"My baby," she whimpered, her voice a thread of sound. "Please, don't..."
Toby ignored her. He approached the crib and looked inside.
Emma Mitchell, three months old, was awake. Her blue eyes, still not quite focused, were open. She wasn't crying loudly just making small sounds of discomfort, her tiny fists waving in the air.
Toby tilted his head to the side, observing. His eyes behind the lenses traveled over the small creature. The fine blonde hair. The round cheeks. The tiny hands with nails that needed cutting.
He lowered the axe, leaning it against the crib. With one arm the arm that could break doors, crush skulls, hold Liu with possessive strength he leaned in and picked up the baby.
Emma was light. Surprisingly light. Like holding a cloud. A bird. Something that could fly away if he wasn't careful.
He held her against his chest, his arm forming a cradle around the small body. His hand, big enough to completely encircle the baby's torso, was firm but not tight. There was a practice in this gesture, a muscle memory he didn't know he possessed. Maybe from holding Liu when he fell asleep. Maybe from something older, more primitive.
Sarah was at his feet, her fingers gripping the crib rail, trying to pull herself up. Her face was pale, her breath a wet gurgle.
"Give... her to me," she begged, blood dripping from her mouth. "Please..."
Toby looked at her, then at the baby in his arms. Emma stopped crying. Her blue eyes were fixed on Toby's face, on the bandage on his cheek, on the eyes behind the lenses. She didn't seem scared. Just curious.
He turned, leaving Sarah clinging to the crib, and walked to the nursing chair. He sat down. The upholstery was soft, comfortable. He settled in, adjusting the baby in his arms.
Sarah was dragging herself towards him now, a trail of blood and entrails behind her. Her hand reached the foot of the chair, her fingers curling into the fabric.
Toby looked at her. Then at the baby. Then at the axe, still leaning against the crib, Sarah's blood on the blade reflecting the soft light of the moon-shaped lamp.
"I want a baby too," Toby said, his voice coming out in a hoarse whisper, broken by a tic that jerked his head. "They're cute."
Sarah stared at him, her eyes wide with a new kind of terror. Not the terror of imminent death, but the terror of insanity. Of the perverse logic being presented to her in the last moments of her life.
"And I'd be a good father," Toby continued, his fingers gently stroking the baby's fine hair. "I'd take care. Feed. Protect."
He paused, his eyes losing focus for a moment, as if seeing something far away. Something not in the room.
"And Liu would be a good mother," he added, and his face softened in a way Sarah would never have imagined possible on that face marked by violence and scars. "He's gentle. Patient. He remembers things. When I forget to eat. When I need water."
Sarah was crying now, silent tears mixing with the blood on her face. "Please... she's all I have..."
"Liu is all I have too," Toby replied, as if this were a logical equivalence. "And he deserves a baby. Something cute to take care of. Something that's ours."
He looked at Emma in his arms. The baby was quiet now, her eyes half closed. She was falling asleep, comforted by the gentle rocking of Toby's arms, by the warmth of his body.
"I wouldn't hurt her," Toby said, his voice taking on a defensive tone, as if someone had accused him otherwise. "I know how not to hurt. Liu taught me. When you love someone, you're careful. Even when it's intense. Even when it hurts."
Sarah made a sound, a muffled scream that turned into a fit of wet coughing. Her body was coming apart, life escaping through her fingers that still clung to the foot of the chair.
"You're dying," Toby observed, his voice clinical, as if commenting on the weather. "So I'll keep her. I'll raise her. I'll teach her to be strong. Like Liu taught me."
He gently rocked the chair, his eyes fixed on the sleeping baby's face.
"We'll call her... Lily," he decided. "Liu likes flowers. He draws flowers. Sometimes the flowers have tentacles, but he says they're still flowers."
Sarah was stopping moving. Her fingers were relaxing, letting go of the chair fabric. Her eyes were fixed on her daughter's face, in the arms of the monster.
"I'll tell her about you," Toby promised, his voice soft now, almost a coo. "I'll say you were pretty. That you fought. Liu likes stories about people who fight."
Sarah's last breath came out as a whisper, a name: "Emma..."
And then silence.
Toby sat in the chair for a long time, gently rocking, holding the sleeping baby. The room was silent, except for the ticking of the sun-shaped clock on the wall and Emma's soft breathing.
He looked at Sarah's body, sprawled on the floor. Then at the axe, still leaning against the crib. Then at the baby in his arms.
The voices in his head, which normally whispered orders of violence, were silent. Or maybe they were whispering something different. Something about warmth. Something about small hands. Something about Liu smiling.
He imagined. Imagined arriving home at the Mansion, not in this house of the dead, with the baby in his arms. Imagined Liu opening the door, his green eyes widening. Imagined explaining. "She's ours now, Liu. I brought her for us."
Imagined Liu taking the baby, his movements always so graceful, so careful. Imagined Liu smiling that small, private smile that was just for Toby.
They would be a family. A strange, broken, monstrous family. But a family.
Emma stirred in her sleep, a small sigh escaping her lips. Toby adjusted her in his arms, his large hand supporting her tiny head.
"Lily," he whispered. "Your name is Lily now."
He stood up from the chair, still holding the baby. Walked to the crib and, with one hand, picked up a yellow blanket, with ducks on it. Wrapped the baby in it.
Then, he picked up the axe. The blade was cold against his hand.
He looked at Sarah's body for one last moment. "Thank you," he said, and the gratitude was genuine. "For her."
And then he left the room, down the stairs, out the front door, into the night. The baby in one arm, the axe in the other. A scene as macabre as it was beautiful in its perversity.
On the street, he stopped, looking at the house. Slenderman wanted everyone in the residence dead.
Toby tilted his head. Sarah was dead. That counted as everyone.
He held the baby closer to his chest. "Let's go home, Lily," he whispered. "Daddy's going to introduce you to your other daddy."
And he began to walk, disappearing into the shadows, leaving behind a house of death and taking with him a new life a life he promised himself would be different. Better.
Because he would be a good father.
And Liu would be a good mother.
And Lily... Lily would be loved. In an intense, possessive, dangerous way.
But loved.
And for Toby Rogers, the monster who felt no pain, who had only learned to love through Liu Woods, the boy with green eyes, that was all that mattered.
Love.
Family.
Always together.
Always.