Slender Man. Anonymous

LAUREN

      I mean, I’m not exactly a literary critic. But yeah. I really liked it. The first bit, the dream, was really scary.

       MATT

      Awesome. I know you don’t scare easily :)

       LAUREN

      Damn right ;)

       MATT

      You really liked it?

       LAUREN

      You know I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t. You should show it to someone.

       MATT

      I did. I showed it to you :)

       LAUREN

      Smartass.

       LAUREN

      Seriously, though. Maybe Professor

       Trevayne?

       MATT

      Why?

       LAUREN

      He might like it too?

       MATT

      He might. Or he might tell me it’s a piece of shit. Either way, what does it matter?

       LAUREN

      What are you talking about?

       MATT

      You’ve met my dad, right?

       LAUREN

      Once or twice :)

       MATT

      Do you know how much writers make?

       LAUREN

      I would guess it depends on the writer.

       MATT

      Now who’s being a smartass?

       LAUREN

      You started it.

       LAUREN

      Why does it matter how much writers earn?

       MATT

      Because me telling my dad that I don’t want to be a lawyer, that I actually want to be a writer so would he mind financially supporting me for the rest of his life, is not a conversation that’s likely to go well.

       LAUREN

      That’s bullshit.

       MATT

      What is?

       LAUREN

      Even if you’re right. You enjoy writing.

       MATT

      Was that a question?

       LAUREN

      Nope. I know you enjoy it. So you should want this story to be as good as it can be.

       MATT

      OK.

       LAUREN

      So show it to someone who knows what they’re talking about. Like Professor Trevayne. He gives you advice, you finish the story, then the next one you write is better. I don’t see the problem.

       MATT

      I wish I hadn’t sent it to you.

       LAUREN

      Well that’s just tough shit I’m afraid.

       LAUREN

      I’m going to bed. Two questions first.

       MATT

      OK.

       LAUREN

      One. When are you going to send me part two?

       MATT

      When it’s ready.

       LAUREN

      Spoken like a true writer :)

       LAUREN

      Two. What’s the title going to be?

      THE DAWN ALWAYS BREAKS

       by Matt Barker

      He had no idea how much time had passed when he saw it.

      Time seemed malleable inside the forest, to the point where it had ceased to have any meaning. The rain had stopped briefly, then started again more heavily than ever. In the brief moments when water wasn’t falling from the sky, the air had cleared and felt fresh, before thickening again as the rain returned. It had felt like the first storm had passed, only for a second, stronger one to arrive within minutes. Which was impossible, of course. The storms that battered the valley were huge, vast sheets of dark clouds that blanketed the entire sky. They took hours to move across the sky, and it was unheard of for one to follow another directly.

      But that was what had happened. Stephen was sure of it.

      The trail was still there, rougher and more overgrown than ever, now boggy with mud and with streams running either side of it, but it was still there. Stephen had considered what he would do if – when – it ended, if he found himself faced with the impenetrable wall of undergrowth and tree trunks that ran along both sides of the trail, but had pushed the thought away. He would deal with that if and when it became necessary to do so, and there was no sense worrying about it until then.

      Thunder rolled overhead, a ceaseless drumbeat that shook great quantities of water down from the trees and trembled the trail beneath his feet. He paused, feeling the crackle in the air in his teeth and the bones of his jaw, then flinched as lightning burst across the sky, lighting the entire forest blinding white. A smell of burning filled his nose, the electricity in the air lifted the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck. The thunder rolled again, and this time he braced himself, ready for the flash when it came.

      The lightning struck with a noise like the end of the world. It sounded like it was close – too close – and the blaze of light was long and hurt his eyes. In the blue-white seconds before it faded, leaving dancing spots of red and yellow in front of his eyes, he saw the scale of the place he now found himself, saw the trees stretching away in every direction, tall and old and endless. And away to his left, where the trail made a gentle turn to the left, he saw something else.

      For a millisecond, he thought it was a tree. It was tall, and spindly, composed of straight lines and edges.

      Then it moved …

      Stephen allowed reality to come slowly, to wash over him like warm water. For long, stretched-out moments the divide between sleeping and waking was a blur of dark grey, the familiar surroundings of his bedroom bleeding into the equally familiar horror of his nightmares.

      They were always the same, and he had accepted that they would never leave him. Not entirely, at least: there were nights, sometimes as many as three or four in a row, when he slept as he had before the war, and he was never less than