Tether (18/18)
intro, chap 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
@bjfinn @hesawifebeaterdanusethegun
September 15 2025
I’m eating a black forest cupcake in honor of you, BJ. I don’t think you’ll be reading this but it just felt like I should, idk, write this. And say your name like you said. I won’t forget you. We were thrown together for some reason that I’m not smart enough to understand and I think we did our best. It’s almost 11pm, I’m sitting in front of the window that looks out over Main Street, eating this cupcake and you know what? I’m going to scream your name out the window and up to the sky. My throat hurts now. I really screamed it. This sucks. All this is happening, and for what? We were told about this, recruited into it. Why? So we can be even more scared? Like we were some insignificant pieces on a cosmic chess board being moved against our wills for the amusement of . . . who? What? Why US. I’m sorry BJ. I wish I could have actually met you. I hate that you wrote that you “let everyone down.” You didn’t. If I had tried to deal with this myself I don’t even know what I would have done. Gone literally crazy, I think. No one else seems to notice or care or something. You did. You helped. You made a difference. Thank you for all the time you spent with me. Okay okay okay— Jesus. Writing in this journal has become a habit. I have to get this down.
Everything went quiet outside. Then this mist, this fog, came in. Wrong time of year, wrong time of day for it. Whatever. That’s not even a blip on the radar at this point. It . . . erased the town. I couldn’t see other buildings or the streetlights or anything. But the Man in Black was there. Staring up at my window. At ME. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to scream your name and call him a fucking asshole and how I hated him, but I couldn’t get the words out. He made this weird little motion with his hand. Kind of a flicking motion. Up towards me. He’d never moved like that before— The next second it felt like I’d fallen into stinging nettles. Instant pain on my face and neck. I rubbed at them stupidly and they came out in my hand. BJ said they look like little shards of glass. He was right. Like when it happened to him, they dissolved too. I can still feel them in me, though. I got marked, just like BJ had been. When I had the ability to look out the window again, the Man was gone. The fog wasn’t though.
I’m writing this fast, because I don’t know how much more time I have
I went to the door. In the time it took me to cross my room (like six steps), the Man in Black had gotten from outside on the street to standing outside my door. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the glass in his mask. I couldn’t see him breathing. He held out his hand, palm up, to me. This is my last entry. It’s important.
If you’ve found this, consider it a curse. For those around you, however, it will hopefully be a blessing. This place is haunted by something sinister. What it is, we don’t exactly know and who we are, well that isn’t important. By the time you’ve found this we are undoubtedly dead, but we’ve used what may be our last moment to make a deal with something we can’t comprehend; a deal which ended in the creation of this journal. It is our understanding that whatever the terror that haunts this place is, it appears only periodically. Once every generation, it emerges from whatever dark pit it inhabits to feed on the fear and panic of the people. And for this, we must believe it has a weakness. Were it to stay here terrorizing us, we may be able to learn how to stop it. But showing up for a fleeting few days each generation, it is always an unexpected and new threat, preying on the unsuspecting and ignorant. That is why we created this journal. In the span of a few days, one cannot alone learn how to stop it, but if we can work together through the barrier of time, the key to setting ourselves free may not be so far out of reach. This journal will connect you to another point in time. When, exactly, we do not know. What we do know is that the journal will only be found by someone who is in danger. If you have found this, we are sorry. May whoever is on the other side have the clues that can help you survive what you are about to endure.
I know it’s you behind that mask, BJ. I don’t know how you did it or what kind of crazy sci-fi time loop thing you managed to make happen (must have been because you read so much) (or maybe those glass nettles accidently pushed you into this and you did the same to me!) (I’m not angry!), but now this Terror has two people to take the fight to the next two that get this journal. I think next time is going to work. I’m scared, but I’m not. I’m going to take your hand, BJ, and see what happens.













