What Reason Do You Need

I felt a steady beat and realized it was my heart. I wasn't filled with nothing. I had something inside of me. I had a heart.

The beat grew stronger and louder until it deafened me. I dropped the gun on the ground and it broke apart, as if it was made of plaster. It wasn't a real gun. It was a pretend gun and I had been shooting pretend bullets.

Everything rushed back to me. I wasn't empty any longer - I had my soul and my dreams and my loneliness and my secrets and my guilt and I was filled to the brim.

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't like Mondays," the man in the gray suit said. "What reason do you need?"

The world twisted and turned and I found myself back in my house. I was standing in front of the television as it blared bad news about tragedy and blood.

"I don't want to go back," I said. "I don't want it to be like it was before."

"Then change," the man in the gray suit said. "There is still time." He took a pocket watch and checked it. "There will always be time."

I turned off the television and sat down. "But what do I do now?" I asked.

But the man in the gray suit was gone. I had asked an empty room in an empty house.

I wandered around the house for a bit before turning on the radio. They were playing the Doris Day version of "Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)." And I listened and thought about what I was going to do now.

I was tired and couldn't think of anything to do aside from returning to work, so I decided to go to sleep. Perhaps I'll dream up something to do. I only have the rest of my life to choose.

There's plenty of time.

"So what's the twist?" the reader asked.

"What do you mean?" the writer asked.

"The twist," the reader said. "It's the end, she's already killed all the Fears. There has to be a twist."

"Does there?"

"I bet it's all just a hallucination. I bet she's trying to commit suicide and she's trying to get ready, making herself hard and empty."

"No," the writer said. "It's not a hallucination."

"Then I bet the Man in Gray is setting her up. I bet he's trying to make her into something like himself. A Woman in Gray."

"No," the writer said. "Sorry, that's not it."

"Really? Crap. It can't be a dream. I mean, that's too cliche."

"Does there really need to be a twist?"

"Of course. I mean, she's killed the Fears. She's killed the goddamn Slender Man. And now what? Now what's going to happen? I mean, something must happen."

"Of course something's going to happen. But why does there have to be a twist?"

"Because it makes the ending a surprise. A good twist means we can look back and see everything that led up to it. A good twist changes the meaning of the entire thing."

"And a bad twist?"

"Well, that changes the meaning, too, but, you know, in a bad way. But seriously, what's the twist?"

"There is no twist."

"Really?"

"Truly."

"But what's going to happen then? I mean, what's going to happen to Elizabeth?"

"What do you think? She's killed the monsters. She's emptied herself out. What else can she do except go back to her life. Back to the life she had before."

"But...without emotions? Without feelings?"

"It's not really the life she had before. It's more of a half-life, doing the same actions, but without the same feeling. She isn't afraid, she isn't sad, and she isn't happy. She sleeps without dreaming. She can't even remember her past and she knows that she has no future. She does what she does because she has nothing else to do."

"And then?"

"And then what?"

"There has to be an 'and then.' And then the Man in Gray appeared. And then something happened. And then she died. I mean, this is a story, it has to have a proper ending."

"It does have a proper ending. This is it. This is the end of her story. She killed her monsters and, in the process, killed herself. She's not alive, not really. She's a shell. And because she doesn't care, she'll go on being a shell until the world fades away around her. She is the Endmaker and this is the ending she has made."

"That's not a good ending."

"I never said it was. But it's her ending."

"Well, it's fucking depressing. Can't you give her a better ending? You can even make the whole thing a dream if you want, I don't fucking care."

"You want a happy ending?"

"It doesn't need to be happy, it just needs to be something that isn't depressing as fuck."

"Fine."

And then there was the last monster. It stood before me, its limbs long, its face white and empty. I wondered how anyone could find this thing scary. I didn't feel fear standing before it. I felt nothing.

The street was empty. Over us was a canopy of trees, their leaves all shades of black. I had walked here directly from my encounter with the monster after death. I felt strong. I felt like I could walk up to this monster and shoot him in the head and that would be the end. I could kill him without a thought.

The last monster stood before me and did nothing at all.

What was it waiting for, an invitation? I wanted it to try and kill me. I wanted to show it how I had changed. I wanted to show it that I had no fear of death, no fear of whatever it was. I was fearless.

But the last monster stood before me and did fuck all.

I raised the gun. "Fuck you," I said and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. There was no bullet. None had been made.

I kept the gun raised. There had to be a way to make a bullet. Before, I had made the bullets when confronted with the monster or before, with the help of the man in the gray suit, but now there was nothing. The man in the gray suit had left before I had walked here. I was alone with no bullet and a monster that did nothing.

The last monster tilted his head and looked at me. "Well?" I said. "What the fuck are you waiting for?"

It turned and started to walk away. I wasn't angry - I had no anger left - but I was disappointed. What was this all for if I couldn't kill him? I had to kill the last monster. I had to kill all the monsters. I had to save the world.

I ran after the last monster and pushed him. I'll admit, that was quite stupid.

He turned to look at me again. Why wouldn't he attack? Why? Was it because I didn't feel fear?

"It's because it no longer registers you as human," the man in the gray suit said. He stood far away, but I could hear his voice clearly. "It does not see as you see. It can see many aspects of many things, but at this moment, it sees you and does not register you as human. You are like a tree to it."

"How do I kill him then?" I asked.

"Do you have any emotions left?" he asked.

I did. I had my disappointment. I had my pride. I had my joy.

"Give them up," he said. "Pour them away. The bullet that kills it must be made from nothing. An empty bullet for a faceless monster."

His voice echoed in my head. What was left of me? What hadn't I given up yet? I would give everything away to kill this monster. The air around me felt heavy and I closed my eyes and I let everything go.

I opened my eyes and the world looked different. I felt nothing, no disappointment, no need to hurry, nothing at all.

I raised the gun and there was a bullet. It was like me. It was made of nothing.

I shot the last monster with the last bullet. It did not seemed shocked or surprised. No emotion registered on its lack of face. It stumbled and then reality around it seemed to crack and jump. One moment it was there and the next it wasn't and I knew it was dead.

I had killed it. I had killed the last monster.

I felt nothing. No joy, no sorrow.

No, wait. There was something. A sound, a steady beat. And then-

I died.

The bullet entered my body and punctured my heart. I instantly bled out. My body fell to the ground, my limbs splayed at unnatural angles. I was dead.

I was dead, but trapped. I was trapped in death. I was someplace else, someplace that was close by and impossibly far away. I wasn't in between life and death - as I said before, I was dead as a doornail - but I was in a place between. Just between.

It wasn't dark, it wasn't light. I couldn't see, since I had no eyes, but I felt calm. I felt serene.

And then I felt something grab me. I felt something pull and tug and twist.

And then I was in the world again, but I wasn't me. I was something else. I was a monster. I was the monster that came after death. It had killed me and taken my body. It stood over my dead body and grinned with my face. It had won.

Just like we had planned.

The man in the gray suit appeared. This was the first time he had shown up during one of my encounters with the monsters, but we had to plan it like this. This monster was too tricky, too cautious. The man in the gray suit could not confront him. He could only do one thing: he placed his hand over my face and healed my wounds.

Suddenly, I was alive and confronted with myself. I raised the gun and shot him with a bullet made from myself, a bullet carved from my own soul. I shot the monster with my soul and watched as it turned inside out, as it ate itself over and over again, until it was nothing more than a speck and then gone.

I stood up. I felt strong. Was this was it felt like, being without a soul?

The man in the gray suit stood before me. He raised one finger and I knew. I had one more monster left. One more monster to kill.


I wiped the blood from my shirt. I had died and been reborn.

I am free of loneliness and helplessness. I have no future and no past, no secrets and no sins. I am dreamless. I am soulless.

I am fearless.

I don't even remembering going to sleep. I must have, because I woke up in the middle of the night. To suddenly awaken from a dreamless sleep was disorienting and the darkness of the room made me forgot for a moment where I was. I thought for a moment I was somewhere else, but I couldn't remember where. I couldn't even remember my own name.

And then I saw it. Its eyes shown on the darkness. It crouched at the end of my bed. I couldn't see its face, but I then what it was: it was the monster in my closet, the monster under my bed, the monster every child was afraid would appear in their bedroom as they slept. Its fingers traced patterns on the bed and I grabbed the gun and-

And I couldn't move. There was a whispering sound, a susuruss, a murmur that made my body go rigid and stop. The gun was in my hand, but I couldn't move. I was paralyzed as the monster reached across the bed and stroked by cheek. Its fingers were cold and sharp and I felt blood well up where it touched me.

I could see its mouth now, with its rows and rows of teeth. It was whispering, each syllable making sure my body stayed still and silent. And then the whispers changed and my body moved by itself, my arm turned and I was pointing the gun at myself, at my head.

The monster was going to win. This was not how I thought this was going to happen. This was not supposed to happen. The monster couldn't win. I had to finish this. I had to kill all the monsters.

My finger pulled the trigger and the gun clicked. No bullets. Of course. Click. Click. My finger kept pulling the trigger as the whispers rose and fell and my body obeyed without question.

I was completely and utterly helpless. I was a plaything to this creature. I was nothing. I felt the monster's fingers at my neck and I knew it was over.

And then my helplessness poured out from me. It drained from my body and in the dark of the room, I saw a glint of metal. There was a bullet, one single bullet that gleamed in the dark.

The whispers stopped from a second and before they could start again, I grabbed the bullet and put it in the gun, then turned to the monster. Its fingers were still on my throat and I could feel pain as they tightened and as I pulled the trigger, I could see its face, I could see as the bullet struck its face and it shuddered in pain.

And then darkness descended again and I was left in bed with a dead monster. I carefully removed its claws from my throat and left the room.

Outside, in the moonlight, I raised my hand into the sky. I was no longer helpless. I had no memory of being helpless, no dreams of my life when I was so afraid. This is what I wanted.

Then why do I feel nothing?

I stood in the fiction section and I waited. I waited for the staff to leave and the lights to dim. The staff didn't notice me there - that's happening to me more and more, I think. People just don't seem to notice me. Perhaps I'm turning invisible. Probably a good thing. I couldn't stay here if I wasn't.

The lights went out and now it was dark and I was surrounded by books, by stories, by page after page of words. I was waiting for a monster with another book.

The man in the gray suit told me that he wanders libraries. I've been in this library since it opened at 8 am and now it is passed 6 pm and I will not move until I see him. I know he will come here. "They will be drawn to where you are," the man in the gray suit told me. "Even if they do not know you are there, they will be drawn to their own demise."

So I waited. And then I heard a skittering, like spider legs, and, even through the dark, I could see him. He was a monster, but he looked like an old man in a crumpled suit and dark glasses.

He was sitting at a table with a large heavy book open before him. I walked forward and the sound of skittering increased. I felt something brush past me, something with long hairy legs. I took the gun out from its holster and the sound of skittering went away.

I sat down across from the old man monster. He did not look at me. He looked only at his book. Then he spoke, his voice sounding like the turning of pages: "What if I were to write your name? Would you kill me even if you were missing your memories, even if you had no past? If you could not even remember your own name or what I was, would you still kill me?"

"Yes," I said and shot him.

The bullet was made of paper and written on it was my life story, from birth to now. Everything I ever remembered was on there, every single piece of my past, my history.

The old man monster bled ink onto his book. He took one last look at it before slamming it shut and said, "I thought so." The book sunk into the table and the old man monster smiled with ink-stained teeth and said, "It is easier to die then to live. You should know that. Death comes quickly, neatly, but life is messy and hard. The man in gray is showing you how to make death, how to make an ending. But it is the life before the end where the mystery lies. Death is not a mystery, it is the end of one. Goodbye."

I left his body in the library and went outside into the cold night. I do not know what he meant, but I suppose one day I shall find out.

I walked towards the door, but by the time I had gotten there, it was gone. It had moved to another wall. I walked to the other wall and the door moved again. I did not see it move, but it was gone by the time I had gotten there, so it must have.

Every time I found the door again, it moved. The door did not like me.

Of course it didn't. There was another monster, a monster in the shape of a city, beyond that door. And I was going to kill it.

The man in the gray suit told me it would be difficult to find. "It feeds on lost souls and is used to being lost itself," he said. "But you will find it. Find a door and you will find it."

I found a door. It was different from other doors I had seen - it had a glow to it, a special attraction. It feeds on lost souls, he had said, so perhaps I am a lost soul. But once I tried to get to the door, it wouldn't let me.

I raised the gun, but then stopped. If I just shot the door, would it do any good? No, I needed to shoot the monster beyond the door. I needed to be there. The gun would lead me there, I knew it. So I held the gun forward like a flashlight and walked carefully towards the door. It stayed still until I put my hand upon the doorknob and when I turned it, the door turned itself, like a carousel, and I found myself inside the monster. Inside the city.

There was only one road, but it went everywhere, even places it shouldn't, couldn't have gone. It twisted like a Mobius strip, but the buildings were worse. There moved as soon as I looked away, twisted themselves into increasingly complicated shapes, shapes that made my head hurt. The walls of the city started to close in on me, the ground shifting beneath my feet. Rows of doors presented themselves to me, but I wasn't leaving yet. The job wasn't done.

I raised the gun high into the air and fired it. I asked the man in the gray suit how can I killed a monster the size of a city, but he told me that it wasn't the size of a city - it was the size of a world, always shifting, always changing. And he had already show me how to kill a world.

The bullet came down, but now it was bigger. Now it was a meteor, a meteor made from everything I had ever lost, coins and socks and chances and loves. I opened a door and stepped back through it as the bullet came down and the buildings crumbled and a dust cloud burst upward. The monster that was a city tried to shift and become something else, something that could survive, but this was an extinction event. Nothing survives.

I closed the door behind me and watched as it turned to dust.