Operatus the Forewarner
21-year-old Jenny woke with a jolt in the middle of the night. She sat up straight in her bed and tried not to think about the nightmare she'd just had. She wrapped her blanket around herself and shivered as she saw her breath. How did it get so cold all of a sudden? She was sure the thermostat was at 70 degrees last she checked. Then she saw that her window was open. Jenny wondered why it had just opened for no reason, got out of bed, and shut the window. There were claw marks on the windowsill. She thought it was probably the cat. God, that creature was smart. First it learned how to open cabinets to get food, now it learned how to open windows to get inside? Immediately the thought left her and was replaced with a desire to go back to sleep. As she laid down in her bed and pulled up the covers, she felt something weighing them down, as though the cat were at the foot of her bed.
Poor cat, she thought, trying to get its little self warm. She reached over to pet the cat and maybe try to warm it up. She felt something far different.
It was a hand, cold as ice.
Jenny quickly withdrew her hand and turned on the lamp beside her bed. Sitting at the end of it was not the cat, but a strange humanoid figure. From head to toe it was jet black. Even sitting on her bed, the thing's head almost touched the ceiling. Its arms and legs were long and skinny, and its fingers and toes were tipped with dark, long nails... or were they claws? They looked more like claws, but Jenny really couldn't tell. A few seconds after the light went on, the creature turned its head to Jenny and opened its eyes. There was no white to the eyes. No irises. No pupils. Not even eyeballs. All that the eyes were looked like red, glowing circles with X's in the middle that were also glowing red.
The thing sat there, watching her, and tilted its head to one side, curious at the woman's strangely silent reaction to this monster. At the movement, though, Jenny opened her mouth to scream, but the being was fast enough to shove its hand against her mouth, keeping her quiet, her scream muffled as though she were screaming into her pillow. Slowly, the thing lifted its other hand and held up its index finger over where the mouth would be, if it had a mouth. "Ssssshh," it seemed to hiss. It wasn't a threatening hiss though. It continued, in a whisper, "Relax, young one. I am not going to hurt you." As it spoke it crossed its heart, as though making a promise. It released its hand from Jenny's mouth, and all she could do was pant in fear. Tears welled up in her eyes as she feared death. "Oh, child," spoke the figure, and reached for a tissue at the other end of her bedroom. It folded it gently and patted near her eyes, drying them. "Please listen to me, as I do have a purpose here."
"Wh-who are you?!" Jenny stammered. "What are you doing in my house??"
"SSSHH!!" hissed the creature again. Jenny went quiet. The creature whispered, "Not so loud, lest I be unable to deliver my message." Jenny was confused. What message? The thing paid no mind and said, "I am Operatus, little Jenny. That is my name." He took her hand and shook it like a proper greeting. "I am here to warn you of the dangers that are yet to come. You are not safe here. You must leave before the 21st of December. If you don't, that will be a fatal mistake. Oh, but don't worry. I am not going to be the one you will see on the 21st. No, no, who you will see is my master... That is, if you are still here to see him..." Operatus chuckled and crawled to the window, opened it, and climbed out, then turned his head into the window again. "Beware the Winter Solstice," he said, and then disappeared into a puff of dark black smoke, blown away by the wind.
Jenny didn't sleep that night.
Much later, though, she dismissed the dream as some hallucination caused by hunger and insomnia. Every night after that she would have a snack and a sleeping pill before bed, and her nightmares went away. Christmas time came, and the Winter Solstice was approaching rapidly.
On the 20th of December, Jenny sat on the sofa, facing the fireplace. The fire was bright and warm, and it made her warmer to have her little kitty asleep on her lap. The clock struck 11 and the cat awoke and bolted off of Jenny's lap. She wondered why in the world her cat acted so strangely. She just kept looking at the fire and wondered what she was going to get for Christmas. Presents, candy, toys, clothes... fire. Her attention shifted back to the thought of fire as the smoke was growing denser and darker, but it smelled the same as it did before.
Suddenly a cold breeze went through the house and snuffed out the fire. The black smoke kept crawling out of the fireplace, in front of Jenny. There it grew and solidified, becoming Operatus. He stood and spoke with a darker, louder voice than his first visit.
"I TOLD YOU TO BEWARE THE WINTER SOLSTICE. YOU DID NOT LISTEN TO ME! NOW YOU ARE GOING TO PAY THE PRICE!" After he was through talking, Operatus turned back into smoke and fled up the chimney.
Jenny looked at the clock. 11:15 pm. She'd forgotten her snack and pill. Of course she would have seen him. She went into the kitchen to get what she needed.
The following day, on December 21st, Jenny's charred body lay in the fireplace. Her mouth was open as though she were screaming. Blood coated everything in the living room; the TV, the Christmas tree, the presents, the carpet, the ceiling, everything. Many large, round holes pierced her body as though she were stabbed. Nobody knew what kind of weapon was round that could stab, though. A few bites had been taken out of her body, but the bite marks did not match that of a human.
In the kitchen, on the counter, was a sleeping pill and some toast with Nutella. Blood was dripping onto both from the wall, where a message had been written in Jenny's blood. It read, "MY SERVANT WARNED HER TO LEAVE THIS PLACE. SHE THOUGHT WE WERE MERE DREAMS. HEED THIS AS A WARNING, HUMANS, LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT IS FALSE AND WHAT IS, IN FACT, MORE REAL THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE.
"-SLENDERMAN WAS HERE"
Credited to Shadowfan36
Originally uploaded on May 6, 2012
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