I'm already getting off topic

I shouldn't have done that, gone off about Rose before talking about myself first. But I did tell you that I'm bad at telling stories. But now that I have told the beginning of the proxies, I should tell the beginning of me.

I have been around this world a long time. As such, my information has been scattered around several blogs. I am not exactly secretive about my past, but it never struck me as something I needed to mention in any concrete detail.

I suppose that was wrong of me, so now I shall try to correct that.

I was born in Texas. On a horse ranch my parents owned. I figure I would have owned it eventually too, if things had turned out differently. It had been in the family for a while. I assume at some point my father must have tried to get away, because while I have forgotten most things about him I remember that he must have gone to college. Because that was where he met Dubois.

Alexander Dubois was a friend of my father's. I remember him all too well. He would come around often, and he and my dad would talk about their time at school. But I loved him too, because he was one of the few adults who paid attention to me.

I suppose I was an offputting child. I remember when I was ten I became fascinated with the stove and put my hand on it. Unlike most children, I didn't take it off. I still have the scar to prove this. But Dubois didn't mind, he even seemed to approve of it. He caught me skinning a squirrel once and instead of yelling at me said that he wouldn't tell my parents and flashed me a secret smile. I adored him. And when he asked me to go home with him one day, I didn't even blink.

Instead of the sleepover I had thought would occur, I was drugged and woke up in the basement that would be my home for eight years.

Dubois admired my strength, you see. And he was a teacher. He made this clear regardless of what was being done to me. It was to make me strong. And although I hated him for it, I also knew he was right.

I killed him eventually, escaped the basement and made my way into the larger world. I would love to say that I adjusted well. But it would be false. Pain and blood was all I knew. So when I needed food, I took it. My hunger left a body count, and the police came after me. That's when I discovered that Dubois had done what he said he would. I was strong, so strong it took four fully trained police officers to take me down. But I was taken down, eventually. If life had gone differently, I could have very well gone to Death Row. But where I was being held, there was also an officer. He was an opportunist, and worked for any side that would pay him. He took an interest in me. Broke me out. And introduced me to a facility that would give me skills and teach me how and when to use them.

And that's how I became an assassin.

I'm not good at telling stories

I have tried before, of course. But it's always something that is hard for me. If you don't believe me, you could always look at my other blog. But I wouldn't recommend it. It's very random and confusing and when I was cranky I would insult my viewers. Which I'm going to try not to do this time around.

I suppose one of the first problems I have with stories is that I never know where to start. And no, 'the beginning' doesn't help. There are countless beginnings, and countless ends. They all bleed together and I end up having to go back and re explain. So, while it probably won't completely solve the problem, I have decided that I am going to have to start with a much farther beginning.

To be precise, The Beginning.

Our world has always been full of things we didn't understand. And ever since humankind became aware of that, they tried to create stories to explain them. Of gods and crying mountains and monsters that would lurk in the corner of your eye. Eventually of course, we reached the point where we could discover what really occurred. Omens and curses were replaced by weather patterns and microbes. We entered an age of reason.

Except as a species we assumed that because some of the stories proved false, they all were.

What I need you to know is that some monsters are real. They have existed since before we have, lurking in the shadows. Sometimes a human may encounter them, and either follow the being or take arms against them. But it has always been small. Easy to brush off as a single event or a crazy cult. An author changed a few details of some of these creatures and made quite a name of himself: a faceless man that brought destruction, a tree full of the blood of gods, a woman of the woods. But that helped them hide even more.

Except a number of years ago, one of these monsters brought together twelve of his followers. They were not given details. Just an assurance that soon their numbers would grow, and the task to find a system that could handle that growth.

These twelve people created what would be eventually called the Bureaucracy, and were rewarded in various ways.

Not long after they created this system, a man named Victor Surge posted a photo on the internet. And the entity known as the Slender Man began to expand his influence.

My name is David Banks.

And up until recently, I thought I was the last of the Twelve still alive.