Entity 150 : “The Stalkers”

Contact with water
Contact with fire
Being hit or harmed by a wanderer
Day/night cycles affecting its behavior.
Attempting to make conversations/interact with the entity
Running away from the entity
Standing still for a certain period of time

Description:

Stalkers usually wear regular clothing that covers much of their body. Items like hoodies, pants, and boots are all commonly seen on Stalkers. Each and every feature of their body and choice of clothing is relatively normal, and it is difficult to differentiate a human and a stalker.

Behaviors:

It has also been noted by victims that Stalkers can also develop the tendency to hide from the victim, most likely to up the paranoia once it is noticed1. Although Stalkers do not immediately threaten a Wanderer physically, the mental effects of being followed by a Stalker are fatal.

Once a Stalker begins pursuing a wanderer, it will not stop for upwards of an entire day. It is truly hard to ignore a Stalker, but ignoring one is the best thing to be done when being stalked. It seems that from many accounts, prolonged exposure to a Stalker’s presence can provoke serious psychological trauma to the wanderer, mainly paranoia. When a wanderer begins to think about the stalker, that is when the fits of paranoia begin, and if this wanderer cannot ease their mind in under an hour, the Stalker becomes physically violent. In short, if one keeps thinking about the Stalker, they will be hurt or likely killed by the entity.

Although a Stalker will only usually become violent after this occurrence, on specific levels certain triggers can make a Stalker become hostile. The following is a compiled list of the most common triggers observed between levels:

These are all non-level-specific triggers. A thorough list of level-specific triggers is in the works.

As for the attack patterns of a Stalker, they can vary. Usually, once hostility is triggered, the Stalker will not use a weapon or surrounding object to attack or defend itself, instead resorting to just using its body to inflict physical harm. It has not yet been discerned why, but Stalkers will occasionally stop hurting a victim before said victim dies. Generally, Stalkers do make sure to kill any victim. After this, they will simply leave the victim, allowing the body to rot on the floor. Strangely, bodies killed by a Stalker rot much quicker than a typical body.

There is only one more notable behavior of a Stalker and this pattern is present in every known instance of a Stalker. Once a Stalker finds another wanderer nearby2, it will begin to follow that wanderer instead. This is one of the possible reasons why a Stalker will leave a wanderer on the brink of death, but other explanations are also possible.

M.E.G. Department of Wanderer Safety, June 3rd, 2002
On behalf of the Major Exploration Group's Department of Wanderer Safety, I would like to address a common concern held by many wanderers. We would like to formally address and answer the following question:

"What decides who a Stalker pursues?"

Although many field tests have been done to attempt to answer this, it is yet unknown the exact reason why a Stalker chooses to pursue who it does. The most probable answer is that it is simply random, but for your safety and concerns, we will list some plausible theories.

Stalkers choose the first wanderer they see. This theory was half-proven, as we found that if a Stalker is pursuing a wanderer, it will immediately begin following the next wanderer that comes within a certain, undetermined radius of it.
Stalkers pursue wanderers who are alone. Although there is nearly no way of proving this for certain, every observation our department has done showed that in all cases the initial victim was by themselves.
Undetermined triggers. Although this is one of the hardest to prove, it is just as plausible as any other theory. It is possible that there are certain triggers that cause Stalkers to pursue specific wanderers. Because of how many triggers would need to be tested to prove this, we have not yet made an attempt on discovering these possible triggers.

Of these theories, only the first was proven. But still, we have not been able to figure out what causes the initial stalking to occur. We are aware that while a wanderer is being stalked, the Stalker can switch who it follows, but we do not know why the first hypothetical wanderer was stalked.
As an important sidenote, we have also found Stalkers standing entirely still when they are not pursuing anybody. Though we have not yet seen these idle Stalkers begin to stalk someone after this idle period.
We hope this answers your inquiries.

Regards,
Dr. Makino, head of the M.E.G. Department of Wanderer Safety

Biology:

• Entity 150 does not show any signs of breathing like a human being.3
• There is no pulse present anywhere on the body of an instance of Entity 150.
• Entity 150 has eyes but has never been recorded to blink.
• Although there are many difficult terrains for it to navigate, Entity 150 seems to be able to do it with ease, likely possessing traits such as enhanced night vision or echo-location.
• Entity 150 makes frequent, soft clicking noises, supporting the theory that they use echo-location.
• Instances of Entity 150 have vastly different physiques, though this has no effect on their physical capabilities.

The reason for the lack of thorough medical analysis is because it would require the constant thought of the Stalker being observed, and as of yet, no instance of the Entity has been successfully killed, making a biopsy or autopsy even more strenuous.

Discovery:

The following is a typed version of the "A-Notes" found on Level 61. This specific note is theorized to have taken place on Level 77.

Sometime in December
I got woken up earlier than usual today by one of the guys from the M.E.G. I still haven't learned his name but I've seen him around before so I decided to do whatever he said without question. Just a bit pissed that he woke me up so early, my eye lids were practically begging to close for another minute, like cmon man, it isn't bootcamp.
Anyway, he asked me to fetch Almond Water because apparently that was my job today. I got up and walked a few train carts down, looking under seats, inside cabinets, wherever I could. By the end of it all I had two hand fulls of thermoses. But that isn't the weird bit of today, lemme tell ya, shit got WEIRD.
This dude kept looking at me from another cart, I went ahead and walked to the other cabin, pretty tensed up to fight, maybe he wanted my water, I dunno. Once I had shut the door of the cabin, I saw him with his head practically pressed against the glass of the other door. I ignored it.

Still December, same day, ran outta room

Hi. So the guy kept following me, cabin after cabin. I met up with another guy while switching cabins again and he pointed out the weird stalker guy. I told him it's probably no biggie, so he just walked right past the dude. Thank God he did that though, cuz then that stalker started stalking him instead of me.
It's safe to say I ran the hell out of there. I dropped off the almond water at the outpost cabin and rested for the rest of the day. Now that I think about it, I never saw that stalker or the other guy again. Creepy.
Yo it's me again, writing from the future (oooooo). So I got out of the level, ended up back in Level 4 (for like the 40th fuckin time), and a new guy I met showed me this picture he took after I told him the story. Eerie as hell but it took me a while to find this paper so I could write the PS, please take a look, kinda cool in a creepy-cool way, I dunno.4

Dos and Don'ts:

• Ignore the stalker, it cannot harm wanderers just going about their day.
• Keep the mind occupied. Listen to music, draw, go for a jog, or whatever it takes to forget about the entity.
• Don’t interact with the Stalker in any way.
• Find another wanderer and meet up with them. It may sound harsh, but if it pursues them the Stalker is no longer a threat.

• Interact with the Stalker in any way.
• Try to kill or overpower the entity, it will only end poorly.
• Attempt to hide or run away. The entity can easily pursue a typical wanderer.
• Surrender.
• Attempt to bribe it in any manner, whether with food, shelter, etc.
• Continue to focus on the entity in any way. Don't write about it draw it, take a picture of it, or anything that could require a decent amount of thought about the entity.

Spibsboft1 was responsible for writing this (oh no!)

Stalker Image:
Source: Pixabay
Author of Image: JMSchiele (on Pixabay)
License: Pixabay License
Check it out: https://pixabay.com/photos/night-stalker-person-scary-hide-423704/
(All of this is also in the licensing box)

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