The 12-year-old girl who nearly was sacrificed to Slender Man by her preteen friends is back at home, recovering from 19 stab wounds.

The girl, whose name has been withheld, was attacked May 31 by Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, both 12. The two assailants had become obsessed with a creepy, Internet-created bogeyman called Slender Man, according to police: They hoped that by killing the girl they could become Slender Man’s proxies and be allowed to live with him.

The girls, both of whom will be tried as adults, invited the girl into the woods during a sleepover and attacked her—one holding her down while the other attacked. She managed to survive, though, and crawled out of the woods where she was found by a biker.

Her family hasn’t pressed the surviving girl about her ordeal, but when they asked her how she managed to crawl out of the woods, the girl said, “I wanted to live.” (Los Angeles Times)

Paul Asay has written for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for PluggedIn and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He recently collaborated with Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, on his book The Good Dad. He lives in Colorado Springs with wife, Wendy, and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.