Stories From The Cursed Excavation Site

 

The Cursed Excavation Site. (Or CES for short)

That’s what most of us call it. By “us”, I mean the soldiers and workers that are stationed there. The higher-ups call it something different. Some innocuous, bureaucratic title that they’ve designated for it. I guess it doesn’t really matter what anybody calls it. It sure is one hell of a bizarre place.

As you might have guessed, it’s a dig site located smack in the middle of a desert. I won’t disclose which one, even though I doubt that anybody would find it regardless. It’s quite the ways away from any kind of civilization. Like I mentioned before, there’s essentially two groups of people stationed there. The workers – archeologists, medics, guys who do grunt work, etc. And the soldiers. I’m part of the latter group.

Now, you might be wondering why an excavation site in the middle of nowhere would require the presence of armed soldiers. I was pretty confused about it myself at first. However, it’ll make more sense after I explain what kind of stuff goes on here.

Let me tell you more about how this place is set up. If you go and search up “excavation site” on google images, I can tell you that it won’t quite be an accurate representation of the CES. In fact, the difference is monumental. The title we gave it is a bit of a misnomer. It isn’t just one site. There’s actually nine of them, all spread out a few kilometers apart each.

We refer to each site by their number. (So, CES 1, CES 2, CES 3, ETC.) This isn’t an arbitrary system. It’s actually quite important. Maybe I’ll go into that later.

Each site is divided into three areas. One – the barracks or living quarters. They’re surprisingly nice and well air-conditioned, and we can usually get a few minutes of internet access a day. You can probably guess what most of the guys spend those minutes on. The food’s alright as well, although most of its either powdered or out of a can.

The second is the main digging area.

The third and final area is somewhat of an enigma. It has a simple, but apt name – “The Tent.” That’s literally what it is. Just a massive, white tent that’s located way off to the side, well past everything else. It kind of looks like one of those FEMA disaster relief tents, only way larger.

None of us have any idea what it’s for. And the ones that ever have the opportunity to find out don’t end up coming back. The thing is, it’s not a medical area, as you might assume it would be. We already have one of those, located in the barracks.

The people that end up going to the tent are usually suffering from stranger afflictions. I’ll give you an example, something that happened during my first week here. There used to be a guy named Amir, one of the lead archeologists. One day, he gets a call from the higher ups, instructing him to tell his team to start digging a tunnel down at a specific set of coordinates at CES 2, where I was stationed at the time

Amir sends them down and decides to check in with them after about two hours of digging, only to realize that he’s lost all contact. Radio silence. Thinking the worst, he decides to venture down into the tunnel himself in an attempt to figure out what’s going on.

Here’s where things get messy. Only about five minutes after he goes down, his team comes back up. However, he’s not with them, and his team doesn’t report ever seeing him down there. That obviously doesn’t make any sense. They hadn’t dug any branching pathways, just a linear tunnel. They also hadn’t reported seeing anything strange at all. The only reason they came back up was because it was getting close to lunch. And also… because Amir had apparently told them that they could.

They all looked understandably confused when we told them that Amir had failed to make contact with them at all, and that was why he’d gone down.

“That’s impossible,” one of the diggers said. “We were talking to him the entire time.”

We had a procedure for things like this. I thought it was pretty vague when I’d first read it, but this was a situation that it undoubtedly applied to.

In the case of any event(s) that isn’t explainable by the context of the events that have transpired earlier in the day, immediately contact the main office and await further instructions.

The “main office” basically meant the higher-ups. We followed the procedure and called it in, explaining what had happened to them. They simply told us to stay put and “wait for him to come back up.”

“Well, what if he doesn’t come back up?” I asked them, unsure of why they seemed so confident about that happening.

“He will,” they responded. “When he does, send him to the tent.”

I’m not kidding when I tell you that they hung up immediately afterwards. No instructions beyond that.

“Strange shit, right?”

I turned around, seeing Anze hovering over me. He was another soldier that was stationed there with me at the time. “You’ve never handed anybody off to the tent, have you?” he asked me.

I hadn’t, so I shook my head.

“Alright then,” he said. “I’ll show you the ropes. It’s a… delicate process.”

I gave him a look of confusion and he responded with a slight grin.

“Save the questions for after, alright?”

Sure enough, Amir came staggering out of the tunnel around ten minutes later. Although he seemed dazed and completely out of it, he didn’t appear to have any visible injuries.

“Watch closely,” Anze said as he got up and began walking towards him. As he got closer to Amir, he slowed down and drew his pistol. I looked around, seeing all of the other soldiers watching intently as he did so. Some had expressions of concern on their face. Others were grinning.

As Anze got within a few feet of him, he pointed the gun at Amir’s head, while reaching out for his hand at the same time. He grabbed it, before flipping it over to reveal his palm. And then he let out a big sigh of relief.

He looked back at us and held out a thumbs up. The other soldiers either groaned or let out sighs of relief as well before they all scurried back to their posts. Anze then looked at me, gesturing for me to come over.

“The most important thing you need to know in these situations,” he said. “Black is good. Red is bad.”

He showed me Amir’s palm, which was now marked with some strange black symbol. It looked similar to the squared circle (representing the philosopher’s stone), although more distorted. The edges of the triangle poked through the circle, and the lines all looked messy, as if they were drawn by a less-than-steady hand.

“So what now?” I asked him.

“We take him over to the tent. And then he stops being our problem.”

I looked up at Amir. He was staring off into space, his expression blank and pupils dilated to their absolute max. I waved my hand in front of his face, but he didn’t react at all.

I’m not gonna say something cliché like I started “regretting” my decisions at that moment. I knew that something wasn’t quite right with this place well before I took a position here. I “accepted” the risks, so to speak.

Still, I’d be lying if I said that the whole situation didn’t unnerve me at least a little bit. I followed Anze as he began leading Amir over to the tent.

“This part’s pretty simple,” he said, stopping a few feet away from the entrance. He let go of Amir’s arm and pushed him forward. He then grabbed my shoulder and turned me around.

“Once you deliver the guy, let the tent do the rest,” he said. “But they won’t take him unless you’re looking away.”

A few moments later, I could hear zippers being undone and the slight shuffling of feet. I nearly looked back instinctively, but Anze grabbed me by the head before I could see anything.

“Never do that,” he said. “Just keep looking forward.”

We heard some more shuffling, and then a second zip.

“Now it’s safe,” he said. We turned back and sure enough, Amir was gone.

“What?” I said, beginning to shake my head. “What the hell was-“

Anze began snickering, interrupting me. “If you want those kinds of answers, you’re talking to the wrong guy. The only people that have any clue what the goddamn hell’s going on here are millions of miles away. But I doubt that even they know everything.”

I suppose that was the response that I had to accept.

“Look, we’ll be fine,” he continued. “If we don’t dick around and play our cards right. I’ve been here for over seven months, and nothing’s happened to me yet. So if you want, you can follow my lead and maybe nothing’ll happen to you either.”

He grinned again, before slapping me on the back and walking us both forward.

“Another word of advice, don’t stick around the tent entrance for too long. I’m pretty sure that they can tell who has and hasn’t been marked, but I’d rather not take my chances.”

“Right,” I said, still trying to process the implications of what had just happened. “Can I ask you something that you might be able to answer?”

He nodded. “Go ‘fer it.”

“What if his mark was red? What would we have to do then?”

“Well,” he began to respond. “We have guns for a reason, don’t we?”

That was the first “peculiar” incident that I experienced here at the CES. A few more months have passed since then, and a lot more has happened. I’ve also heard some stuff from my fellow soldiers and workers. Stories about the giant black cube in CES 6, the strange village located in a cave hundreds of feet below, and the ‘desert stalkers’ that apparently show up after midnight, to name a few.

If I’m being honest, I’m not quite sure why I’m deciding to write this stuff down all of a sudden, or even who I plan on showing it to. I don’t think I’d get in trouble with the higher-ups for doing so, as long as I don’t divulge anything too specific.

I suppose that keeping a log of the things I see and hear here might keep me sane. Hell, maybe this is just fun for me. In any case, I should probably log off. The guy in line to use the computer after me looks like he’s starting to get antsy.

I’ll probably report back with some more stories soon. Maybe I’ll talk a bit about myself as well! (But don’t expect too much of that).

Stay safe, everybody. And don’t go venturing out too far into the desert. You might just come across something that’ll change your life, usually not for the better. 

---

Credits

 

My Neighbor Has Been Digging A Hole in His Backyard

 

SHINK, PSHH, SHINK, PSHH

Imagine hearing that for hours on end while you’re trying to get some sleep.

I mean sure, we’re all stuck at home and things can start to get a bit boring, but c’mon. Is digging holes really the best hobby you could’ve come up with?

It’s only been a few weeks since I’ve moved into this neighborhood. I can’t believe that I’m already starting to regret it.

I already knew it wasn’t going to be the most idyllic place to live, nor was the house itself all that nice when I saw it. Still, it was good enough.

However, it’d be dishonest of me to leave out the real reason why I decided to buy the place.

It was cheap. Not cheap enough to immediately raise any red flags, but it was at a price that I’d be foolish not to consider. On top of that, I knew the previous homeowner, Tom. Not terribly well, but he was a good enough guy, as far as I could tell. I really thought he was just doing me a favor. He also seemed pretty eager about it, so it didn’t really feel like I was taking advantage of him.

I remember asking him why he was moving, and he told me that he’d met some girl in Canada and was going up north to be with her. Fair enough.

I asked him about the neighbors as well and he told me not to worry, since the woman who lived on the house to the right was pleasant and mostly kept to herself.

“But what about the house to the left?”

For a moment, it almost seemed as if he were taken aback by the question.

“Oh, Dave?” he responded after a moment of silence. “He’s a nice enough guy. I think he lives alone. Also keeps to himself. I can’t imagine that he’d bother you at all.”

In retrospect, it was a bit of a strange response. But at the same time, to say that Tom wasn’t a bit strange himself would’ve been a lie, so I opted not to think anything of it.

In the end, we filled out all of the paperwork and the place was mine. I have to admit, owning my first ever property was a hell of a good feeling.

The place wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but I couldn’t complain about the interior. The carpets were clean, the water from the sinks seemed drinkable, and the bathrooms weren’t moldy. I mean, what else could I ask for?

There were two bedrooms and two bathrooms in total. Since I lived by myself, I could make some more money by renting out the spare room. Quite honestly, it was a great setup.

I saw the hole for the first time while I was smoking a cigarette out on the balcony my first morning there. It was pretty much impossible not to notice. It looked to be about 3 feet in diameter, smack in the middle of my neighbor’s backyard. The shovel that he’d presumably used to dig it was lying only a few feet away, still covered in dirt.

I’d seen stranger things in my life, so I didn’t think too much about. Maybe he was building a garden or something, I don’t know.

During the following few nights, I experienced some of the most horrifying nightmares that I ever recall having. I can’t remember what happened in them verbatim, but they all shared a commonality between them. Some sort of vague doom was always looming over or approaching me. Whether it was heavy knocks at my door that kept getting more forceful or steps behind me that kept getting louder, it always put me on edge. I remember waking up in the morning with my heart pounding and visceral fear overwhelming my sense of reality. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. This was in no way a normal occurrence for me.

One night, I woke up just as the sun started to rise, still groggy as hell from my lack of sleep. I shuffled out onto my balcony and lit up another cigarette, while my eyes drifted over to Dave’s backyard.

I had to blink twice when I first saw it, but I wasn’t hallucinating.

The hole had doubled in size.

I must have stared at it for half an hour as I tried to reel in my disbelief. What was this motherfucker doing?

When I went to bed that night, I stayed awake on purpose. At around midnight, I started to hear it.

SHINK, PSHH, SHINK, PSHH

Like a hellish clock that wouldn’t stop ticking. I kept track of the time. 12:30. 1:00 AM. 2:00 AM. It went up all the way until 5:00 AM. Five goddamn hours of digging during the dead of night. This had to be a joke, right? What was this guy trying to do? Elicit a reaction from his neighbors? Was this just the most obnoxious prank feasible?

Well, if he wanted a reaction, then I was going to give him one. As soon as the sun came up, I stormed over to his front door and rang the doorbell incessantly. He didn’t answer, of course.

Fucking pussy, I thought to myself as I started banging on his door instead.

“Hey buddy!” I yelled. “Quit the fucking digging, or I’m gonna kick down this door and kick your ass as well!”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, knowing that he might very well be recording everything that I was saying. I didn’t want to get into any legal trouble, after all.

“At least… dig during the day,” I said in a softer tone. “C’mon pal, give me a break.”

I waited a few more minutes for a response, but he didn’t come. I just went back home, hoping that he’d gotten the message.

I decided to give Tom a call later that day. I asked him whether or not Dave had done anything like this before, and if he had, why he hadn’t warned me about it.

“Digging holes?” Tom responded. “That is weird…”

He nearly paused for a whole minute after, leaving me with the sounds of his heavy breaths over the call.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked. “C’mon man.”

“I think… I’d just try and ignore it.” He finally responded.

The nerve of this guy. I couldn’t believe it.

“Obviously that’s not happening,” I said. “If this guy keeps doing it, I’m gonna break into his house and toss his shovels into the ocean myself.”

“I wouldn’t confront him.” Tom replied, his suddenly tone soft and timid.

“What? Why the hell not?” I asked.

He went silent for another minute before hanging up on me. I called him back two more times, but he wasn’t picking up.

I was starting to figure out why he’d sold it to me for so cheap. He didn’t have the balls to confront the guy himself, so he just sailed ship.

Well, that wasn’t going to be me.

I didn’t even try to go to sleep that night. I sat down in the living room with a cup of coffee at midnight, waiting for that bastard to start digging again.

Sure enough, he did. As soon as I started hearing that Godforsaken noise, I stormed out of my front door. This time, I wasn’t going to waste time knocking. I was going to confront that asshole directly.

I approached the gate leading into his backyard, only to find it wired shut.

What the hell? I thought to myself.

I pulled on the handle, but it wouldn’t budge in the slightest. *What a fucking pain. * In a fit of rage, I kicked at it, causing the entire wooden frame to shake.

The guy didn’t even seem to care. He just kept digging. It was loud. So obnoxiously loud. I was really nearing my wits end.

In fact, the sound of it was so overbearing, it nearly drowned out the soft tapping that was coming from beside me.

Wait, I thought. What is that?

I looked over and nearly had a heart attack.

There was somebody looking at me through the window at the entrance of my neighbor’s house. My eyes adjusted after the initial shock of spotting him, and I was able to discern a man in his mid-late thirties. He had a petrified expression on his face as he looked at me. He put a finger up to his lips and shook his head, as if he were warning to me stop what I was doing.

My bravado disappeared in an instant. The despair on his face was palpable, filling me with a deep, sinking sensation in my stomach. As I stood there, still deliberating about what to do, the digging suddenly came to a stop.

I could feel my fight-or-flight senses kicking in. But it was different this time. Before, I’d only get that feeling when I knew what the danger was and could see it in front of me.

This time, I knew that I had to get away before the danger could present itself at all. I heard a shovel drop and the sounds of heavy footsteps coming from the gate beyond. I didn’t stay to find out what was walking towards me.

I didn’t sleep well for a week after that incident. But not because of the sounds. The digging had since stopped, and the hole hadn’t gotten much bigger. But I knew that was just because it was getting deeper.

Yesterday, I finally worked up the courage to go into his backyard during the day, since the digging only seemed to happen at night. I tried ringing my neighbor’s doorbell again, but he’s not answering. He obviously doesn’t want to talk to me about it.

I climbed over the fence and cautiously made my way towards the hole. At that point, it was taking up a considerable portion of the grass-space. Of course, a shovel was lying beside it. I took a closer look at it, seeing the deep imprints of bulky fingers on the bloody metal handle.

And then, I looked down into the hole itself. I couldn’t tell you how deep it was exactly. However, I could see nothing but the void below. Just pure darkness.

I went back into my house and found a piece of rope that I measured to be thirty feet long. I tied a water bottle to the end of it and went back to the hole, before slowly lowering it down. I ran out of rope in no time, but I never heard a “thud” below.

When I brought it back up, the bottle was covered in some kind of thick, dark goo. I just dropped it back down, along with the rope. I wasn’t touching that. I continued kneeling there for minutes afterwards, waiting for a confirmation that it had hit the ground below.

It never happened. Or maybe, it was so far below that I wouldn’t be able to hear it at all, even if it did. In any case, that little experiment brought me no peace of mind. It yielded no answers at all. I still doubted that I would be able to get any sleep.

At the very least, the digging had stopped. And over the next few nights, I actually managed to get some shuteye for a few hours at a time. I just wouldn’t think about the hole. It didn’t matter, and it would have no impact on my life.

Soon enough, my sleep schedule was back on track. My life was going back to normal. I could smile, knowing that this incident would just be a strange one-off in my life. A story that I could tell at parties.

I drifted off to sleep tonight without a worry in my head. I prepared myself to have a nice dream. Something I hadn't had in a while.

Instead, I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, my entire body shaking. Another nightmare. The worst one I've ever had yet. And it didn't end when I woke up.

The digging was back, even louder this time. Almost as if it were coming from my own backyard. 

---

Credits

 

I Was Contracted to Help Conceal a UFO Crash (Part 7)

  

When I was still in middle school, my math teacher once told me that I’d end up in the sewers if I kept phoning it in during class.

I mean, I guess he was right.

It was around 5 AM when we landed in Staten Island. The flight over was pretty quiet, with both Luke and Armin holding expressions that I knew all too well. It was the expression that one might make when they weren’t quite sure what was going to happen next.

“This is as much as I can help you,” the pilot said, as he tried to hide the weary expression on his face. We nodded at him as he prepared to take off. He didn’t seem enthusiastic about sticking around to see what would happen next, and I couldn’t blame him for that. Losing a friend In Colt couldn’t have felt too good either.

We only had to wait for about ten minutes to be picked up. Four vehicles (all different makes and models), pulled up, with a taller blonde woman coming out of the lead car. Her face seemed to be frozen in a perpetual grimace as she walked up to Luke.

“What the hell have you done?” she said through gritted teeth, looking just about ready to break Luke’s other arm on the spot. “I thought you knew how to follow simple instructions.”

“Yeah?” Luke responded, holding a similar expression to hers. “And I thought you knew how to recruit people. Your guy Visser was a fucking mole, Valerie.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She said. “Are you sure?”

“The motherfucker turned on us and then started filming the attack,” Luke continued. “He also killed Colt, so yeah, I’m pretty fucking sure.”

Valerie’s expression suddenly changed as she muttered something under her breath. And then she looked over at me. “He’s the new guy, right?”

I nodded in response.

“And Colt’s the only one dead on our side?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Luke responded.

“Good,” she said. “I guess we broke even. Time to go to Manhattan.”

She turned, heading back towards the vehicle.

I looked over at Luke, who just smirked. “Wouldn’t get on her bad side.”

We drove from Staten Island deep into Manhattan, before finally arriving at an unassuming-looking Chinese restaurant.

“Lemme guess,” I said as we pulled up. “Another secret CIA base?”

“’Don’t sound so surprised.” Luke said as he hopped out.

At that point, I suppose nothing should’ve surprised me at all.

We passed through the main dining area, before descending into the basement to find about thirty armed soldiers/agents getting geared up.

“Is this everybody?” Luke asked.

“Just about,” Valerie responded. “Except for Gustafsson. He’s in the freezer. Had a hell of a time getting him over here.”

“Gustafsson? Is that the secret weapon you guys were talking about?” I asked.

“Last resort,” Armin clarified. “And yes.”

Marcus Gustafsson. He was a 6’7 Swedish-American SOG agent who opted to join the fight against Kane. As with everybody else, he was given a dose of the serum. However, his body’s response to it was a bit different from everybody else’s.

His strength and speed were elevated to ludicrous levels, far surpassing even Colt’s. Couple that with his massive frame, and he was essentially a human wrecking ball.

Those boosts came with a drawback though. In exchange for his physical prowess, his mind degenerated into something comparable to a primal beast. If anybody were to stand in front of him, they were getting bulldozed, regardless of who they were. There was only one feasible way to control him, and that was by putting him into freezing temperatures. When that happened, he was capable of retaining some degree of his old self. Some degree of sanity.

“If we take him out, we’ll only have about thirty minutes until he loses control again,” Valerie continued to explain. “That means we’ll have to work quick.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Luke responded. “We only have to cover the entirety of lower Manhattan’s sewer system.”

“Just get it done,” she said. “You know how important this is. Don’t fuck it up.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to tell me that, alright? Focus on yourself.”

She shot him a glare before walking away.

“Jesus…” Luke muttered, shaking his head, before turning to me. “But she’s right. This is important,” he said. “It’s also very dangerous. You’ve survived so far, but I really couldn’t tell you what’s about to happen next. If you want to back out right now, then that’s fine. Your choice. With all that said, are you still coming with us?”

I already knew that the question was nothing more than a polite gesture. I could tell that I really didn’t have an option at all. I was already in pretty deep, after all.

And if the world really was at stake here, then they needed all the help they could get.

I nodded and shook his hand. In some strange way, it felt like my fate had been sealed from the very start regardless.

We were headed into the sewers.

We split up into ten groups in order to cover more ground. I was with Luke and Armin, of course. The plan was simple in theory. We just had to locate where the robot aliens were being kept and eliminate them all. If we ran into Kane himself, then we needed to radio Valerie, lure him towards a rendezvous point and shoot him with our last bullet. From there, we’d have to neutralize the remaining bots and organize a scrub of any trace of their existence.

And things became a little too overwhelming… we’d have to resort to unleashing Marcus.

I didn’t say it’d be easy. Just straightforward. I could think of about a hundred different ways this could go south quick. Nevertheless, this really was our only shot.

As hard as I tried to mentally prepare myself for our descent into the murky tunnels, I still couldn’t stop myself from gagging as we waded through the calf-deep river of who-knows-what. Luke and Armin weren’t even trying to suppress their amusement at my discomfort.

“Is this funny?” I asked. “Does it smell good to you guys or something?”

“We’ve been through a lot worse,” Armin responded. “This really ain’t much in comparison.”

“You wanna hear some stories to pass the time while we search?” Luke asked.

I didn’t take him up on the offer. I had to focus on not throwing up instead.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, we came across one of the creatures, which caused me to flinch as the light attached to my rifle illuminated it. Thankfully, it was dead. It also seemed to be different from the ones we’d encountered in Russia. More gruesome in appearance. It was about twice the size, so big that it nearly blocked the entire tunnel. It was also covered in what appeared to be… boils. Large, pulsing spheres that were fighting for space across its torso.

Luke walked forward cautiously before quickly turning away, his hand clamped over his nose.

“Jesus…” he muttered. “It smells like death.”

Armin grabbed a knife off of his belt and stepped forward.

“What are you doing?” I asked him

“I just want to know what we’re dealing with here.” He responded.

He chucked the blade at one of the boils, causing it to burst open. I couldn’t stop myself from puking a little bit in my mouth after seeing what came out of it

These… things began crawling out. There had to be dozens of them, all about the size of a large rat. They looked like spiders at first, but as they crawled closer to me, it became evident that they were just smaller versions of the creature.

It looked like something straight out of hell itself.

“Fuck me,” Luke said. “Weren’t these things supposed to be robots?”

He looked around, before stomping on one of the creatures and completely pulverizing it.

“I don’t see any wires here.” he continued.

I looked back at the creature, watching as the boils started to bulge and thrash, as if the monstrosities within were getting ready to hatch at any moment.

“Biotechnology,” Armin said. “Real taboo subject. It makes sense, though. Why build robots from scratch when you can just breed the organic matter and modify them at maturation?”

He seemed to know quite a bit about the topic.

“But still,” he continued. “I suppose this complicates things.”

Since the creature was blocking most of the tunnel and we didn’t want to risk accidentally popping another one out, we took a different route in order searching.

As noon began closing in, we still hadn’t managed to find anything else of note. I could tell that Luke and Armin were getting worried, although they were doing a good job of hiding it. My mind began drifting, conjuring up images of these creatures running amok in Manhattan. How would people react? How the hell would the world respond?

My thoughts suddenly halted when I started feeling something below me.

It was rumbling, coming from beneath our feet. It didn’t take a genius to realize what this meant.

The creatures weren’t being held in the sewer tunnels; they were being held underneath them. And it seemed as if they were already on the move.

We were ten minutes away from noon, so we didn’t exactly have the time to propose an extensive plan. We simply had to act. Armin pulled out something that looked like a large block of C4, before planting it in the water. He detonated it, causing the water to flow into the hole that had been created. I could see another tunnel beneath, as the rumbling continued to increase in intensity. Armin tossed a flashbang and we hopped down. There were no soldiers waiting for us, but what we found there was startling regardless It wasn’t just another sewer tunnel. It was a hallway. One that looked like it could’ve been plucked out of any office building.

We were all in disbelief as we walked forward, staring at the inexplicable sight around us.

We began hearing footsteps coming from the corridor behind us only moments later. It was no mystery what the source was. We’d made a hell of a lot of noise coming down. I raised my rifle just as a group of soldiers turned the corner. I opened fire, but none of them even flinched in response. Of course. They were all on the serum. I glanced down at my watch. Five minutes before noon, and from the sound of it, an entire army of robots were marching beneath us.

“Let’s go!” Armin yelled. I turned around, watching as him and Luke began running. We scrambled through corridor after corridor, trying feverishly to find another way down while evading the soldiers simultaneously. The pressure starting mounting as they began converging on us at seemingly every corner.

As hard as we looked, there didn’t seem to be anywhere for us to go. Not that we had much time to begin with. We soon found ourselves in the middle of an intersecting corridor, being boxed in by soldiers in every direction. They weren’t shooting at us, or even running. Instead, they approached us calmly, almost as if they were robots themselves. I suppose they didn’t need to rush. We were completely trapped.

“Fuck it,” I heard Armin say. I looked over at him, watching as he pulled out another block of C4.

“What the hell are you doing?” Luke asked.

“If it worked once, it’ll work again,” Armin continued. “Brace yourselves.”

He planted the explosive right beneath our feet and detonated it. I could feel a surging pain overwhelming my entire lower body as the floor broke beneath us, causing us to fall deeper into the strange underground complex.

I’m not sure how far we fell. It had to be at least a few dozen feet. Possibly a lot more. My head continued to ring as I tried to regain my bearings, looking around to see that we’d fallen into some sort of lab. And the more I looked… the more bizarre things became.

The place was massive. Almost too big for me to comprehend how it could’ve been built. There were rows upon rows of glass chambers, filled with all matters of grotesque creatures.

I looked over at Luke, who also seemed completely dumbstruck by the sight. Armin was fidgeting with the radio, likely trying to call Valerie.

“I can’t reach her,” he said. “I guess these don’t work this far below ground.”

“Of course they don’t,” Luke grumbled. “We have to find a way out of here.”

Armin shook his head. “No. We have to finish the mission. We need to find and kill Kane.”

“What are you talking about?” Luke responded, clearly floored at the thought of it. “The invasion’s already started.”

“Does that Change anything?” Armin responded. “We still have a job to do.”

“C’mon man,” Luke said. “Let’s find a way out of here. Then we can regroup with the rest and come up with a better plan. There’s nothing we can do here.”

Armin seemed to hesitate for a moment, his expression showing signs of apprehension. But in the end, Luke’s words didn’t deter him. He ran off by himself before either of us could say anything else.

“Fucking hell…” Luke muttered as he grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”

“Aren’t we gonna go after him?” I asked.

“Do we have the time?” he responded. “The guy’s made up his mind and we have our own asses to save.”

As wrong as it felt leaving him behind like that, I decided to follow Luke. I suppose he was right. This mission was over.

Still, the chances of us making it back to the surface didn’t seem so high. Also, what would be waiting for us once we got up there? Noon had already come and passed. I could only imagine the chaos that was already transpiring.

As we ran through the seemingly endless lab, I could hear footsteps chasing us once again. We finally reached what seemed to be the end, only to be met with another adjacent corridor, this one lined with rows of metal doors and panels of glass in between. I glanced into a few of them as we ran, seeing people in heavy medical gear wielding massive tools, staining the walls with the blood of unknown specimens. This whole operation clearly went deeper than Luke or I, or anybody on the outside could’ve imagined.

We ended up running into another group of soldiers, who were storming right towards us from the other end. This time, there was no way of evading them. We were stuck in the middle of the corridor with nowhere else to run and no more C4 left to detonate. Even if there was another level below us, I doubted that I wanted to see what was there. We just had to face them head-on. I ran forward in an attempt to force myself through but was immediately pushed back, the impact leaving me gasping for air. As I scrambled on the ground, I could feel an immense pressure wrapping around my neck, almost as if I were being strangled by a python.

I didn’t stay conscious for much longer after that. When I finally came to, I found myself sitting on the floor, my arms and legs bound by some kind of metal restraint. I tried struggling, but they wouldn’t budge. I looked around, seeing just about everybody else in there with me. Luke, Armin, Valerie, and a larger, extremely beat-up man who I could only assume was Marcus. Even our ‘last resort’ had been captured.

We really never stood a chance, did we?

I made eye contact with Luke. And then Armin. I knew that we were all thinking the same thing. This was nothing short of a complete and utter disaster.

The rest of the room was pretty much empty, which was strange, since it was apparently large enough to hold upwards of fifty people. I had to wonder how much time and effort went into building a place like this. I could see a few soldiers guarding the exits, but no security beyond that.

I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t just killed us.

We must have just sat there in silence for about fifteen minutes before somebody else finally walked in. It was a man of average height and extremely muscular build. Everybody else seemed to recognize him, as they stared with wide eyes and flared nostrils.

As I would soon come to find out, this was Kane. The man behind all of the madness. He gave off a bizarre energy as he walked towards us, with his care-free movements and impossible-to-read expression.

I wasn’t sure if I was just going crazy, but I knew that I recognized him somehow. But I couldn’t quite place where those memories may have stemmed from.

“Why don’t you just kill us, Kane?” Valerie said. “There’s no chance in hell we’re joining you.”

“Because that wouldn’t help anybody,” he said, stopping a few feet away from us. “You never gave me a chance to explain my intentions.”

“That’s something you have to earn,” Armin spoke up, his voice saturated with rage. “And you lost that when you started murdering people.”

Kane glanced over at him, before shaking his head. “They wouldn’t listen. I tried reaching out to them and they refused hear me out. But I’m a patient man. I’m willing to give everybody here another chance. I’ll explain why all of this is necessary.”

He paused for a moment, clearing his throat.

“The first thing you need to know is… I’m not from this time. I’m not from a time where everything was alright. Where anything made any sense. I come from a time of strife. From a place of absolute horror. I’m from the future.”

“Oh, c’mon!” Somebody shouted. “Fuck off, you expect us to believe something like that?”

Kane didn’t flinch at the outburst. He just continued speaking.

“It’s a substantial assertion, I understand that,” he said. “One that requires proof behind it.”

He reached into his pocket, taking out a small, rectangular device that almost looked like a pistol magazine. He pointed the device at the ground, before firing off some sort of projectile. It looked like a metal circle, quickly expanding upwards and forming what almost looked like a large oval-shaped mirror.

“But I have the proof with me,” he said. “I’ll show you the future.”

The glassy substance within the “mirror” began morphing, before we all found ourselves looking at an unfathomable scene. At that point, I had to wonder if I’d been hallucinating the whole thing. Perhaps this was one long, visceral fever dream. From CIA conspiracies to alien robots to some alleged time traveler that I vaguely recognized, none of it could possibly be real.

But if that was the case, then why wasn’t I waking up?

I continued staring at whatever was unfolding in front of me. What was supposedly our “future”. It looked like Earth, but just barely. It wasn’t even apocalyptic in the traditional sense. It almost looked like another world entirely. There was a forest, but the trees seemed to be much larger than they should’ve been. As I looked closer, I realized that the wood was covered in veins and that the leaves had teeth, biting at these bird-like creatures that flew a bit too close. The mountains in the back had thick black smoke billowing out from the peaks, while a gargantuan entity lurked behind them, its colossal tendrils wrapped around the base. Grotesque creatures larger than airplanes populated the neon sky, while the lake below seemed to bubble with the activity of obscured monstrosities.

“It may be hard to accept, but it’s the truth. This is a recording of our future,” Kane said. “I was sent back with one purpose and one purpose only. To prevent this at any cost.”

“We need a united population,” he continued. “The way the world is right now, with its superpowers at odds and countries locked in perpetual conflict won’t cut it. And it’s only going to get worse from here. We won’t be ready for the real invasion. We need a unifying event to save us.”

I could’ve guessed that that’s where he was going with it.

“You can hate what I’ve done. It’s justified. I understand. But just know that all of my efforts have been for the greater good.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to think. Kane spoke with an air of confidence that couldn’t have been denied. His words had conviction behind them, his tone unfaltering the entire way through. The evidence he was presenting was also undeniably significant. Was he right? Were we on track for a future as horrific as the one he was showing us? Could it be helped if we joined him?

As convincing as it all seemed to be, there was one thing that I couldn’t shake. A feeling deep within my psyche that told me all of this was wrong. That the man standing in front of us was absolutely not to be trusted.

Where had I recognized him from? On top of everything else, this was starting to drive me crazy.

Kane began walking around, intently scanning our group, looking for a shift in attitude.

“I know it feels like I’ve betrayed you all, and I’m sorry for it,” he said. “But there are some things that simply need to be done.”

Soon enough, he made his way over to me and stopped. Had he recognized me first?

“A new recruit?” he said, looking down at me. “I suppose I don’t have the same kind of history with you. I’m sure everything your comrades have told you about me came from a noble place. But I’m just trying to save life as we know it for the future generations. What do you think? Are you with me?”

I looked up at him, staring into his eyes directly for the first time. And that’s when I figured it out. I realized where I’d recognized him from.

It was unmistakable. One of his eyes had likely been injured in the past, leaving nothing but a milky white behind. The sight of it had triggered a memory so repressed in the back of my mind that I hadn’t thought about in years.

I nodded my head. “Yeah. I’ll join you.”

Kane got down on a knee, getting eye-level with me.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“This is important,” I responded. “I want to fight for the future.”

He smiled. I could tell that he hadn’t recognized me at all.

“Thank you, my friend,” he said. “Soon enough, you’ll know that your decision was the right one.”

“What the hell are you doing?” I heard Armin shout. “This is a trap! He’s not telling you the truth!”

I ignored him, continuing to look forward instead. Kane went ahead and loosened my restraints, before holding his hand out to me. I accepted and he pulled me up to my feet, patting me on the back.

“Your descendants will thank you.” He said.

I stepped past him, walking towards the strange mirror world.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said.

“Of course,” Kane replied, walking over to me.

“Why can’t you remember me?”

Before his expression could even register the confusion, I grabbed him by the neck and sent us both crashing into the mirror. We fell through, hitting dirt as we did so. As I’d expected, he wasn’t showing us a recording of the future at all. This was something else entirely. As we scrambled on the ground, I saw the device fly out from his pocket, landing on the ground a few feet away. This also ended up closing the portal entirely.

“No!” Kane screamed. “What the hell have you done?”

I leapt up and tried grabbing the device but was pulled back down and slammed by Kane. He really was strong. But I couldn’t let him win.

We continued to fight, although it gradually devolved into a one-sided beatdown. I may have bitten off more than I was able to chew with this guy. He ended up cracking me across the jaw with a vicious elbow, which caused me to black out for just a moment. I fell to the ground, stars now littering my vision.

Kane stood over me, his face twisted into a spiteful grimace.

“Who the fuck are you?” He asked.

I really couldn’t believe that he didn’t remember. What was one of the most disturbing moments in my entire life must’ve been par for the course for him.

My encounter with Kane happened early in my “career”, back when I was a little bit more optimistic about my future. I was in France, where I’d just been paid for a contract and was riding high on my emotions. I just needed a few more paydays and I’d be good. Then I could move on to bigger and better things.

I was walking through Paris at night, enjoying the crisp breeze and a nice expensive cigar. At one point, I turned into a completely empty street, which is where I saw her.

It was a young girl, maybe in her early twenties, walking by herself. Something that wouldn’t have been a cause for concern on its own, but the details made it quite alarming. She seemed to be wearing nothing but a torn hospital gown, and her movements were frenetic, almost as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was going.

She soon spotted me and began running over. I backed up just a bit, unsure of what to expect from something like this. Perhaps she posed no physical threat to me, but any and all risk was better off avoided.

In any case, I eased up as she got closer. She looked to be in extreme distress. She began speaking to me, her words coming out in a rapid and jumbled mess. My French wasn’t great to begin with, so trying to decipher what she was saying proved to be quite the task. However, I could make out a few key phrases:

“Help me please,” and “Save my brother.”

She grabbed my arm and began pulling me, trying to get me to follow her.

I was hesitant at first, but ultimately relented. I knew that this could end horribly for me, but the idea of being the hero gave me hope for some kind of catharsis. Maybe I could wash away all of the morally ambiguous things I’ve done with one act of altruism. I really did think that was how the world worked back then.

Eventually, she led me to what must have been the most decrepit building in the darkest corner of Paris. A place that looked so uninviting, even the most daring of ghost hunters would’ve avoided it.

“The basement,” she said, looking up at me with teary eyes and a petrified expression. She really must have experienced something horrifying in there. “He’s in the basement. Please hurry.”

Against my better judgement, I went in. The place looked like it might’ve been a store at one point, but I couldn’t have been too sure. The smell of mold lingered in the dusty air as I walked, hand gripping my pistol as I searched for a door leading down. It didn’t take me long to find it, and I began traversing down the rickety wooden steps, trying to make sure that I wouldn’t get clocked in the back of the head with an axe once I got down.

I ended up in a hallway, which felt strange, since it didn’t line up with the rest of the building’s aesthetics. This place looked newer and relatively well-maintained, as if it were actually still being used for something. I got to the end of the passage, where a locked door was waiting for me. I went ahead and kicked it down, revealing an even stranger sight beyond.

Another hallway, this time with metal doors and windows on either side. At this point, I began tensing up. It felt as if I was seeing something that I really wasn’t supposed to be. Most of the rooms were empty, evident from the fact their lights were off and I couldn’t see anything inside.

There was only one that wasn’t. Light poured into the hallway from one window near the end.

I remember my arms shaking as I got within a few steps, feeling the pressure in the air getting heavier every time I inched forward. And then I looked inside.

Through the window, I could see a bloody operating table with a young boy strapped to it. His stomach was opened up and it looked like a few of his organs had been removed and replaced with some mechanical counterpart.

And then, the man who was operating on him came into view. His face had been blurred out in my memory for so long, but I was seeing him clearly now. He was standing in front of me, both in my mind and in real life.

He saw me looking at him and gave me a sinister grin. One that was equal parts smug and sadistic. It was as if me stumbling upon his operation wouldn’t be a problem for him in the slightest. I could feel my arms raising instinctively, my mind screaming at me to shoot and kill him. I could tell that I was looking at an extremely dangerous individual.

I fired off three or four bullets through the glass, all of them hitting the man square in the forehead. But instead of dropping to the ground, his grin just grew wider. It almost looked inhuman. As if there wasn’t actually a man there at all. Just a primal force of destruction.

I remember backing up slowly, my limbs completely stiff from the shock. The man opened the door and stepped out, approaching me in a way that was disturbingly nonchalant. I tried getting up and running, but I didn’t make it too far. I blacked out after only a few steps and woke up some indeterminable amount of time later, face first in the grass and dirt.

My head was pounding as I got up, finding myself standing in a park near the hotel I was staying at. My phone and wallet were still in my pocket, so I checked the time to see that it was 9 AM the next day.

For the longest time, I couldn’t tell if what I’d experienced was real or not. Eventually, I settled on the latter. I thought it was better to just delude myself than consider the alternative.

However, I remembered one thing very clearly from that night. I knew exactly where the building was. The one that the girl had led me to.

I almost didn’t want to do it, but I knew that I had to. I needed to go back to that building and see what was really there. So that’s what I did. I ventured all the way back down those streets, feeling my unease mounting every time I got closer. I could almost see that girl running in front of me again.

If all of this was real, then where was she now?

Eventually, I made it back to the spot where the building was, half-expecting it to not be there at all. But that wasn’t the case. It was still there, now sealed off by police tape. The cops who were guarding the place eyed me curiously as I walked past. I almost considered asking them what had happened in there, but decided it was best not to.

Over the years, I gradually managed to purge that memory from my system. I convinced myself that there was absolutely no chance something like that had actually happened, and that it was better off forgotten.

It looks like I’d been wrong the entire time. But it’s also how I knew that Kane wasn’t telling the truth.

“I’ll ask again, who the fuck are you?” He spat at me.

As Kane continued approaching me, I was at a loss for what to do. The device was still on the ground behind him, but getting it was a secondary concern. I needed to prevent him from snapping my neck first. Fighting him directly was obviously out of the question, so I needed a more creative approach.

But what? What was I supposed to do here?

As I tried backing up away from him, I felt a sharp pain hit one of my arms. I looked down, seeing that some kind of insect had burrowed its way up from the dirt, and was now gnawing away at my skin. Not long after, I began feeling something shifting below me. The insect that had bit me – a worm-like creature, began growing longer and longer as it rose up from beneath. After only a few seconds, it’d become taller than an adult male, showing no signs of slowing down either.

And then, the ground itself began rising up. That wasn’t just some insect. It was attached to something much larger, and we were right on its back.

Dozens of worm-like appendages began shooting out of the ground as the creature decided to stand up, understandably pissed off at our presence. It started moving, causing both Kane and I to stumble as it did so. On top of that, the creature’s appendages began lunging at us, gradually chipping away bits of our flesh. I stood up, took my knife out and tried to intercept some of them with my blade before they could bite me further, which proved to be a task more difficult than I could manage.

I could hear a deep growling from below, feeling the vibrations at my feet simultaneously. This thing must have been bigger than the white house. There was enough room on its back to play a few rounds of golf.

I looked over at Kane, who seemed to be handling the appendages easier than I was. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was probably familiar with the creatures here. One of them wrapped around my ankle, before nearly dragging me off its back entirely. I managed to cut it off just before that could happen. I looked down at what was beneath, seeing much larger appendages lurking below, their mouths wide open and lined with knife-like teeth, presumably waiting to snatch us up as we fell. I scrambled away, a shiver overwhelming my body at the thought of it happening.

However, I also realized something in that moment. In order to beat Kane, I just needed to use my surroundings. Easier said than done, but that was my only chance. I got back up, looked him dead in the eyes and ran right towards him, ignoring the pain from the relentless bites in the process.

He saw me coming and threw me to the side, pushing me closer to the edge of its back as he did so. However, that’s exactly what I’d expected him to do.

Kane was already preparing to charge back at me. I stood, as if I were getting ready to meet his charge with a rush of my own. He moved first, as I waited for a few seconds before moving myself. I could see the rage in his eyes as he got closer to me. He wasn’t thinking rationally anymore. Otherwise, he likely wouldn’t have fallen into the trap that I’d set for him.

If we collided head-on, then there was no doubt that I’d be the one who’d get bodied off, so I wasn’t going to do that. Before we could make contact, I quickly moved to the side, putting my foot out just far enough for him to trip over it. He was moving so fast that he could hardly react in time. I watched as his body flew forward, stumbling downwards and out of view. I didn’t let myself breath until I heard him screaming. It must’ve been the deepest breath that I’d taken in years.

But I wasn’t done yet. I began looking around me, searching for his portal device. I knew that I wasn’t getting out of here without it. I spotted it at the other end of the creature’s back, getting dangerously closer to falling off with each step that it took. I ran over to it, managing to grab it just before that could happen.

I looked over the device and saw an array of buttons and switches, none of which I could possibly comprehend the function of. However, there was one button at the center that was clearly larger and more distinguished from the rest. Before I pressed it, my mind began running down the list of things that might happen. There was no guarantee that this would take me back, that this would even take me anywhere better.

I looked up, taking in the apocalyptic hellscape around me. In some ways, it was quite beautiful. I’d never seen a sky with that kind of color before. It was almost mesmerizing.

Nevertheless, I sure as hell knew that I couldn’t stay.

I pointed the device down, before pressing the button. To my relief, another mirror-like portal began materializing. As I prepared to move through it, the creature suddenly stopped moving. It fell to the ground with a large thud, causing me to land on my ass. All of the appendages stopped bothering me as well.

Was it dead? I thought to myself.

I could hear something coming from behind me. Something that sounded like labored breathing. I turned around, coming face-to-face with one of the most horrific sights I could’ve seen at that moment.

It was Kane, covered in bloody bite marks. There had been a large chunk taken out of one of his arms, while a portion of his skull had been exposed at the top. He began limping towards me, his expression so demented that I couldn’t even meet his eyes with my own without feeling complete despair.

“You thought that would be the end of me?” he said in a raspy growl. “I won’t stop. I’ll never stop.”

I stopped thinking about what might be on the other side, turning my back on him and jumping through the portal. I could feel cold wind biting at my battered skin as I did so. I found myself standing in freezing drizzle along a rocky beach shore.

I quickly pressed the button again, closing the portal behind me just as Kane was getting to ready to make it through as well.

It was finally over. Despite the excruciating pain that I was in, my lips curled into a grin and I began screaming into the wind. This was my moment of catharsis.

I looked at my surroundings, seeing no signs of any creatures around. It did seem like I was on Earth again. I began walking, trying to find my way back to some sort of civilization. However, my body had pretty much reached its limits. I passed out before I could make it anywhere.

Thankfully… somebody found me before I could freeze to death. I woke up in a small wooden cabin, basking in the warmth of a space heater placed right next to the bed. My wounds had all been bandaged up, and there was a nice, savory scent lingering in the air, which caused my mouth to water incessantly. I wasn’t quite sure how long it’d been since my last meal.

I sat up and looked around, spotting a woman, probably in her early thirties, cooking over a stove just a few feet way from me. She saw me looking over and smiled.

“Oh good,” she said. “You have woken. Are you hungry?”

She had an extremely strong accent, which I recognized as Icelandic. I guess that’s where I’d ended up. Even though I tried controlling myself, my manners were pretty much non-existent at that point. I slurped up five bowls of that stew without a care in the world.

The woman didn’t seem to mind, though. She didn’t ask many questions either. I could appreciate that.

“Oh,” she said as I put the bowl up to my mouth and scraped the last pieces of fish into my mouth. “This is yours, isn’t it? I found it lying a few feet away from you.”

She was holding the portal device. I’d nearly forgotten about it. I thanked her and put it into the drawer beside the bed.

It’s been a few days since she found me. Even though she said that I could stay here for as long as I’d like, I don’t plan on bothering her like that. Using her laptop, I’ve done some research, and I’ve concluded that this is not the same Earth that I left behind. It’s similar, but not identical. A few key details have all but confirmed that.

Back in my world, Kane has already started the invasion. And even though he’s dead, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t running that whole operation alone.

Hell, I can’t even be sure that he is dead.

I’m not gonna take the easy way out and stay here for the rest of my life. After all, I still have a mission to accomplish.

That might take some time, though. 

---

Credits

 

I Was Contracted to Help Conceal a UFO Crash (Part 6)

  

“What the hell’d you do to me?” Visser shrieked, still retching up mouthfuls of blood. His skin was becoming redder by the moment.

“Fuck you,” Luke responded. “You don’t get to ask any goddamn questions.”

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he continued. “You give us the information that we want,” he held up a vial of clear liquid. “And I’ll give you the antidote.”

“Antidote… to what?” Visser asked.

“What do you think?” Luke responded. “You have about ten minutes before your skin starts bubbling up like a fucking pizza in an oven. It’s gonna look nasty. Say goodbye to that handsome face.”

Visser let out a pained chuckle. “Nice bluff. I don’t… feel shit. I’ll survive whatever the hell this is.”

I had to commend his dedication to the lie. His face was going beet-red, and his eyes looked about ready to pop out from his skull.

Luke sighed. “We can wait then. Let’s see if your tune changes in the next few minutes.”

I couldn’t tell you what the hell Luke had blasted him with, but I’m sure as hell glad none of it splashed onto me. The amount of pain that Visser was experiencing seemed to multiply with every second that passed. After only a minute, he began screaming his lungs out, as if his head were being crushed under 10,000 tons.

“You don’t feel anything, huh?” Luke said coldly.

“What the hell was in that bullet?” I asked him.

He just shook his head at me. “I’ll tell you later.”

He walked over towards Visser and knelt down beside him. “I’ll bet you’re going through hell right now, aren’t ya? Well brace yourself. Cause this ain’t even the peak of it.”

“N…New York.” Visser muttered out.

Luke grinned. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“If I fail… to deliver the footage… the next attack’s gonna be in New York.”

“Alright,” Luke responded. “So how do we stop it?”

Visser let out an excruciating groan. He was starting to turn crimson.

“The… sewers…” he continued. “They’ll come out of the sewers.”

“Which area?”

“…lower… Manhattan…”

“When?”

“Tw… two… days from now. Around noon.”

Luke nodded, before standing back up. “New York, huh? Couldn’t have picked a more generic place.”

“That’s… everything I know…” Visser said, gritting his teeth through every word. “Give me… the fucking antidote!”

“One more question,” Luke said. “Is Kane gonna be there himself?”

Visser responded with a strenuous-looking nod. “I… think so. THE FUCKING ANTIDOTE, C’MON!”

“This?” Luke said, holding up the vial. Instead of handing it over, he opened it up himself, before pouring it down his throat. Visser’s expression dropped.

“This is vodka,” Luke continued. “There is no antidote.”

Luke walked off, leaving Visser to scream in agony by himself. I’d be lying if said that the whole sequence wasn’t a bit jarring for me. I just had to stand there for a moment, watching him. It was like a train wreck. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. But as big of a piece of shit as Visser was… I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him just a bit.

“Two days…” Luke muttered to himself. “That’s not a lot of time. Hell, we don’t even know if he’s telling the truth.”

“So that’s where we’re going? Manhattan?” I asked.

Luke nodded, although his face seemed to be stuck in a permanent grimace. “We gained intel at the price of two valuable assets.”

“Two of them?” I asked. “Colt I understand. What was the other?”

“The bullet I shot at Visser,” Luke responded. “That was supposed to be for Kane. It’s the only thing that’s capable of taking him down.”

I nearly choked on my own saliva when he said it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” the words came out of my mouth almost instinctively. “Why the hell would you waste it on him then?”

“Relax,” Luke responded. “We had two. There’s one bullet left. We just need to have perfect aim. No big deal”

“What the hell was in that bullet?”

He went silent at my question, before letting out a brief chuckle. "You know what... I don't actually know."

Before he give me a further explanation, the rest of our team made their way into the clearing, all looking pretty roughed-up. Armin came through first, his eyes widening upon seeing Colt’s body.

“Goddamn it…” he muttered.

His eyes then moved over to Visser still convulsing on the ground. His dismay turned into anger as he stared at Luke.

“Don’t tell me you used it,” Armin said, his eyes fixed on Luke in a death stare. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“He was filming the entire attack,” Luke responded, his voice remaining calm. “Could you imagine what would’ve happened if that footage made it to anybody significant?”

Armin shook his head, visibly pissed off. “Doesn’t change the fact that you just took the biggest risk of all time. Did you get anything out of him at least?”

Luke nodded. “Next attack’s gonna be in New York in two days. They’re coming out of the sewers. Apparently Kane’s gonna be there as well.”

Armin took a moment to calm himself down. “Well… let’s see if your decision pays off. Or if you just fucked us permanently.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke said, starting to walk off. “Quit being so dramatic. Let’s get to the plane.”

“Hang on!” Armin called after him. “What about your arm? Can you even move that thing?”

Without turning back, Luke used his good arm to flash the “Ok” symbol at him. Armin shook his head and mumbled something before following after him. I began walking as well, but felt Visser grab my ankle after only a few steps.

“You… don’t… understand…” I heard him mutter. I didn’t even look down. I just shook his hand off of my leg and continued walking. Over the years, I’ve learned that some things are better ignored.

After trekking retracing our steps through the grueling woods, we found the plane waiting for us. The pilot scanned our group, but didn’t say anything about Colt’s absence. Although… I could certainly tell that he noticed it.

Luke outlined our next steps on the flight back to New York. As expected, it was a bit haphazard. But we didn’t have the luxury of planning ahead.

Since lower Manhattan was a relatively large place, we had a lot of ground to cover. Luke estimated that we’d be able to gather about ninety guys who were on our side in the short amount of time that we had. However, that also meant telegraphing our plan to Kane’s entire faction. That meant there was no going back. This was going to be our final stand.

Taking out Kane was also going to be difficult, since we only had one bullet.

“Can’t we just make some more of them?” I asked. “Why do we have to rely on one?”

“No can do,” Luke responded. “The only person capable of making these bullets… is Kane himself.”

Shit. I wasn’t expecting that.

“One of our moles actually managed to steal five of them from Kane’s private lab,” Luke continued “But then… things got messy. He was killed and we only managed to recover two. To be honest, I’m surprised Visser didn’t know about it. Or else he would’ve realized I was bluffing about the antidote. I guess Kane keeps some things pretty close to his chest.”

“And now we only have one.” Armin added, glaring at Luke.

“But does Kane know that we have it?” I asked.

Luke nodded. “That fact certainly doesn’t help. He’ll be expecting us to use it.”

With everything considered, it sounded like we were going to need a miracle to pull this off.

Luke went on to list our two priorities, in order of importance:

1. Do not let any of the fake aliens out of the sewers and into the city.

2. Eliminate Kane.

They were simple in concept, presumably tougher to execute. One aspect of the plan bothered me more than anything else.

“We were barely strong enough to take down a single creature by ourselves,” I said. “How the hell are we gonna deal with an entire horde without Colt?”

Luke and Armin briefly glanced at one another. They almost seemed worried as they did so, as if an uncomfortable thought had just crossed both of their minds simultaneously.

“We do have somebody stronger than Colt on our side. Probably even stronger than Visser,” Luke said. “A secret weapon, if you will.”

I squinted at him. “So why the hell wasn’t he here?”

“Because he’s fucking insane,” Armin responded. “He’s not a secret weapon, he’s a last resort.”

“I’ll call Valerie,” Luke said, standing up. “Have her wrangle him into New York.”

“You do that,” Armin said, before looking over at me. “Brace yourself. Once we get to New York, it’s gonna be a shitshow.” 

---

Credits

 

I Was Contracted to Help Conceal a UFO Crash (Part 5)

  

“Good grief…” Colt muttered. “Things just can't be simple for once, can they?”

The creatures were slow in their approach, but not as if they were sizing us up. There was something peculiar about the way that they moved. Not quite like predators hunting prey. More like a drone approaching its target. Their movements seemed calculated. Methodical. Almost Robotic.

“You said no aliens,” one of the Spetsnaz yelled out from the back. “So what the hell is this?”

“This doesn’t change much,” Colt said. “These things are still here to kill you guys and we’re here to stop them.”

The creatures continued advancing at a steady pace. I looked back at our rifles, which were laid out on the tables. No matter how strong I’d become, the last thing I wanted to do was fight these things with my bare hands.

“SHIT!!!”

I turned back around, seeing that the creatures had begun charging. I clenched my fists. It didn’t really look like I had a choice.

I stepped forward as one of them lunged at me. I could only comprehend just how massive the thing was once I got up close to it. Not only did it tower over me, its body was well over ten feet long.

I twisted my hips and punched its head. It certainly did some damage, but at the cost of my knuckles shattering. A few seconds into the fight and I was already in deep shit.

I jumped back due to the pain, but the creature just kept charging. It raised its stinger, and I was ill-prepared to block it. It stabbed me in arm, not quite penetrating my skin. Still hurt like hell, though. I could see something dripping out of the tip as the creature pulled the stinger back. Some kind of dark-green fluid.

I rushed forward and tried putting the creature into a standing choke before it could strike again.

It didn’t work. The creature slammed me in the abdomen with one of its arms, sending me backwards and leaving me breathless.

“Fuck this…” I muttered. I pulled myself up and rushed over towards one of the rifles. I aimed the barrel at the creature’s head and began spraying.

Even though just about every bullet hit dead-on, the abomination still wouldn’t go down. Its head would snap back slightly with every impact, as bits of its skin and flesh exploded. Dark-colored blood spilled to the floor as it continued pressing forward, seemingly unbothered by the injuries.

I cursed again and reloaded, before once again emptying the entire magazine into its face. It finally dropped this time. Even then, it still wasn’t fully dead, jerking and writhing around on the floor.

I clutched the rifle like a bat and slammed it into the back of the creature’s head until it broke.

That finally managed to finish it off for good.

The adrenaline rush was so intense that it took me a second to notice it.

There was something sticking out of the creature's flesh.

I approached the “corpse” cautiously in order to get a closer look. I wasn’t seeing things. Buried within the bone, cartilage and tissue appeared to be wires. As if it were some type of robot.

Before I could inspect any further, another of these things lunged at me. I leapt back, before gauging the situation around me. I spotted Colt fighting off two of the creatures at once bare-handed. There were four more lying limp around him. The guy was a monster himself.

However… the rest of us weren’t doing so well. Luke was trying his hardest not to get pummeled while Armin was thrashing on the floor, trying not to be strangled.

Strangulation. I wouldn’t have expected these kinds of creatures to resort to something like that.

Everybody else was facing a similar struggle. The only one holding their own was Colt.

But there was also somebody missing. Somebody I couldn’t immediately spot.

“Looking for something?” A voice said from behind me.

I turned around, seeing Visser with a wicked grin on his face.

“Visser? What the hell-“

He interrupted by punching me hard in the throat. I began gasping for air as I fell to my knees. I looked up, watching as he casually strolled away, before walking up to Luke and unceremoniously breaking his arm.

I tried standing up, but ended up getting knocked back down by one of the creatures. I could hardly fight back as it wrapped its massive hands around my throat, simultaneously drilling its stinger into my leg. This time, it managed to break my skin. What it was trying to do wasn’t a mystery. It was injecting the necrotic agent into my veins.

To my surprise, it let go of my throat before I passed out completely. In retrospect, it made sense. These things were probably programmed to move on after the injection was completed.

I sat up, struggling to funnel air into my lungs. I looked around again, watching as Visser effortlessly subdued the rest of our team. At the same time, the creatures seemed to be completely ignoring him.

Eventually, he made his way over to Colt, who was still had his hands full with multiple creatures. Colt screamed something at him, but I couldn’t hear what he said. Visser responded by punching him in the face.

Compared to the rest of us, it took him a little longer to take down Colt, but he still managed to do it without breaking much of a sweat. It also didn’t help that Colt was being tag-teamed by the creatures.

With our team entirely down for the count, the creatures turned their attention towards the Spetsnaz, who’d been witnessing the entire ordeal at the back.

These guys were done for, I thought to myself.

Fighting these creatures was a hellish experience, even with the serum. I could only imagine facing them in my normal state. It’d be a complete and utter slaughter.

However...

The Spetsnaz didn’t seem worried at all. There was no fear in their expressions. Their faces were stone, as if a gang of mere hooligans were standing in front of them.

Some raised their rifles. Some grabbed their knives. Despite the impossible odds, they were still going to fight.

The lead Spetsnaz stepped forward, before shouting something in Russian.

And then they charged.

As expected, it was a short, brutal struggle. I looked back at Visser. He appeared to be recording the entire thing, keeping only the Russians and the creatures in frame.

Even though he only managed to capture a few seconds of footage at most, he took off right after. I suppose he got what he came for.

It was shocking just how horribly the plan had gone. The Spetsnaz we were supposed to protect were all dead. Half of our team was knocked out cold, while the rest were injured. Not only that… Visser had apparently set everything up. A mole amongst moles. I could only imagine what was waiting for us next.

The creatures had become stationary after finishing off the Russians. The details were all starting to align. These things were just machines made to look like biological entities. These were fake aliens.

I could see Colt slowly pulling himself up, as blood leaked from his nose and a large gash on his forehead.

“Where’d... Visser go?” He asked, spitting out blood.

“He took off,” I responded. “After recording everything.”

Colt’s eyes turned wide, before he suddenly bolted up. “That fucker can't get away.” He said, before sprinting back down the corridor like a bat out of hell.

Everybody else was too roughed up to follow after him.

But I wasn’t.

My right fist was broken, but that was about the extent of my problems. I started running after Visser as well. We made it out of the underground complex and back into the woods, where we could see a trail of fresh footprints in the snow. We tracked his trail for about five minutes before finally catching up to him. He didn't seem too alarmed. In fact, it looked like he was just taking a casual stroll through the woods.

Colt wasn't about to waste time asking any questions, immediately charging at him like a bull. He tried taking Visser down, but was met with an abrupt knee to the face instead. I tried running at Visser as well, but was knocked down before I could even lift my arms. It happened so quick that I’m not even sure what kind of move he pulled on me. In any case, I wasn’t getting back up. It felt like my liver had just burst open.

Colt wasn’t done yet, though. With blood pouring from his mouth, nose and eyes, he lifted himself up and started advancing towards Visser once again. What happened next was a one-sided beatdown. Colt must’ve thrown over fifty strikes, with only a couple landing. Even the ones that hit didn’t seem to faze Visser in the slightest. He just shrugged everything off.

Visser grabbed by the arm and delivered a rib-shattering kick, which Colt back down to the ground.

We were both done for. Visser just looked at both of us and sighed.

“Commendable effort,” he said. “You boys aren’t giving up on the mission. I can respect it.”

He leered over Colt.

“But that also means it’d be dumb as fuck if I let you live.”

Visser gripped Colt’s throat and squeezed.

“You’re a… rat fucking… bastard.” Colt rasped out, as the air slowly vacated his lungs.

“Yeah, yeah…” Visser said, nodding. “It is what it is.”

I wanted to pummel Visser right then and there with every fiber of my being. But I couldn’t. I could only crawl towards them at a futile pace.

“I’ll get to you next, buddy. Don’t you worry.” He said, grinning smugly at me.

Colt stopped struggling after about ten seconds.

“There you go,” Visser said, almost in a whisper. “Night, night.”

Then he turned his attention to me.

If you told me ten years ago that this is how I’d die, I’d probably laugh in your face. If you told me the same thing one year ago… well that’s a different story. At the end of the day, I had nobody to blame but myself. I never could go down the normal route. No matter how much the people in my life pleaded. No matter how much worry I caused them. I only ever wanted to live for myself. I still don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But I suppose things could've been different. Could've been better.

Your thoughts race when death is lurking right in front of you. I don’t know if time was slowing down in my mind or if Visser was just taking his sweet time walking over. But I had a lot of time to think. A lot of time to regret.

I sighed and closed my eyes. I never really believed in reincarnation, but at that moment I tried. I just that I’d do better in my next life.

I was waiting for him to kill me. And I kept waiting. But… it wasn’t happening. Eventually I opened my eyes. Visser was standing only a few feet away from me, but his attention was focused elsewhere.

I followed his gaze, spotting Luke standing at the edge of a clearing behind us. One of his arms was completely mangled (thanks to Visser), and he was bleeding profusely from a wound on his cheek. Despite that, he was still there, holding a pistol.

Visser looked perplexed at the sight. I can’t say I would’ve reacted differently. I couldn't comprehend what Luke was trying to do.

“Didn’t I just kick your ass?” Visser said. “And now you’re here, pointing that pea-shooter at me. I mean, I get it. I'm just as dedicated as the next guy. But this is getting ridiculous."

Luke just grinned. “I didn’t want to waste this on you… but I’m kind of glad that I get to.”

He fired the weapon, hitting Visser in the chest. But not with a normal bullet. The projectile was some kind of liquid-filled capsule, staining Visser's clothes and neck as it exploded upon impact.

Visser looked at Luke, the smugness in his expression replace with genuine concern.

"What the fuck was that?" He asked.

"Try kicking my ass now motherfucker." Luke responded.

Visser's face contorted into a grimace as he stepped forward. But he couldn't even make it a few yards before collapsing. He went into a violent coughing fit as blood burst from his mouth.

"God... damn.." He muttered.

"My father once said that no matter what you have..." Luke began. "It can still be taken away in a heartbeat. I never doubted him."

He looked at me, tossing me a pair of handcuffs.

"Do me a favor and restrain him for me," Luke said, as his injured arm dangled gruesomely to the side. "I'm a bit fucked up right now. No rush, though. He's not going anywhere."

I looked at Visser, who was still writhing and coughing up blood on the ground. I looked over at Colt, still lying limp beside him. I was seconds away from sharing the same fate. Maybe I had. Maybe I'd really been strangled lifeless, and this was just some posthumous hallucination.

But... I don't think the dead could feel as pissed off as I did in that moment.

"What happens next?" I asked Luke.

He shook his head. "I don't know for sure. But I think things are about to start moving quick." 

---

Credits

 

I Was Contracted to Help Conceal a UFO Crash (Part 4)

I’ve only been to Russia a few times before, but there is one solid conclusion I can draw about the country: it’s one of the hardest place to complete contracts. The targets are usually hell to put down and my heart feels like it’s seconds away from detonating at all times. I do enjoy drinking over there, though.

I managed to get some sleep on the flight over. That would’ve been impossible had I not been tired to the point of delusion. Our ride came in the form of a clunky old cargo plane that only had sitting space for the pilots. I think I banged my head on about fifteen crates before I woke up.

“There’s no flights to Norilsk, and I can’t really take a government-owned aircraft without arousing suspicion so I had to call in a favor from an old friend,” the agent explained.

I’m sure he could see the trepidation on my face.

“Look, it’s the best I could do.”

I suppose it didn’t matter. The plane wasn’t the biggest issue. It was what we were bound to see once we got off that worried me the most.

Along with the agent and the pilots, there were two others on the plane with us: another SAC agent named Armin and a Green Beret named Luke. Four wasn’t exactly the biggest team, but the agent assured me that we’d rendezvousing with the rest once we got to our destination.

The flight was mostly silent and a bit awkward.

“So what do I call you?” I asked the agent in an attempt to make small talk. “You don’t have to tell me your real name… just give me something so it doesn’t get weird.”

The agent leaned his head back, as if he were thinking about it.

“It’s Colt. That’s my real name, by the way. I trust you enough.” He flashed a corny grin at me.

I nodded in response. “Colt it is.”

We landed on a small airstrip in the middle of what looked like a remote field. I was hit with freezing rain the moment I stepped out of the plane, which managed to wake me up a bit. I looked around, but there was quite literally nothing surrounding us.

“You sure we’re in the right place?” Luke asked. “Doesn’t look like there’s too much going on here.”

Colt looked at one of the pilots, an older, weary-looking gentleman, and nodded. The man lumbered out of the plane and began walking towards a nearby forest.

“This way,” he said in a thick accent. “It’s just short walk.”

I underestimated what he meant by “short”. We walked for about three hours into the middle of the forest, all while lugging around twenty pounds of gear and being drenched by the ice-cold precipitation.

At one point, we came across some kind of large, pill-shaped object stuck in the trees.

“It’ll make sense later,” Colt said, when he saw me looking up at it. “Just keep walking for now.”

After the arduous hike, the pilot finally stopped in a clearing and took out a metal detector. He scanned the ground for a bit before gesturing for the shovel that Colt was holding. After about a minute of digging, he uncovered something that looked like the entrance to a vault.

“Still there,” he said, chuckling. “Many bad memories here.”

He entered a code into the keypad and it opened, revealing a metal ladder leading down into oblivion.

He took a deep breath as he got up, before putting his hand on Colt’s shoulder. “I’ll be waiting in plane. Good luck my friend.”

Colt nodded. “Six PM. If we’re not back by then, just leave.”

The pilot gave him one last glance before walking out of the clearing and out of sight. He didn’t look so confident.

“Well,” Colt said, turning on his helmet flashlight. “Time to enter the belly of the beast.”

I couldn’t tell you how long the climb down was. I just knew that my arms were jelly by the end. There was also an indescribable smell lingering in the air. It wasn’t putrid per se. It just felt like something I wasn’t supposed to be breathing in. After scaling down the ladder, we found ourselves in some kind of underground military complex.

“It’s an old KGB base,” Colt explained. “Repurposed for modern-day Spetsnaz training.”

“Spetsnaz?” I asked. “Is it a good idea to show up unannounced?”

Colt looked down at his watch. “If everything’s gone according to plan, then we should be fine.”

“Well, how can I not be confident when you put it like that…” I muttered.

He started moving and we followed, passing through rooms that contained weight-lifting equipment, shooting ranges and mats for hand-to-hand training. Eventually, we came across the dining hall.

I’ll admit, I was a bit taken aback by what we found waiting for us.

“What the hell happened here?” Luke asked.

It was a bloodbath inside. Standing amongst the plates of spilt food and drink, there were about twenty soldiers and agents, with five more dead on the ground. I recognized roughly half as Spetsnaz, with the other half wearing generic tactical gear. I assumed the latter half were “our” guys. The ones who were dead were all Spetsnaz.

“Oh, jeez,” Colt muttered, as he stared at the grisly scene around him.

One of the non-Spetsnaz soldiers looked over at us. He was average height, and incredibly handsome, save for the gnarly scar running through one of his eyes.

“What the hell did you expect?” he said, with a slight Dutch accent. “We’re lucky it only got this bad.”

Saying that everybody looked on edge would have been an understatement.

“You showed them what the serum could do and they still didn’t believe you?” Colt said, stepping forward.

“Most did,” the soldier responded. “Not all. We should’ve expected that from the start.”

“Well do they believe you now?”

The solider looked over his shoulder at the group of angry Spetsnaz behind him. He nodded at them, a few nodded back, and a few cursed at him in Russian.

“I guess. I mean, they’ve stopped trying to kill us at least. So we've stopped killing them.”

Colt sighed and shook his head. "Fuck's sake Visser," he muttered, before gesturing to Luke, Armin and I. “In any case, these are the new guys. All quite capable, if I do say so myself.”

“They’re on the serum?” The soldier, who's name was apparently Visser, asked. Colt nodded.

The soldier walked forward and extended his arm, shaking each of our hands in quick succession. “Like Colt mentioned, the name's Visser,” he said. “I’m glad you guys chose to be a part of this. We need all the help that we can get.”

He went on to fill us in on what was happening.

Similar to Colt, Visser was an SAC agent acting as a mole inside of Kane’s faction. After some lingering, he became privy to the time and location of Kane’s second attack. The first one was in the US, at a cult base. The second in Russia, at a Spetsnaz complex. If the Russian government were led to believe that aliens had landed on Earth and subsequently slaughtered an entire unit of their soldiers, Kane’s plan to make the world believe they were in imminent danger would become one step closer to a reality.

“That object in the forest,” I said. “That’s the supposed to be the UFO, isn’t it? It was planted there.”

Visser nodded. “You couldn’t be more correct. The man’s running an intricate operation. Which is why we’ve gotta put a wrench into it as fast and hard as we can.”

“So what happens next?” Luke asked.

“In about an hour, Kane’s forces are gonna storm the place.” Visser responded.

“They’re going to the same thing they did to your team,” Colt added. “Have his super-soldiers kill all the Spetsnaz and then inject them with the necrotic agent. The deadly aliens strike again, and nobody’s safe. Not even some of the most skilled soldiers in the world.”

“The US government will eventually find out and compare the incident to what happened in Montana,” Visser continued. “And it’s going to keep happening all around the world, until there’s only one conclusion left to draw.”

“We tried explaining the situation,” another non-Spetsnaz soldier added. “But like hell they were going to believe us. Our Russian’s also pretty rusty. I think some things got lost in translation.”

“We believe you now,” one of the Spetsnaz said in English, stepping towards us. “But only for now. If what you’re saying does not happen…” his face suddenly morphed into a vicious sneer. “Well, you’ve killed five of my men. I don’t care what drugs you’ve taken to become so strong… we will fight back.”

I heard one of the Spetsnaz in the back shout something to the effect of “And you couldn’t bring any for us?”

“Sounds good chief,” Visser replied, ignoring the outburst. “But I promise you, we’re saving lives here.”

The Russian soldier didn’t seem impressed. Nevertheless, he stepped back for the time being.

“So from what it sounds like, they won’t be expecting us, right?” Armin asked. I think it was the first time I’d ever heard him speak.

Visser nodded affirmatively.

“Good,” Armin responded. “Makes our jobs simpler.”

“What’s the size of the force coming for us?” I asked.

“That was something I couldn’t confirm,” Visser responded. “But we’ve got twelve guys on the serum here. We should be fine.”

I nearly forgot about that. The enemy was superhuman, but so were we.

“So what are these?” I said, holding up my rifle. “Decorations?”

Visser grinned. “We’re going old school baby.”

He rolled up his sleeves, showing off his wrapped wrists. “Hope you’ve kept up with your hand-to-hand training.”

The rest of the soldiers followed suit, dropping their weapons and beginning to stretch out their limbs.

There’s a reason I preferred assassinations from a distance. I wasn’t a fan of getting punched in the face and tossed into walls. But I suppose there was no getting out of this one.

Visser walked over and tossed me a set of hand wraps. “We might hit hard, but we’re hitting pretty hard targets as well. Don’t want a broken wrist.”

The Spetsnaz soldiers hung back as the rest of us moved to the front. I already knew I was going to be hurting like hell by the end, so I prepared myself mentally. I’d been pummeled to near-death a few times before, and I couldn’t really afford to lose any more brain cells.

Visser tapped his watch as the hour dwindled. Soon enough, we started hearing movement coming from the corridor up ahead.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and clenched my fists. I told myself that I was about to do something good. Something that would benefit humanity in the long run. For a moment, that made me feel better. That feeling faded quickly when I looked at what had appeared in front of us.

A horde of unfathomable creatures had gathered at the dining hall entrance. Their dark-grey bodies were centipede-like, with a sizeable stinger at the end of their tails. Their torsos were thick and slimy, with four veiny, beefy arms attached to the sides. Their fists were the size of bowling balls. They had two circular mouths lined with sharp teeth on either side of their face, with 3 sets of glowing, piercing eyes on top. Their “hairs” were wild and spiky, almost like blades jutting out from the top of their heads.

Of course, none of us knew how to react. I looked over, watching as Colt’s expression turned blank.

“What the fu-“

Before he could even finish the sentence, the creatures began charging at us, shrieking so loud it felt like my brain was shaking.

Safe to say, I don’t think this was part of the plan. 

---

Credits