How did it all come to this? How come I just can’t find my way back to you, Catherine?
I’m so close to coming home, baby girl, your dad misses you so much.
I should be dead right now, the fact that I’m even writing this is a testament to my own inability to die.
Let me explain myself.
I remember sitting on my step, that…fucking gangly thing sprawled out before me, twitching and writhing and just refusing to die, and agent Logan Donaldson sitting beside me with his third cigarette in his mouth. I could hear the plane in the distance, I knew what that meant.
“We’re out of time,”
I knew in a moment, I would be obliterated by whatever type of explosive they were preparing to drop on us; I had accepted that this was my way back to Catherine.
And this fucking orginization decided to take that reuinion from me.
I saw the flash, the giant mushroom cloud that followed. I heard the rumble of the ensuing shockwave. I saw the things eyes shoot open and look directly at me moments before the explosion ripped across the three of us, tearing the very atoms from my body.
And then it all went black.
I was dead.
Was.
I remember having shots of coming back to existence…somehow. Images of laying in the back of some vehicle with people in hazmat suits peering over me, injecting my burnt flesh with chemicals I didn’t know, I didn’t understand. I saw the Gangly Man across from me, in some sort of comatose state.
However the fuck these people managed to sedate this thing, I don’t think I’ll ever understand.
I remember being rushed into a building from an underground parking lot, the hazmats not uttering a single word. They pushed me and the Gangly Man on gurney’s to an elevator. They pushed buttons and the next thing I know we’re being pushed out into white. The walls, the floors, everything was pure white, except for the suits. And that’s where they began to talk.
“These two from Site 34?”
“Yeah, the Darwin we radioed in for and the guy who was posting about it online.”
“Bring the Darwin to the research sector. Fuck, haven’t seen one in this condition in…fuck…ever. Bring this tough son of a bitch down to R&D. Did you administer the Darwin compound?”
Before I could hear the rest of that conversation, I was out again. I remember flashes of white again as I was moved from room to room. I remember seeing…things. Things worse than the Gangly Man. I saw these giant fucking spiders with disgusting worm looking things for heads. I saw clowns that looked distorted in so many wrong ways. I saw the corpse of a dog, its spine ripped open from its stomach, yet it was still alive, whining and snarling as it’s bones and flesh snapped and fixed.
And then we’re brought to this morning.
I remember coming to in a room that looked like every other one I saw those creatures in. White rooms with a glass case in the centre, large enough to hold the creature and a hospital bed, and what I now know could also fit four other people. I know the occupancy limit because when I came to, there were three corpses on the ground before me, and another one of those suits being held up by the throat by one of my hands. I didn’t understand what was happening. He was begging me to let go, screaming at me that he had a family at home.
“I have a daughter!” He actually fucking said that to me.
It made me remember Catherine, and this rage unlike any I’ve ever felt came over me. I snapped his neck with so much ease, it was like a fucking toothpick, and it felt so good to do.
Then the glass parted before me, opening to the rest of the room. It was then that I noticed him standing there at a switchboard.
For his own safety, I won’t say his name, but he’s made contact with the outside world already. He calls himself Whistleblower.
When I stepped to him, I realised he was so small standing before me.
Then I realised that wasn’t the case, but I was abnormally taller than I remembered.
He opened my eyes to a lot of things that this organisation was doing.
Apparently they were a secret group working within my country’s government, trying to find a way to create biochemical weaponry…in humans.
“All of these files that I’m leaking…they were all people at one point.”
I stood there as he told me this, almost too stund to speak. “Does that mean…?”
“Yes. The Darwin…or, the Gangly Man, as you call it…it was once a man, just like you were.”
Were.
He must’ve noticed that I was confused by his wording, as he took a deep breath and backed up, returning to the switchboard.
He flicked on a blank television screen that was on the wall. It showed the camera feed of the room. I saw the three corpses in the holding chamber. I saw Whistleblower.
I saw a Gangly Man standing before him.
They fucking turned me into one of them.
I stood there, so still. I was unable to comprehend the image on the screen for so long. I wanted to scream, I wanted to destroy everything. I wanted to break Whistleblower in half with my bare fucking hands.
“You’re feeling the rage already, I can tell. It’s going to get worse in the next little bit, I’m afraid.”
I stared at the creature on the screen, me, as he spoke. He told me that I was going to turn into the same animalistic beast that took my daughter from me. Soon enough the humanity that I was clinging on to would leave me, and I would be let loose by the organisation to see my species grow, until they saw a sufficient number of Darwins, at which point they’d round us all up and use us for leverage against other countries.
“They have another creation, called the Moros, that seems pretty powerful as well, but much less able to be reproduced as a Darwin is. That thing’s a fucking nightmare on the eyes, which is saying something since you’re…” his words trailed off as he noticed my demeanor begin to change.
“Anyway, I’m giving you a chance to get out there, don’t let your story end here.”
He opened the door to the room we were in, gesturing me to leave.
“You might not be able to die as easily as you wish, but you can avenge your daughter. Make them regret the monster they created.”
I didn’t pause to think of what he said. I stepped out of the room, and let my new animalistic instincts take over.
With a sharp inhale, I could smell the blood in this facility. I could hear every beating heart, and I could even determine which ones were human. There was a large cluster of them just above me. I rounded a corner and found a set of stairs. Clearing them as fast as I could, I saw the group of humans standing in what looked like a lunch room, it’s one wall being made of glass, including the doors; there were eight of them, five in hazmat suits, the other three dressed like Logan was, army fatigues with futuristic looking rifles in their hands. Their blood smelled so fucking good even from here. I could hear myself beginning to snarl as I walked towards the room. The walk became a faster pace until I was charging through the glass, grabbing one of the soldiers immediately and charging his head into the wall opposite us with a beautiful squishing sound. I could feel the grey matter in my hand as I pulled away and turned to the rest of them. The other two soldiers lifted their guns to me, but before they could even pull the trigger I had both of them in each of my hands, squeezing their faces between my knuckles until I heard a pop from each of their heads and their bodies go limp. The suits didn’t even move, they just stood there watching the entire transaction occur. I kicked one of them so hard, my leg tore through his abdomen. I picked up another and tore through his face with my mouth.
The taste of the flesh and blood on my tongue was euphoric. I quickly dispatched the remaining suits, then went to work finding more of them throughout the facility.
I don’t even know how many guards and suits I ended up finding, just that it felt so good to kill them all.
As I reached three floors up from where I started, I saw a sign on a door that gave my human side an idea.
Research/Containment Sector
I blew through the doors, seeing a long hall of glass cages, containing the monsters I saw earlier, plus so many more. Each glass box had a digital pad attached to the door, which I assumed was the locking mechanism. Smashing a few of them proved me right as the doors to each began to open. All of the creatures, the spiders, the clowns, the dogs that couldn’t stop dying, they all began to exit their cells and into the hallway with me. At the same time, a group of guards entered from where I had, looking upon the hall full of their worst nightmares. I don’t know why, but as one of the spiders got close to them, they all gave up moving and just stood there in some sort of trance.
As I sit here reading over what Whistleblower and Jack Frost had leaked, I realise you probably know what the Aracs are capable of, so I won’t go into detail what they did to those guards, along with their buddies.
I was in this hall for one thing and one thing only.
And when I reached the end of the hall, I found him.
Standing in the corner of his glass box, looking in the corner like the guy from the end scene of The Blair Witch Project, skin burned, arms slouched to the ground, was him.
Gangly Man.
I broke open his cell with ease, and entered it.
You’re him. The one from the woods. The words echoed in my head, and I knew they weren’t my own.
They got you too did they? It was him, speaking to me.
I don’t know if it was because I still had some humanity left or what, but I was unable to respond to him. That didn’t matter apparently as he turned to me, his white eyes still looking deep into mine, but now with an emotion I had never seen in him until now.
Understanding, complete and total.
Well, let’s get to work.
We both ran through the facility, killing every suit and guard we could find. I told him about Whistleblower, and we both agreed to allow him to escape.
The terror on everyones faces as they saw me and Gangly Man coming for them filled me with such a euphoric joy.
The sad thing is, you won’t hear about any of this on the news, because fuck do they deserve to have their deaths published. Every single fucking one of them.
So now here I am.
Surprised that I’m not dead? I bet you are.
But don’t get used to hearing from me after this. I don’t know how much time I have left being able to control myself like this. Whistleblower said the changes would come slowly, and I can feel them happening. I’m losing myself slowly.
Gangly Man ran off, probably to find his own place to bunker down before the organisation comes looking for us again. I’m going to do the same. I’m going to try to control myself for as long as I can, but heed my warnings.
Protect your children, avoid the woods as much as you can. I don’t know what’s coming next, but after today, I know it’s not good.
I’m sorry for what I’ve become, Catherine. I’m so sorry.