As the members of unit 24 turn their attention to Sawyer walking out of the facility, they notice the unfamiliar girl walking beside him. She felt the cold breeze on her skin, finally being out of the building after a while.
She was fully fitted with standard field operator gear. With an extra hood attachment. As they drew nearer, the guys saw the face of the girl. She looked fairly young for a soldier, and pretty - certainly not the fighter type.
"Claudia, these are your new peers - unit 24. Jericho, Richard and Lex."
Sawyer introduces Claudia to the group. Undoubtedly, Claudia couldn't help but find them slightly intimidating, especially the youngest guy who, unlike the others, wasn't in full gear. He was dressed in a simple white tank top and his face bore an unfriendly resting expression.
"Woah, another one - and this time it's a chick? You get your kicks off to this?"
Lex breaks the tension, immediately poking fun at Sawyer. It was obvious that the girl was slightly nervous and hadn't come by willingly enlisting.
Jericho butts Lex with the back of his rifle.
"Watch yourself."
Ignoring Lex's comment, Sawyer goes on to introduce Claudia to the others.
"This is Claudia. She's a patient, sort of like Richard, and has chosen to join my unit."
The word 'chosen' put a slightly bitter taste in Claudia's mouth. Nevertheless she pushed out a few words.
"Nice to meet you."
After the short introductions, the group, apart from Dawn, get in a transport vehicle and head out to their destination. Once the car had left facility grounds, Sawyer turned to fill his unit in on the current objective.
"Alright, listen up. Our current objective is to eliminate pests."
"Pests?" Richard raises an eyebrow.
"Pests are a sub category of cryptids. They fall under the Parper threat ranking and are generally harmless. However, they can still get you bad if you lower your guard - so don't."
Lex speaks up, feeling offended that they're being sent on pest extermination duty instead of proper mission. "What the hell? You've got us wasting our time, send someone else to do it."
"I took this up on purpose. It's a good chance to show Claudia how we operate against cryptids out in the field without putting anyone at risk. The way you've all been put together… It's unorthodox, I know, but I have to make sure that none of you will go limp on me when we're participating in a mission in which lives are at stake."
At that moment, Claudia hears her earpiece connect to a signal, and a voice speaks out to her through the radio.
"Hello Claudia. This is Dawn, we met earlier, I'm this unit's communications manager. If you have any questions, let me know."
Claudia sighs. "I have a million questions."
Dawn's voice over the radio replies, "Uh yeah, I get that. Any questions that I can answer… easily?"
"Actually, I do… Finding out that these monsters exist - seeing all that the facility, it was like some terrible nightmare. If they're just… out there, and you don't know where they come from or how long they've been here, then how come the world hasn't found out about them yet?"
"Cryptids tend to be stalkers. Traps, even. Places like deep in the woods or abandoned buildings are the prime spots for them to take somebody. They don't need to eat, drink or sleep. They don't reproduce or age either. Some don't even kill people, but the ones which do - we don't know why. They rarely attack animals, so sometimes it seems like cryptids are intrigued by humans, and indulge in that intrigue by killing or psychologically harming civilians. Luckily for us, they avoid cameras and crowded places. In some way, maybe they understand that drawing large amounts of attention will get them hunted, like what's about to happen now."
"Honestly, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself." Claudia says, deep in thought - however, thankful that she has gotten a better understanding of what she'll be going up against.
Dawn's voice over the radio continues. "There are people who survived a cryptid attack and tried to tell the tale, but of course nobody believed them. Even possible sightings caught on camera are too vague, and then dismissed as fear-mongering CGI or AI by the masses. Part of our job is to keep it that way, society could shatter if the truth about what's out there were to be revealed. And as you know our other duty is to prevent cryptids from getting to their victims. Between 500,000 and 600,000 people are reported missing in the United States every year, and 2-3% of those are from cryptid related incidents. Though that may sound like very little, it's still possibly up to 18,000 people that were taken by something incomprehensible to them"
"That's right." Sawyer speaks up, his brooding voice making Claudia jump as now the voice was coming from across from her rather than through her earpiece.
"What we do here is important. It doesn't matter how you got here or who you were before joining my unit. Getting the mission done is what matters, so that there's one less cryptid off the board that can make people suffer." He says this seemingly aimed at everyone in the vehicle, and not just Claudia.
A little while later, the driver slams on the metal separating the front seats from the soldier seats to get their attention.
"Ay boys, we're here."
They all exit the vehicle.
This time emerging just outside a shopping centre past a nearby town that seemed abandoned. Nobody was around, only the cars driving by on the highway nearby, but not close enough to see the soldiers at the store. Two guards from the facility were stationed there and let the group enter. However, Sawyer did not lead them into the building, rather the rubble of stairs at the side leaning under.
As they followed Sawyer underneath the shopping centre and into the dark narrow staircase filled with rubble, Jericho was the first to ask.
"So what's down here?"
Sawyer kept leading them through, not turning back but answering. "They sometimes just build these stores on top of old ones. The store that's currently above us had its construction paused for whatever reason."
Evident by the unfinished parking lot out front.
They reach the store under the current one. Some lights still work, leeching off of the electricity from the active store. It's still fairly dark however, and lots of rubble litter the premises.
"Jericho. Check for any urban explorers. Don't want any unwanted viewers around for the demo. And if you find the targets, radio me ASAP."
Jericho nods and disappears off into the backrooms of the underground store, the flashlight on his rifle guiding his search.
The rest of the crew scour the place searching for the cryptids. They walk even further into the buried store, when suddenly a buzz and some noise breaks the silence.
His body slightly jumping up in surprise, Richard flicks around to see an old TV had abruptly turned on somehow.
"Wha- fuck, it's a TV? How'd that turn on?"
"Either by coincidence, or the cryptid is taunting us. Stay on high alert, even a pest can get you if you're out of it." Sawyer then looks over to Richard, who hasn't moved since the TV turned on and has been standing in a puddle of water that dripped down from above.
"Hey."
Richard then snaps out of his daze, catching up to the others. "You guys ever feel like some places are alive?"
"Riveting commentary." Lex says snarkily.
"From what I've surmised, Richard feels anomalies like radiation. It may mean that the pests are close by, so prepare yourself."
Sawyer unsheathes his sword and looks to Lex who readies his pistol and flashes a torch around their central point.
By his side, he sees Richard holding his axe, but doesn't hear anything out of Claudia.
"Claudia, you too-"
Looking back behind, he sees Claudia struggling at her neck as it drips blood from a fresh opening. Lex and Richard snap their heads back to look at Claudia as they hear the sound of her gargling, suffocating on her own blood.
Their previous nonchalant demeanour now replaced with a burning urgency. They immediately try to go to Claudia - however, Sawyer stops them, holding his hand out to not allow them further.
"She'll be alright, focus on finding the pest."
Richard's eyes go wide at Sawyer's assurance, looking at the girl drowning in her own blood. Even Lex thought it to be bizarre that Sawyer didn't allow them to help her - Sawyer had become an even bigger asshole in Lex's mind.
Sawyer had seen her heal small incidental injuries - in reality he didn't know whether Claudia's healing factor was strong enough to save her from a gashed out throat. Though, his mind was too preoccupied with keeping his attention on any oncoming attackers.
Claudia on the other hand, felt a nauseating feeling of needing to gasp but not being able to. The pest had snuck past her, and for this blunder she felt like she would die. However, as she grasped at her throat, she suddenly felt no injury on it. Her hands now simply slipped on the blood - and she realised, after a few seconds of panicking, that her only suffering was the pool of blood in her throat, rather than the sharp pain that she only felt for a brief moment.
Attempting to calm herself, she tried to cough up the blood instead of resisting. It was an extremely bizarre feeling to her - knowing that she had sustained a life-ending injury, yet still remaining standing and conscious. Soon, Claudia had coughed up any blood previously stuck in her throat, and was frantically feeling up her throat. It was healed. The blood was still there, but apart from an uneasy light-headedness - she was alright.
Her senses came back to her, and in her classic raspy voice she muttered, "Oh my God…"
At that instant, Sawyer's sword flicked through the air. His senses were at their highest attentiveness, scanning carefully for any movement and strange now when he perceives both of the aforementioned disturbances. His sword pierces through something with the silhouette of a large rat. It was fast without a doubt, but unlucky for it, Sawyer saw it coming.
It hung on the tip of his blade, twitching like an insect that had just been punctured. The piercing of the cryptid made the others stop and look. Its body was made out of fat folds and its back arched like a grasshopper. Its head was full of small dark spots serving as eyes. The miscellaneous pest had no standout features and was quite frankly gross and not very strong. It had four skinny legs, which it most likely used to rip out Claudia's throat when it jumped past the group.
Still alive on Sawyer's sword, it began to squirm out to free itself.
"Claudia, this one's yours." Sawyer says as he allows it to escape from its impalement.
Claudia's eyes widened as she hurriedly reached for her handgun. The creature falls from the tip of Sawyer's blade and crawls up the wall. It crawls in her direction. Claudia aims, fires - a miss. It leaps at her.