Damien’s vision swam again. He had no concept of time at this point. Just moments when the sedatives wore off just enough for him to realize he was still alive. He tried to concentrate and remember who he was. The marks that were on his arm at the edge of his field of vision stirred emotions and thoughts. The separated chevrons filled him with purpose. He was supposed to lead…something? Someone? Someones? He could not clear the fog from his head. It felt as if it was alive and seeking to extinguish the last bits of what he would have called himself. As if attempting to remember was seen as an affront to a nameless god that was responding angrily.

He could still hear the EKG and feel the tubes that were running in and out of him. He could feel the restraints on his body. Tightened to the point where he was reminded of them with every breath. There was no range of movement. There was no trying to slip out of them. looking down at his wrists he could see that he was losing weight and if he was ever able to escape his muscles were atrophied and he would need assistance. But did he want to escape? Was he here of his own volition? Despite the restraints was he really being kept against his will? He couldn’t recall.

As if on cue something entered the room. It was a something shaped like a someone. He knew this instinctively. As if there was something that had told him long ago that this person wasn’t human. He focused his eyes on them and the image he saw changed. The color of their skin faded away. They seemed a stark grey scale image against the color of the world around him. He focused more and finally saw It, It looked at him as if feeling his eyes on It. It looked female, clad in scrubs and pushing a rack with IV bags both full and empty. When she smiled the mouth seem to go past her ears and the teeth in the mouth seemed too large and offset to be human. As if realizing that she had been found out she spoke to him in a tone that dripped with hate and condescending. “Oh no, looks like someone is trying to become fully awake. Can’t have that. We have such grand plans for you. Plans that you are going to love. You and those like you.”

She pushed the cart to the side of the bed. Reaching for the bags attached to the tubes leaving him, she disconnected the bags filled with a substance that looked like milk with a sick smile on her face. The smile a sadist would give to their victim. She paused on the last bag holding it in front of his face. “See? aren’t you just a good boy making all of this for us. We may not be able to turn you but whatever those things did to you to fight it off makes such sweet nectar for those cattle out there. They just can’t seem to get enough. I hear they are trying to find new ways to get it into their bloodstreams. Apparently needles are too last year, But then again, if you’ll forgive the pun, we just keep Humming along.” The creature cackled to herself as she hooked up the empty bags and loaded fill bags onto the tubes running into his body.

She paused when she got to one of the bags. A look that could be described as a small amount of concerned fear. “You seem to be going through the sedative at an accelerated rate.” She pulled up a clipboard and scribbled something while muttering under her breath, “this makes five times that we have had to increase the dose. How is he still coming out of it? He should be dead now.” Damien attempted to laugh. All that he was able to manage was a wet popping noise around the feed tube going down his throat. Realizing he had heard her and that she hadn’t been in her head she turned towards him with a snarl. Her hand flashed across his stomach as her nails turned to talons and gouged his abdomen. She cackled again as blood stained the sheets and pooled around his body. “Don’t you worry little hunter, we’ll make sure that you don’t die. And if there’s a thought rolling around in that dim witted fucking brain of yours that I may be punished for that you can think again. As long as you don’t die I’ll be fine…”

Her voice trailed off as the EKG started to scream. He heard her speak in a language he could not understand that burned his ears to hear. From her tone he could tell that she had made a mistake and she would surely be punished. And as darkness started to over take him again he caught her eyes again. His own eyes slanting with as much snark as he could and putting every remaining ounce of himself behind it, he slowly extended his middle finger. The edges of his mouth twitching into the hint of a smirk. Her shrieks of anger and hate were the last sweet sounds he heard as he fell into oblivion. ***** Jacob was at his desk looking over the materials that Madelyn had given him. There was a lot to go through and some of it seemed disjointed and contradictory. Her writing showed that she had been under a lot of stress towards the end. She had looked it the last time she was in his office all those months ago. The vision sprang back to his mind. How defeated she had looked and how frightened she had seemed. He had noticed that she had not left a forwarding address and when he had gone to her home trying to find any clues as to where she had gone her home had been scrubbed clean with an obsessive attention to detail to the point where there was nothing behind. Not even motes of dust. He had talked to her neighbors and it seemed like towards the end she had made forcible distance between herself and them. She hadn’t even hired a moving company to move. Instead hiring a truck out and moved. She had been serious. She wanted out of this life. She wanted nothing more to do with the Messengers or the Heralds. She was going to be missed by the Hunter.net community. She had been a valuable resource for both other Visionaries and other Hunters needing information.

Jacob’s attention was pulled from his thoughts as a new face walked through his door. The man seemed to be in his thirties, lean and bookish. He watched as the man entered into the waiting room, his eyes darting around as if appraising his office. The man sat down in view of Jacob saying nothing, waiting to be acknowledged, Jacob got up from his desk and crossed the over to the half wall separating the office from the waiting room. “Can I help you sir? I’m not taking on new clients right now” “Yes you can actually. Or to be more accurate we can help each other. I’m a former friend of a colleague of yours. One that hasn’t been seen for a few years now” Jacobs blood ran cold. How could he know? There was no way. Damien didn’t make friends. Damien was too paranoid to have given himself away on hunter.net. And one of the creatures would have set off the alarm if they even stepped into the parking lot.

“I’m not sure that I know who you are talking about.” “Oh, I’m sorry I thought you knew I was talking about Damien Ward. He’s been missing for three years now. Although to be more accurate Damien and I haven’t talked to one another for over a decade now but recently I have had a life event happen and” The man pulled the collar of his shirt down to reveal the symbol Jacob had seen others calling themselves Martyrs had been using, “a change of heart about the things Damien had tried to tell me about all those years ago.” Jacob got up and went to the front door. Locking it he turned back to face the man. “What’s your name kid?” “James. James Nodens. Damien and I were high-school friends if you were wondering. I’m sure that he never mentioned me. We did not leave off on the best of terms. In fact I had called him a psychopathic murderer and that I would testify as such if they had asked me.” “Some friend you must have been.” “Well, as I said I had a change of view that came with a change of heart, I now know he needs to be saved and that he is alive. I’m not sure if the astral beings had tried to contact you about it but based on the ones that I have come in contact with They have lead me here and had eluded to you being the best shot I have to finding his location. I didn’t believe you would actually know anything as Damien would have been very hesitant to trust any sort of authority figure even before he had become afflicted. But once I saw the symbols that you had on your door I knew that you had to have contact with the Astral People.” “Astral People?” “Yes the beings who have contacted us to let us know that there are other beings attacking humanity. The ones that are trying to be our allies. I’m not sure if the are just temporally displaced beings or if the originate from another planet and astral projection is the only way that they can make contact with us.”

Jacob rubbed his chin beneath his beard. It was as good a theory as any other Hunters had ever had. He spoke up again, “I’m sure Damien would disagree with you.” “Oh surely he would. When he had first told me about them he had said that he thought that they were angels talking through people as we could see their actual forms.” “And you don’t think that they are angels?” “I’m not sure exactly what they are. But the theory I have seems the most supported one to me. Can we get back to discussing what you know about Damien’s disappearance? I don’t think that debating metaphysics is going to get us anywhere.” Jacob leaned against his desk. He was right, debating what and who the Messengers and Heralds were was a raging debate on hunter.net.

“Well a former client who we had worked with was also looking into it. She had recently received a slide in the mail containing the finger nail of the right index finger. I have a contact who is trying to do some forensic work on it to see what else can be gained from it. At this point there really isn’t anything that I can give you. I have been looking for a new team since most of my former colleagues have tried to distance themselves from this case. is there a number that I can contact you out or some other way that I can contact you once we get information that we can move on?” “Yes,” James stood an moved to the desk. Grabbing one of Jacob’s cards from the holder he flipped it over and jotted down contact info. Handing it to Jacob, “please, if you need anything or find anything out do not hesitate to contact me.” Jacob took the card from him and and scanned the info on the card. “ForteanMan86?” “I was a paranormal hobbyist before all of this. Seemed appropriate to me.”
****** James walked back to his car. That had gone much better than he had thought. He had expected the old P.I. to have raked him across the coals before offering him any information or agreeing to share it with him. He was glad. The urge to find Damien had burned in him for months now. Ever since the day he had heard their voices he knew there was something important they were leading him towards. He had shown that he was willing to pay any price to help save humanity. He felt obligated to the Astral People and to the human race. This he knew in the depths of himself. He smiled slowly to himself as he pointed his car towards the area known as White Pines and the last place any one had known that Damien existed. It shouldn’t be that hard to find. It was a trailer park after all. ******* The hours that it had taken to find the lot were frustrating to James. This isn’t information that should have disappeared this easily. There were rent trails, check cashing receipts. utility bills, hell junk mail should have been a factor. But the more he looked the more it seemed like not only had Damien disappear but he had been cut out of existence. The few people that seemed to have even heard of him refused to talk as if they feared for their very lives. The property owner was the only one who seemed willing to talk about him, although if only to complain about the mess he had left and the fact that he had to fight for almost a year to get the Lucian Company to actually pay up after they had offered to buy out the land from him. Turns out he was more of a Property Manager now. But James was finally at the lot that Damien’s trailer had sat on.