I was walking home. Behind me I heard footsteps crunching in the snow and immediately I reached into my satchel to get my mobile and some wards to activate. I didn't turn around.

"Hey, girl, it's a full moon," a soft male-sounding voice called out and before I could do anything I heard, "calm down" and I felt my both hands fall asleep. "I'm not going to hurt you. I have something for you to solve." There was a pause as I turned to see who it was, my arms dangling uselessly at my sides.

It continued to talk, "if you refuse or if you fail to solve it, well, there's any number of folks close to you that I could have skinned and chopped into pieces and delivered to you on your birthday, for example. You can hang their head next to the piece of toilet paper Shang Li gave you, for instance." It took a step closer, "failure's not an option, that's the mantra, yes?"

"Why do you need me to solve the puzzle? What my friends have to do with any of it?" I asked.

"I don't need you to solve it. I merely want you to solve it! And they have nothing to do with it. This, girl, is all about you." I saw a grin in the darkness and the evil poured out of its visage and consumed me whole. I dry heaved hard and my vision went blurry as I saw an explosion of white tracers dancing about as if right on the surface of my eyeballs and when they fizzled out all I could see then was flashes of gore, rended, bloody, and broken bodies and I recognised the faces on the bodies, twisted and contorted in extreme agonising pain. Bert, Hannah, Razor, others.

I stumbled back against the wall, doubled over, and heaved again, this time puking my dinner up at my feet. It was burning pain as I couldn't even clutch my stomach or brace myself against the wall.

The shadowy figure reached down with its hand and cupped my chin and lifted my head to face him; it was gentle but cold as ice. It just said to me. "I'll be in touch." Slowly it pulled its hand away from me and its icy fingers slid across my skin and I started shiver violently. I vomitted another time as my hands regained feeling.

But my body was slow to respond to my brain. I watched the figure walking down the street as I panted like a dog trying to gain control over my breathing and my body in total. I wanted to do something but my muscles and bones were jelly; I could hardly move. By the time I could move, the shadowy figure had disappeared somewhere in the darkness.

I'm better now. Unfortunately, I don't know any more information. I haven't heard anything still.

Hannah wrote:Oh Natasha - I'm so glad you're okay.


Why does this bad stuff have to happen all at once?

Bad things are happening every day, Hannah. I just that I happened to bring this one forth these forums since it almost certainly involves other people that come here.

I miss you and am constantly thinking about you and your pa.

Personally, I don't think it matters one way or the other if she solves it. It's about the chase and not really keeping words of honour or whatever else.

Azrael wrote:Natasha, it is important; what did it look like? This feeling that washed over you, was it as strong as you say?
Was there any evidence of this being's presence after it departed?
Was there any strange, odor, in the air like the stench of unhallowed grave earth?

I do appologize my fair maiden for my bluntness, but I must know if this being is related to the entity I myself encountered not too long ago. I feared it would persist in hunting the rest of you down.

If you and your comrades are in need of aid, I am near. It would not take me long to join you if you so ask of it.

This was a human, I believe, but like a puppet with unseen strings controlled from afar. It probably wasn't what you're thinking about, but if you like you can contact me in private and we can discuss. In the meantime I will post what I hope to be the conclusion to this mess and the Demon Ghost that has plagued us for some years now.

Time to wrap this one up. I'm in a bit of hurry so I'll just give the relevant details that are both not classified and which I deem to be useful to the Society. Kolya had a number of encounters with this monster's powerful psychic abilities. I'll leave it to him whether or not he shares those experiences. All I can say is that to hear him describe them, they were beyond disturbing.

This whole mess opened up on the Full Moon night and was pretty soon in motion. That's sort of why I've been hush-hush lately, been really busy dealing with this thing. It turns out that I could pretty much manage much of it by myself so there was no need to seek assistance here, but I take comfort knowing that the Society is available for those of us who need it.

The first challeng was steganographic. We were able to reverse engineer the computer code that went behind this and will make it available to Society computer geeks like Technocrat and others. This revolved around a digital photograph, which looked like a standard passport type of photo. The information I needed, however, was encrypted within the bytes of the file. And that led us to the next clue.

It led us to a male subject who upon questioning was very cooperative and forthcoming. Perhaps too much so. Clearly he was he playing a role, and he played it pretty well. He led us to the female in the photo. She worked in a kind of fast food restaurant and surveillance confirmed the male's claim that they were romantically involved. We were pretty immediately concerned for the safety of both; we suspected that they were really just expendable pawns in this game.

Through our interviews and investigations into these two and that photo with the encyrpted image we were led to check out an apartment which was being rented but nobody ever saw who lived there. Ever. I believe that we were supposed to find this apartment when we did as there was a freshly killed body there. The skin was removed and laying in a pile near the body. Several of the organs had been removed and placed in the freezer. But it also included a clue, thanks to some psychometry. Just before the victim was murdered a message was spoken so that when we checked out the body we would be able to pick up the clue.

At the same time as we were checking out the apartment a couple of my alarm wards I had placed in my apartment were triggered. When we arrived there to investigate just inside my apartment door there was a box and inside of this box was a human head, young female, who looked eeriely like myself. Stuck in the victim's mouth was a hand written note: "this is the cost of failure".

This part of the story is far too personal to share. I apologise. I am always forthcoming but I assure you that nothing I am omitting is of any value to anybody here. You'll just have to trust me on that. The result of all this is that we ended up just where Kolya and the guys had the encounter with the Demon Ghost in the forest. On the scene we encountered another body. They were getting heavier and heavier on my mind and I was starting to break down. I wasn't sure if there was more that I could take.

While investigating the immediate area we came under sporadic automatic gun fire. I followed the guys' leads.

"Natasha, you're behind me at all times. Lyosh, Sasha, flank," Kolya ordered almost immediately as we were hitting the deck. And then he was on the radio on our secure net with call signs and sit reps filling my ears as I saw Lyosha and Sasha move out while Kolya and I provided cover fire.

The fire fight seemed to last forever to me, but it was all over within a handful of minutes. I've still not gotten used to this aspect of field work although I 've been through the training and a few fire fights already. We were moving in a kind of L-formation while Lyosha was radioing in positioning information of the supernasty in relation to ourselves. It was heavy and intense, I could feel my senses and awareness (adrenaline) spiking as we moved and I heard the bullets whizzing by my head. Kolya was calm and that helped me. It was all battlefield tactics and radio chatter and then it all just went silent and I heard clearly that Sasha had prowled up on one of the shooters and was about to make a move on him . And then I heard some hand to hand to struggle and some gun fire and in English, Sasha said, "tango down".

And things seemed strangely calm as if it were finally all over. I looked over a t Kolya and that was kind of sobering. The look on his face, the intensity, told me that this wasn't yet over. And the point was accentuated with the sound of Lyosha's sniper rifle ripping through the forest and the silence like a screaming eagle. "Last tango at your 11:30, move up," he said over the radio to Kolya and I. Another shot ripped and echoed several times as we moved forward and Kolya raised his AN-94. "Hands up," Kolya ordered as he came upon the bad guy. The bad guy shot at Kolya, and Kolya returned fire, hitting the bad guy in the chest. Kolya ran up to check him while I provided cover and it was then that I saw the Demon Ghost. I dropped some wards and activated them, knowing that the monster was well in my range. The guy Kolya had hit wasn't dead but he wasn't happy either. Kolya zip tied him and applied some first aid to his wounds.

At the same time my wards were going to work on the Demon Ghost. "Sit tight," Kolya said to me and he was moving through the forest like a bear chasing down a caribou or something I don't know what. Pretty quickly he disappeared among the trees and Lyosha shooting and then the guys shooting. My wards were preventing the monster from its natural healing ability and the guys finally took it down as I heard it said over the radio.

I'm so much closer to having my life back which was ripped away from me by this monster, dym, and Not Ron. Yes, I take the Not Ron situation personal. Not Ron has no doubt supplied information to our enemies and as if that wasn't enough Not Ron has attacked and almost killed Kolya several times.

Yip. Just please don't beat yourself up, Hannah. Not saying you are but if you are, then you shouldn't; it's not your fault.

Hannah wrote:I so wish I'd never thought of him.

I'm glad you're okay and that things are starting to pull back together.

Can't unring bells, Hannah.
Can only move forward.

No need to let your imagination get a hold of you now. You're doing as good as can be expected, I think.

I got a shout out!

That just made my whole day. Something I really needed the way things have been.

But don't worry. We're doing everything we can to put an end to this.

Nemesis has a plan to tag the bastard.

how yall are?

ew we technorat ya know at tha furst casalty of a war is tha plan.

natasha i shure am glad ta hear tha news tho. whenna met sasha he was tawkin bout it and what-n.

good show ya mafucken commies.

It's always interesting to hear from you, Scotty.

I'm trying to get my visa situation worked out and maybe join you in the Triangle. I've done some research in Cuba before, and it would be nice to get back that way, especially since it's a harsh winter here.

There's no need to share the visions and nightmares the monster injected in my head. It won't help advance anything.

Good work in the frozen forest though, Natasha. You don't give yourself enough credit.

Eilonwy Solstice wrote:Are you sure, Kolya?

Yes.

It was all personal stuff. Ordering young men to their deaths, kids dying in my arms, to more complete fantasy crap such as cutting Natasha's head off with my knife.

Nobody outside my team was involved with these nightmares.

I never got used to any of the stuff that actually happened. It doesn't slow me down operationally speaking but it doesn't get any easier to actually deal with. Whether they're 8 or 18, they all scream for their mothers, and you never get desensitised to that. You learn to compartmentalise it and deal with it later.

The fake stuff like torturing Natasha to death is pretty easy to get over because it never was real.

Eilonwy Solstice wrote:Sorry, Kolya.

I can feel your warmth from here, Eilonwy. Thank You.

I keep my closet clean, that way douche bags can't use my mind against me.

It doesn't stop the supernasties from trying to use my mind against me. It just stops them from doing so successfully. Or you want me to tell you about the kids?