It took us god knows how long to get our battered bodies back to the apartment.

All three of us were hurting and hurting badly. None of us were in any condition to do anything but nurture our wounds. Sandra had gotten the worst of it. After taking multiple mind blocks and mind enhancers, the side-effects and withdrawals were harsh. The worst of it happened right after the battle, but her mind was in an uproar for much longer. Even hours after we’d made it back, she was still shaky, numb and delirious. I wasn’t much better off. I suffered from a concussion and apart from my wrist, multiple bones in my body were broken and in dire need of restructuring. Even Theodor had suffered a great deal during this battle. So far, his mutated body had healed all of his injuries over the course of a night, but it seemed even he had a limit. One thing was peculiar about him, though. While Sandra’s and my mind had been subjected to assaults by the creature’s powers, Theodor seemed to have been unaffected.

“Only thing I felt were the thing’s direct powers when it tried to push me back, but that’s about it,” he explained. “No visions, no mind pressure, nothing like that.”

“It could’ve to do with that parasite. Whatever this thing was, it might have given you an immunity from mental powers,” Sandra reasoned.

“Well, that’s great and all, but it didn’t need mental powers to crush me. Even worse, that thing’s still out there, right?”

Both Sandra and I nodded.

Sandra had gotten into contact with Headquarters as soon as her withdrawals were down to a manageable level. They analyzed all her information and the data of our fight, but all they did was to tell us to keep an eye out for further developments. As soon as additional personnel were available, they’d send us support, but they were still lacking manpower. Sandra also told me there was no hint of the creature’s location and it might hide its presence. Headquarters wasn’t much help. Sure, they could find signatures remotely once they fully emerged. Finding an organism that could avoid Sandra’s surveillance network, though, was out of the question. When I heard that, I couldn’t help but curse.

“What you’re saying is that we have to sit this one out and wait till that thing shows itself again? Is Headquarters fucking insane? With a creature like that on the loose, who knows what will happen the next time it shows up! And they send us support as soon as they’ve got the manpower available? Is that a fucking joke?! This thing’s an A-class organism!”

Sandra gave me a curt, angry nod.

“Guess that’s Headquarters for you.”

“All right,” Theodor spoke up. “I’ve heard you mention this shit all the fucking time, but what exactly is this Headquarters you’re talking about all the time?”

“It’s the organization we work for,” I answered matter-of-factly.

“Thanks, genius, totally didn’t get that,” he spat at me. “What I mean is, who the fuck are they? The government, the MIB, the army? Do they have a freaking name?”

“No one really knows,” Sandra started. “They keep themselves in the background most of the time. All I know is that it’s an old and powerful organization.”

“So you’ve got no clue who you’re even working for?”

He broke into a laugh and shook his head in disbelief. Sandra glared at him, but nodded.

“There are the adjudicators, of course. They are part of the organization’s higher echelon and overview the actions of the exterminators. No one knows who’s above them, and even they might not know.”

“All right, so there’s some secret organization out there that’s not only able to afford all sorts of high-tech bullshit, but that can also hide any and all evidence of those damned monsters out there? They must be filthy, fucking rich,” Theodor cursed.

“Yeah, or they got rich sponsors,” I joked.

Sandra turned, giving me a strange look.

“What? Who knows, maybe they provide companies with information and material or god knows what in exchange for a bit of money.”

“That’s impossible. You know what article 437b of the codex states, right Dylan?”

When I gave her an empty look, she sighed in frustration and recited it from memory.

“Any personnel involved in the sale of either materials or organic matter discovered during an investigation or sharing of information thereof is to be punished by death.”

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“Yeah, sure, except the higher-ups, I bet. Come on, Sandra, you’re the smartest person I know. You can’t believe that they differ from any other fucking organization out there.”

“All right,” Theodor cut us off. “How about we argue about the woes of capitalism another day? What I want to know is how long this Headquarters of yours has been around. You’ve both worked for them for a while, so you’ve got to know things, right?”

I laughed once more.

“Not me. No one tells me a fucking thing around here.”

Sandra looked from me to Theodor, and I could see she was unsure about how much she could share. Eventually, she sighed.

“I’ve worked in Headquarters’ archives and I’ve seen numerous documents. If those writings are real, and by the organization, then it’s much, much older than anyone would guess.”

“What the hell does that even mean? What sort of stuff did you find there? Latin?”

Sandra nodded.

“Yes, Latin, but also writings in Ancient Greek, and even Aramaic and Sumerian.”

“Yeah right, next you’re going to tell me that Gilgamesh was the first exterminator,” Theodor said, laughing.

Sandra, however, merely shrugged at his remark.

“Or the first reported incident in history,” she mumbled.

“Freaking hell. If you’re serious, then this shit’s been going on since forever!”

“It’s presumed by some of Headquarters’ archivists that these types of incidents have always been occurring.”

“So you mean to tell me those freaking monsters have always been around? Guess that explains where all those old tales and legends come from.”

“I sometimes wonder if the term monsters might not be ill chosen,” Sandra mused. “In the end, they are nothing but visitors from different realities. Many of them arrive here by sheer chance. They might be horrible to us, but-“

“Yeah, pretty sure those twisted shapeshifters would win a freaking beauty contest back at home,” I joked.

“How’d someone like you end up as an exterminator, Dylan?” Theodor suddenly asked.

“I mean, with miss mentalist here, there’s a pretty damn good reason, but you’re just some normal dude, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, thanks for that asshole,” I cursed, and gave him the finger.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Then I told them how my friends and I had been attacked by a C-class organism years ago and how I’d been conscripted by an adjudicator. Sandra was quiet the entire time and listened intently. She knew about Julie, about what had happened to her, but I guess my mind had been too scrambled up for her to get the entire story. I was more surprised about Theodor, whose face showed a somber look as he listened to my story.

“Shit man,” he mumbled in true and heartfelt honesty.

“Once I’d accepted the adjudicator’s proposal, they subordinated me to a seasoned exterminator. You know, get some training lessons, learn how to handle all the weaponry and get some mandatory teachings about the creatures I’d have to take down. After a couple of months, the guy wished me the best of luck and fucked off to wherever he’d come from.”

“First time I hear anything about training,” Theodor mumbled.

“It was pretty much in the field and we handled incidents right here in the city and the surrounding areas. Back then, though, not too much was going on here. Most of my training comprised this guy beating his lessons into me. You can imagine how great a time that was.”

“Cry me a river,” Theodor laughed. “So, what about you, then?”

With that, he turned to Sandra.

“You were chosen because of those abilities of yours, right?”

Sandra looked away for a moment before she shook her head.

“It’s a long story, and I’m not sure we’ve got the time to-“

“Fuck yes, we do!” Theodor cut her off. “We’re just sitting here, anyway. None of us can do anything in the condition we’re in. That thing’s fucked off to god knows where and no others have shown up for two days now. So, yes, we’ve got time for your story.”

Sandra’s face turned dark. She gave him a cold, hard look, but eventually nodded.

“I grew up in Ukraine. My home was a small town in the middle of nowhere. If you can even call a few dozen houses and some old stores a town. We were one of those backwater communities who suffered in any period of recent history. It was a wonder our small community was even still around. Well, we might have been poor, but we weren’t unhappy.”

A slight smile showed on her face as she seemed to reminisce about the memories.

“My father worked as a day laborer. Hard and honest work, he called it. My mother worked as a history teacher at our town’s small school. She always scoffed at my father’s words, but they were deeply in love. I was the youngest of three children. It was probably my mother’s profession that got me interested in books, reading and old cultures. Life in a small community is dull, especially for children. I devoured any book I could find and fled to the more exciting periods in history. Babylon, Greece, Rome, the Middle ages, you know? I often wished that I could be swept away from our town and be transported to those more turbulent times in history. It’s not that I was unhappy. I was just a child. Still, each night, I wished something would happen and then...” she broke off, staring at nothing.

“It did, right?” I asked.

After a moment of silence, Sandra continued.

“At first it was animals. A stray cat vanishing, a goat going missing, chickens being torn apart, that type of thing. People were scared, thinking of wild animals, wolves mostly. Some men set out for the woods, but they found no hint.”

“It wasn’t wild animals, though, was it?”

“No. The reason they found nothing was because the creature was already right in our midst, or better, they were.”

I looked up and was about to say something, but Sandra continued, undeterred.

“It was a parasite. A kid must’ve gotten infested while playing outside in the woods. Within a week, more than half of the kids in the village had become secondary hosts. And of course, no one suspected a thing.”

“How’d you get away?”

Sandra gave a short, pained laugh.

“I was too into my books and spent all of my time at the school’s library. My mother always tried to chase me out and told me to play with my siblings or my friends, but I never did. I guess that’s what saved my life.”

For a moment, she stopped, took a deep breath, and gathered herself before she continued.

“I still remember the evening when all hell broke loose. The creature had grown its cluster and must’ve decided it was time to take over our town. Right after dinner, I hurried back to my room as always and buried myself in another book. When I heard my mother scream, I rushed for the door and opened it, but I... My siblings had transformed into something else. I saw them tear my father apart. I was so scared, I just stood there, paralyzed by fear, and watched it happen. It was my mother who saved me. She rushed towards me, pushed me to the window, and finally, outside. Before I left, though, I saw Ivanov’s, my brother’s, face. It was split open and revealed nothing but a gaping, wide maw. And just as I was about to help my mother, he came for her. There was nothing I could do.”

“Fucking hell,” I mumbled.

“I was crying and screaming for help, but chaos had enveloped the entire town. Screams came from everywhere. People were out in the streets, trying to rush away from creatures that had once been their own children. I’d never seen so much blood, and have never since. I don’t know how, but I made it to an old shack. When I came to myself again, the police arrived. Or, who I thought was the police. They found me right there, in that same shack. I think they’d have killed me too, but they must’ve realized I was still human. I remember very little about that day. There are vague images of townspeople lying discarded in the streets, of houses burning, of those men...”

“Let me guess, they got rid of the entire town?”

Sandra nodded.

“How in the hell could they’ve let things get so bad?!” I cursed.

“Because it was a town in the middle of nowhere. Headquarters doesn’t care about a small town or a village being destroyed. There was no one nearby, no surveillance drones, no exterminators, nothing. It’s only when things get too bad, and when the signature becomes visible, that they send someone out. Most of the time, they’ll just torch everything. The creatures, the buildings, the survivors, all of it.”

“Why didn’t they kill you as well?” I probed.

“I always thought it was luck, or compassion, but I later learned that my abilities first manifested that day. After I was saved, they sent me off to what they called an orphanage. It was nothing but an internment camp for kids like me. Headquarters ran the whole place. They always need new personnel: workers, archivists, researchers and exterminators. They brainwashed us to follow the doctrine of some shadowy organization. Then, after years, I was put into a more specialized facility.”

“One for mentalists?”

Sandra shook her head.

“No, there was nothing like a mentalist facility in Ukraine. Mentalists are rare, Dylan. They put me into one for research and archival. I didn’t excel in sports, combat or mechanical engineering, but I was by far the best at information procurement and research. I was trained to become one of Headquarters archivists.”

“That’s until-“

“Yes, until they discovered I could do certain... things. They knew about my potential, as they called it, from the moment they found me in that shack. For years, however, my powers had been dormant, and I had shown no hint of them. When they manifested again, though, they lost no time. They sent me to their European center of operations in Rome.”

“Don’t tell me it’s the fucking Vatican?” Theodor, who’d been quiet until now, cut in.

Sandra laughed.

“No, nothing like that. Like I mentioned before, this organization’s older than even the Vatican. It doesn’t matter, though. Things were different there, terribly different. I was nothing but a lab rat, but a special one, one they could teach and mold into a so-called mentalist.”

Her face grew angry again, but it wasn’t her usual, temperamental anger. No, this was a different deep set kind of anger, hatred even.

“They didn’t know where my abilities came from. Some suggested it was an innate talent, others said it might be because of my prolonged exposure to a large parasitic cluster. Either way, I was there for years to hone and perfect my abilities. And I did.”

“And once that was done, they sent you out like a trusty little lapdog, right?” Theodor asked, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in his voice.

For a moment, Sandra glared at him before she answered.

“No, I guess I was too important an asset. They kept me in Rome to use my abilities in different ways. Research, analysis, technology, things like that. That’s how I learned all I know today. The archives in Rome are vast, but they are still only one of many across the globe. I was only sent out into the field when there was a need for someone with my unique talents and knowledge.”

“That’s why they sent you here, right? Because of those symbols, the writings and the rise in signatures.”

When she nodded, a new thought hit me, and it hit me hard.

“You knew something was going to happen here, didn’t you? That’s why you brought along all those computers and god knows what. Headquarters knew all along that something was about to happen in this city. And on one told me a goddamn thing about it!”

“Dylan, I’m sorry. As per article 87c, higher-ranking personnel are not allowed to share classified information such as this with simple exterminators and-“

“Simple exterminators!? Tell me one thing, why didn’t they send more people here? If they knew all along that shit was about to hit the fan, why did they only send you?”

“Because the possibility of an A-class organism showing up was basically zero. They sent me here to investigate and to analyze the situation. Yes, Headquarters assumed something was coming, but as I said-“

“Well, and look where it fucking got us!”

Sandra opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly she cringed and rubbed her temples. I could see pearls of sweat on her forehead.

“Maybe you should lie down again if you’re-“

“No, I... I don’t know. There’s this pressure. It feels as if something’s reaching out to me. I can ward myself off, but if it’s growing in intensity...”

Her voice trailed off.

“Shit, let me guess.”

“Yes, it’s that thing. It’s trying to infiltrate my mind. It knows who I am now, what I am, and it knows I’ve got the knowledge it needs.”

“Are you telling me that thing’s doing... research?” Theodor cut in.

“Yes, and there can only be one reason for it.”

“It’s preparing something,” I cursed.

Sandra nodded.

“Shit, isn’t that great? Isn’t that fucking great! First, I’m left completely in the dark and now we’ve got this thing preparing for god knows what!”

“You’re not the only one who’s got no clue about-“

“Just shut up, Theodor,” I cursed and with that, I left the room to vent my anger somewhere else.

I couldn’t believe this mess. I couldn’t believe any of it.

Fuck monsters and fuck this entire goddamn situation.