Some of you might wonder how I ended up in this sort of... occupation. It’s not exactly the type of job you pick up on a whim or apply for. No, you could say, I sort of fell into it. As I mentioned before, sometimes people are unlucky enough to encounter some of these creatures before they are taken care of. Sometimes, those people are lucky enough to make it out alive. That’s what happened to me, and that’s why I was chosen to become the cheerful exterminator I am today. I wish none of this would’ve happened and given the shit I’ve seen over the years, I often wish I hadn’t made it out alive at all.

All right, you’re not here for my pity party. You’re here to find out how this entire fucking shitshow started, right? It was back in the summer of 2016, only six years ago, but it feels like an entire lifetime.

Early summer has always been a time I enjoyed. Those hot days and warm nights always felt special to me. They make you want to go out, spend the night gazing at the stars and to forget about all your obligations.

It was my best friend Thomas who’d invited me and my girlfriend, Julie, to hang out by the riverside. He wanted to have some BBQ, share a few cold drinks and introduce us to Gabriella, a girl he’d been dating for a while now. It was supposed to be a fun day, but it turned into my worst nightmare.

Gabriella turned out to be a pretty interesting person and after introductions were over, we just hung out and talked about all the mundane things in life that didn’t matter.

As the sun went down and our drinks became scarce, we decided on a little pub crawl in one of the more trendy areas in our city. It’s a place crowded with cramped bars, shitty clubs and late-night stores. It’s your typical bustling party district. At least, the bigger streets are like that. If you leave those behind, you find small, dark alleyways, deserted side-streets and old, run-down buildings. Back then, I didn’t know it, but it’s one of the places the creatures I hunt down like the most. Where better to hide and lay in wait for prey than society’s underbelly? I later learned that Headquarters had my city under surveillance, but regarded it as a low priority area. Thus, no local exterminator was present and things occasionally got out of hand.

The first bar we went to was a small, well-known hard rock joint. The music was great, the drinks were cheap, and we had a blast before we moved on. After two other bars, we decided we had enough of sitting in cramped places. The night was mild, and the sky was clear. It was perfect to sit outside. We got ourselves a few more beers from a late night store and went on our way to find a place to enjoy the night.

It was Thomas who’d told us he knew just the place. He mentioned a certain construction site nearby. It was supposed to become a high-rise building, but construction had been suspended months ago. If we’d made our way inside and got to the highest floor, we’d have a fantastic view over the entire area.

I wasn’t a fan of the idea. My city isn’t dangerous, but if you strayed from the lively areas, you could still run into a disgruntled homeless person or a few drunks a bit less stable than you. Or, well, something even worse. Thomas, of course, didn’t have any of it. He promised it was nearby, safe, and we’d regret not checking the place out. So, being the idiot I am, I eventually agreed to come along.

We went down a small side-street, made our way through one dark alleyway, then another before we arrived at a closed-off area. Thomas was quick to show us his ‘secret entrance’ and in we went. By that point, we were all pleasantly buzzed, and I’d long forgotten my original fears. It was only Gabriella who turned around at some point. She said she’d heard something, but Thomas was quick to put his arms around her and sway her. Maybe if we’d listened to her, things would’ve turned out differently, but somehow, I know it was already too late by then.

We made our way through the empty building, past bleak walls and up half-finished staircases. When we reached the top, I had to admit that Thomas had been right. The view was stunning. We settled down with our remaining drinks and decided to spend the early morning hours right there.

It wasn’t long before we heard something. Footsteps. First, they were below us and we listened as they shuffled through the deserted hallways of the building. Then, whoever was responsible made their way upstairs. I gave Thomas an apprehensive look and was about to curse him when someone stepped into the barren room.

“Thought I saw someone up here. What’s up guys?”

It was a scrawny teenager with unkempt hair and a beer in his hand. We were all quiet, but the kid seemed to be alone, smaller and younger than us, and pretty drunk himself.

“Hey there,” Thomas greeted him before anyone else could open their mouths.

He was the friendliest person I knew and approached and befriended pretty much anyone, regardless of who they were.

“We’re having a few drinks and are enjoying the view,” he continued.

“Mind if I join in?” the kid asked.

“Well, sorry-“ I started, but was cut off by Thomas.

“We’re all pretty drunk, so why the hell not? The more the merrier,” he said with a grin and toasted the kid.

“Indeed,” the newcomer said, smiling, and joined us.

Something about his voice was a bit strange, but I couldn’t put it anywhere. Things had started off a bit awkwardly, but the kid didn’t seem to be the dangerous type. He joked around with us, kept drinking his beer, and while he was odd, he made for some all right company. That was until he made some off-hand comments.

“You know, sometimes, I wish I could just,” he mumbled, giving Gabriella a little wink while he licked his lips.

She shuffled around, not saying a thing, but inched closer to Thomas. He was quick to defuse the situation by changing the topic back to music and local clubs. I listened for a little while before I cuddled up with Julie. Together we sat there, gazing at the stars and musing on about life. Only when things got heated again did I turn around. Thomas had gotten up and stood in front of the kid with an annoyed expression on his face.

“You know, it might be best for you to leave,” he snapped.

“Dammit,” I cursed to myself.

He shouldn’t have invited him after all...

“What’s going on?” I asked as I got up.

“That guy’s creepy! He keeps staring at me and making these weird comments!” Gabriella answered.

“All right, how about this? It’s almost morning anyway,” I started and tried to end things before they could escalate further.

“Oh, you want to leave so soon?” the kid asked in a sing-song voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Yeah, we are. So how about-“

Thomas’ sentence was cut off right in the middle. The sound of shattering glass reached my ears as the bottle he’d been holding hit the floor. Then he started screaming. I took a step forward, but suddenly, there was blood, so much goddamn blood. I saw it hadn’t just been Thomas’ bottle that had fallen. Right there, in front of him, lay both of his severed hands.

He fell to his knees. Tears were streaming from his eyes, and he stared at his bloody stumps in utter confusion. Everyone froze. No one knew what the hell was happening. I remember staring at the situation in a mixture of disbelief and shock, not able to grasp the situation in front of me.

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At this moment, the kid began laughing. First in his normal, somewhat grating voice, but soon it changed and became guttural and distorted. His body trembled and shifted below his clothes.

“Dylan, what’s going on?” Julie asked in a shaken voice as she clung to my arm.

I wanted to say something, but my brain wasn’t able to form words. I wasn’t able to do anything.

The kid’s clothes started bulging and tore apart as his body twisted around itself. He was shaking, convulsing, but the guttural laughter continued and grew in intensity. His body began warping itself. Muscles grew, skin stretched and tore apart. Bones pushed outward, puncturing skin and flesh before they grew into additional appendages. I couldn’t move and could only stare at the horrific, surreal transformation happening right in front of my eyes. What had been the body of a scrawny teenager was now a twisted mess of flesh and appendages that towered high above each one of us.

Suddenly, the creature’s head jerked forward on an elongated neck. The thing put its mouth close to Thomas’ ear and whispered something into it I couldn’t understand. Then its mouth opened wider and wider. Skin and flesh tore apart as his jaw unhinged. For a second, I saw brick-like teeth and a bloated black tongue. Then it bit right into Thomas’ neck. Blood gushed outward. His arms rose and waved through the air frantically before they flopped down again.

After that, the thing’s monstrous face changed to a wide grin as it turned towards Gabriella.

“Ah, there’s nothing better than a hunt,” it said in its distorted, inhuman voice.

It was then that reality finally sunk in and panic descended. Gabriella was crying and inched away from the creature, but within seconds it was upon her and tore her to pieces. She didn’t even have time to scream. Julie was the first to move again. She rushed for the stairs before she turned back, got a hold of my arm and pulled me after her.

“Dylan, come on!” she screamed at me in sheer hysterics.

When I could finally move, I stumbled after her. Down. Get out. Run away. Those were the only things that were on my mind. In front of me, Julie already hurried through the hallway. We stumbled on and finally made it to the stairs. We threw ourselves forward, down to the floor below while the abomination’s deep throaty laughter followed us from above.

“Run, little mice, run,” it called after us.

The entire building shock. Julie screamed, tripped, and fell to the floor. As I pulled her up, I turned around, expecting to find the creature right behind us. Hell, I’d expected it to come for me and could already feel the pain. The stairs, however, were empty. Julie had gotten back to her feet, but we’d barely taken a handful of steps when the ceiling in front of us burst apart. Plaster and stone rained down before an avalanche of limbs and muscle descended. The thing giggled as its eyes focused on us. Its wide mouth was twisted into the same gigantic grin I’d seen before.

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”

I thought it would rush us then and there, but it didn’t have to. It knew as well as we did that there was no way out. How could you hope to run from something like... this?! We wouldn’t be able to get away. We were trapped. In front of me, the entire hallway was filled with a sprawling amalgamation of limbs and flesh. For a moment, the creature’s eyes met mine and I couldn’t help but give a short, insane laugh. Then it moved, pushing itself forward, relishing my terror. Its limbs were holding onto the surrounding walls as it dragged itself forward like a spider.

“Why don’t you run?” it asked in a giggling voice.

Right at that moment, Julie pulled me away from the thing, down the hallway and into a room to our right. Bellowing laughter erupted from outside. What was she doing? It didn’t matter what we did. It didn’t matter a damn bit. For a moment, another bout of mad laughter escaped my mouth. Behind us, the first of the creature’s many limbs were getting a hold of the doorway and dug into the brickwork.

Right at that moment, I saw it. The sun was dawning. A window. A window was right in front of us. We stumbled forward, reached it, but Julie’s face turned to despair.

“No,” she started and fell to her knees.

She kept repeating it over and over again. We were up way too high.

“We’re on the third floor, there’s-“

“Wait, Julie,” I cut her off. “Over there, that ledge. If we can get there, we’ll make it to the scaffold and can get down!”

At first she didn’t understand what I was saying. When the creature pushed itself into the room, though, its mouth hanging open, jaw unhinged and tongue dangling from it, she got going and pushed herself onto the ledge. I was about to follow her and to swing myself out, but I suddenly felt a piercing pain in my leg. As the creature dragged me backward, I beat against its hand, screamed, but I could do nothing. The creature’s face, however, wasn’t focused on me. No, it was staring at the window. For the first time, something in its face changed. For the first time, it looked elated.

“Julie, run!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

The creature threw me aside, pushed past me, and burst through the window. Outside, I heard Julie’s steps on the scaffold and her desperate cries for help. I prayed. I hoped she’d make it and she’d be able to alert someone. Yet, only seconds later, her cries were cut off, and I heard the sickening sound of tearing flesh. With it, my last sliver of hope was crushed.

I was on the floor and watched in a trance while the blood slowly streamed from the wound in my leg. I barely looked up when the creature returned. It stared right at me from the hole that had been a window not too long ago. Then I saw Julie’s remains in one of its many bony hands.

“So weak, so fragile,” it mused on.

The hand around Julie’s lifeless, bleeding frame pressed down. I heard bones breaking, flesh tearing, and saw her body bursting into pieces.

At that moment, I saw red. I don’t know what happened exactly, but I remember throwing myself against the creature and colliding hard with it. I felt something puncture my abdomen and then felt something hot, wet and warm run down my leg. The thing held onto the wall for a bit longer, but then the bricks gave way.

For a second, I was weightless before I crashed down right on top of the thing. This time, however, it was the creature which was screaming and hurting. As I rolled off its body, I saw what had happened. We’d crashed down on an enormous stack of building materials and the creature had been impaled by at least a dozen metal rods. It was twisting itself, screeching and desperately trying to push itself upward, but it seemed trapped. I tried to get up, to get away, but once more it got a hold of me. I felt its powerful grip on my leg again and felt its fingers dig into skin and flesh. Then it twisted my leg and yanked me backward. I screamed as tendons ripped and bones broke. In my desperation to get away, I scrambled around before my hand finally closed around something. It was a power tool left behind when construction was abandoned. As I was pulled back, I used all the force I could still muster and brought it down on the creature’s head. I felt it twisting my leg, felt another of its hands tear through my body, but I didn’t feel pain anymore. All I felt was rage, blazing, burning rage and with it, I brought the power tool down again and again and again. I don’t know when it stopped moving. I don’t know when I passed out.

All I know is that I should’ve been dead. No one should be able to survive the wounds I’d suffered. Yet, Headquarters had proven more than once that they could do the impossible.

When I woke up, I found myself in a small hospital room. Several strange machines surrounded me and a plethora of tubes and cables were connected to my body.

“Good morning, Mr. Jackson. It’s a miracle you’re still alive, a miracle only possible because of us.”

The one who was speaking was a woman. She stood over me. Her face was emotionless. Her eyes were cold.

“W-What’s going on? Where am I?” I blurted out before the memory of what had happened returned to me.

In shock and disbelief, I tried to push myself up, but a sharp, hot pain shot through my entire body. Even worse, I was constrained to the bed.

“Where’s everyone? Where are Thomas and Gabriella?”

Then, after a few seconds, I asked the one question that truly mattered.

“Where’s... Julie?”

“They are dead, Mr. Jackson,” the woman said without the slightest change to her voice. “All of them.”

All the energy left me as the soul-crushing reality hit me. I slumped back down and began crying again.

“What the fuck happened? What was that...?” I finally stammered.

“The creature you had contact with was evaluated as a lower C-class organism.”

“What the fuck are you even talking about? What the...”

I broke up. I didn’t have the energy to continue.

“As I said, what you encountered was a lower C-class organism, or, in layman’s terms, a monster. It’s regrettable what happened last night and we like to give you our condolences. The existence of these organisms, however, has to remain secret. We can’t have the knowledge of their existence become public.”

“Like I give a shit about any of that!”

“Mr. Jackson, there are only two options. One, you vanish right here and now. Two, you become part of our organization.”

“Vanish, what the hell are you-?”

She didn’t need to answer. Her cold, hard, emotionless expression told me everything.

“Do you want revenge, Mr. Jackson? These things are out there, and what happened last night is not an exception. People are being killed and torn apart, just like your friends.”

I didn’t say a damn thing. Hell, what do you say to something like that?

“You were not only able to survive an encounter with a C-class organism, you took it down with no specialized equipment. It might have been luck, but impressive nonetheless. We also confirmed that your resilience and potential are above average, compared to-“

“What you’re trying to say is you want me to take those things down, is that it?”

“Which do you choose, Mr. Jackson?”

As I lay there, the events of last night played out in my head again. Thomas’ screams, Gabriella being torn apart and finally Julie’s lifeless body bursting apart. Worst of all, was the thing’s grin. It had acted as if we’d been nothing but prey.

“If I do, I get to kill those things, right?”

For the first time, a hint of a smile showed on her face and she nodded. She knew what I’d pick and with nothing but a single sentence, I was in.

“You know what? Fuck monsters.”