Let me reiterate my words. Fuck this bitch. With bitch, I mean Sandra, obviously.

After we’d made our way back, and she’d had enough of belittling me, she got right back into contact with Headquarters. Wouldn’t you know it? She told them all about my ‘reckless and less than stellar’ performance. Her words, not mine. Once that was done, she started on the preparations for the move to the new apartment. I’ve got no idea how she scored this place so quickly, but I guess money isn’t an objective for Headquarters. At least when higher-ranking personnel are involved. This new place was massive compared to the cramped little shithole I used to live in. Still, I missed the place.

The move was exhaustive. Not only because Sandra arranged the entire thing in her usual manner, which meant she acted like a massive bitch. No, she made me do all the heavy lifting because of one fucking joke, calling it our little ‘lovers’ nest.’ Tell you what, I’m done for the day.

Sandra’s still busy talking to Headquarters and setting up all that fancy computer and infrastructure shit she said we’d need. I couldn’t give a single fuck about any of it, but at least she wasn’t getting on my nerves, at least for a while.

As I mentioned, I hate parasite types. Yesterday, we were lucky enough and the fucker only infested animals. When they infest humans, though, things can get real ugly real fast, especially when kids are involved. I don’t like to talk about that day two years ago, but after yesterday, the memory’s fresh again and it’s eating away at me. To say things got out of hand would be an understatement. It’s been the worst fucking day on the job. Hell, things got so bad, I’m lucky my employment wasn’t terminated. You can guess what a termination would mean.

The day started off as business as usual. I got a call. I was informed it was a parasite type, and the signature was transferred.

While the size of a cluster and the number of sub-hosts an organism can create is limited, every sub-host still means one more dead person. Here’s the worst thing about parasite types, though. The change to the host isn’t often visible. A person might look and act entirely normal while their brains are slowly being devoured and the insides of their bodies are being transformed. At the zoo, we were lucky enough for the parasite to attack us right away. Guess it wasn’t one of the smart ones. Those often hide their presence and try their best to infect as many sub-hosts as possible while staying undetected. I’ve got some specialized equipment for that, of course, such as a specialized scanner or alchemic contraptions to reveal and end an infestation.

When I saw that the signature was located in the center of a residential district, I cursed to myself. If I was lucky, it was nothing but a pet. If I wasn’t, I might look at a whole damn family.

I went out with my usual equipment. A gun, protective armor, a handful of grenades I hopefully wouldn’t need, and a few gadgets and contraptions to identify the host and any sub-hosts it had created.

Once I was at the signature’s location, I knew I was in a lot of fucking shit. I rechecked the signature data twice, hit the close-range scanner, but there was no doubt. It was a freaking daycare. I called Headquarters right away and asked for confirmation of the signal. It didn’t take them more than a minute to give me a positive. I told them what I’d discovered, but they were as cold as usual. The location meant lots of potential hosts in one place and I’d have to hurry for the infestation not to spread, if it hadn’t already.

“Take care of the signature ASAP, Exterminator 7D11087. We’ll handle the rest.”

After the connection had been cut, I stood there, not even sure how to go about this. Those were freaking kids in there.

Finally, I went to the front door and rang the bell. The woman who appeared eyed me suspiciously right away. I guess I didn’t look like a parent. No, I most likely looked like the picture-perfect example of someone who was up to questionable things. In as few words as possible, I rambled on that I was there to check the isolations in the boiler room. The woman listened, but the frown on her forehead became deeper and deeper the longer I rambled on. Shit, this wasn’t going well at all. I wasn’t even wearing a fucking overall, and I didn’t have a toolbox or anything. Good going, you fucking idiot.

She stated she had to make sure my information checked out, tore out her phone and slowly but firmly pushed the door back in my face. From the way she held onto the phone and stared at me, I knew she wouldn’t call her boss. No, I was pretty damn sure she was about to hit up the cops. I cursed and without knowing what else to do, I forced the door back open, pushed her aside and got a hold of the phone. She didn’t like that one bit. She screamed at me and told me the cops were already notified. If I didn’t want any trouble, I’d get the hell out of here. Shit. Sure, she hadn’t spoken to anyone, but who knows, maybe all it took was a single button to notify the cops. I prayed Headquarters had already gotten into contact with the authorities. Then, while the woman was still screaming at me, I took a deep breath, reached into my pocket and tore out the gun.

“All right, lady, no more talking. One wrong move and I shoot!”

Her eyes grew wide, she started shaking, but was quiet instantly. In a moment, I had the parasite-scanner in my other hand. I held up to her and started the process. Within a few seconds, it informed me she wasn’t infected.

“Anyone else working here today?” I asked her, but I had to repeat the question twice before she nodded.

“Good, call them.”

“W-why, what are you-?”

“I told you, no more fucking talking! Get them here right fucking now!”

She stumbled a step back, but then she entered a room ahead of us. I heard her talk to someone in a quick, hectic voice. Oh, you’ve got to be... In an instant, I was at the door. Both women’s eyes grew wide, and the conversation ended when they found me staring them down. The moment I motioned for them to come out, the one I’d spoken to before led her colleague outside, whispering something to her. The second caretaker was visibly confused, but when I held up the gun in front of her, she understood the seriousness of the situation. Scanning her body revealed the same thing, no infestations.

“Have you got any pets or animals here?”

Both shock their heads. Oh god, it had to be one of the kids.

The kids were all there, right inside the room. The weather wasn’t nice today, so the caretakers had opted to play with them inside. Well, at least I knew where the damned thing was.

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“Inside,” I grumbled at the women. “Tell the kids I’m a doctor or something and we’re doing an examination.”

Neither said a word, but when I pointed the gun at them, they nodded. The kids looked up when they saw me. Most of them seemed confused, even scared. Well, I couldn’t blame them. I sure as hell didn’t give off a friendly impression.

“All right everybody,” I started in the nicest tone of voice I could muster, given the situation. “We’re going to have a brief examination today. It’s not scary and it will be over in no time.”

“What are you-?” one of the caretakers asked, but a single glance shut her up again.

“Go over there, in the corner,” I whispered to them in a cold, hard voice.

When they refused to move, my eyes wandered back to the gun in my pocket. This time, they moved. I could see them shuffle around and stare outside the window, most likely waiting for the cops to arrive. I didn’t have time to worry about that, though. Instead, I took out the parasite-scanner again and scanned the kids one by one. The goal was easy enough. Find the infested kid, grab it, rush from the room, and exterminate the parasite as quickly as possible. Once it was over, I’d hit up Headquarters and would get the hell out of there. All I hoped for was that the fucker hadn’t created a cluster yet. No, I prayed it hadn’t.

The parasite-scanner felt heavy in my sweat-covered hands. I was on fucking edge the entire time and I could tell the caretakers were as well. They had no clue what I was doing, but they sure as hell didn’t like it. Worst, however, were the kids. They might not understand what was going on, but they knew something was wrong. Fuck, I couldn’t wait for this to be over.

Just when I was about to scan a little girl, one of the other kids screamed up. His arms and legs shook, his muscles twitched and a second later, I was sure I’d found the host.

“My god, Marcus, what’s going on?” one of the women called out and rushed for the little boy.

Without another word, I pushed her aside and restrained the boy. Then I got out an alchemic contraption and poured it down his throat. It would scramble up his insides, cook the damned parasite and make it abandon its host. It wasn’t how I wanted things to go. This was nothing but nasty, but I didn’t have any other chance. The second a parasite revealed itself, it knew it was in danger and would do anything to infest as many sub-hosts as possible. As the contraption took effect, the boy’s body convulsed in my arms. Bloody froth formed at his mouth, and I waited for the thing to abandon its host. My hands were closed around the gun in my pocket, but none of that happened. The boy’s body went limp, but no parasite showed up. Shit, fucking goddamn shit!

One of the women was right by my side, screaming and tearing at the boy’s body to get him away from me. I didn’t give her any attention. That little boy had been a sub-host, nothing but another puppet the real parasite controlled.

By now, the entire room was in a state of sheer and utter panic. The kids were screaming and retreated to the back of the room, huddling behind whatever furniture they could find. All of them, except for the little girl from before. She showed almost no emotions. She went through her movements mechanically, and it was clear she tried to copy the behavior she saw all around her. At that moment, I knew I’d found the real host. The gun was out, and as I pointed it at her, her eyes met mine. They were empty and inhuman.

“What are you trying to do, mister?” the thing asked in its best imitation of the shaky voice of a little girl.

“Ending this,” I spat, but when I was about to pull the trigger, one of the caretakers was upon me.

The gun clattered from my hands as she tried her best to get on top of me.

“Don’t you dare, don’t you dare-!” she screamed.

It took me a single moment to restrain her, but that was all the time the thing in front of me had needed. The girl’s arms were up in the air. Her hands were spread apart. The muscles in her body twitched and contorted themselves, and a net of tendons pushed from her hands.

The gun? Where was the fucking gun!? In a panic, my eyes darted around, only to find it in the hands of the other woman. She was clutching onto it, but her eyes were glued to the horrible abomination that had once been a little girl. I rushed her, tried to tear the gun from her hands, but she was frozen in shock. Without a second thought, I knocked her out. The hands holding the gun went limp as she keeled over.

These few moments, however, had been enough. They’d been more than e-fucking-nough, I realized. By now, the parasite had gotten a hold of half the kids in the room. Some were on the floor, shaking, others were still being infested by thick, long tendons that pushed their way into their mouths and down their throats. The rest were still hiding and rocking back and forth in terror. The woman I’d restrained before was out of it and stumbled towards the little girl.

“Sophie, what’s going on? What are you-?” I heard her mumble.

“Get away from her!” I screamed, but I could do nothing else.

More tendons burst from the little girl’s body. They dug into the woman, through her, and a second later, she fell to the floor, dead. I knew what it was doing. It had no use for her. No, it only wanted the kids. Right at that moment, in a state of utter rage, I pulled the trigger. I emptied the entire clip into the monstrosity in front of me until what remained was nothing but a tattered mess.

The original host was down, but many other kids had been infested. They’d become nothing but mindless sub-hosts. Even if you kill the original host, there’s no hope for them. They’ve already been turned into monsters. The only difference was that sub-hosts weren’t able to spread the infestation further and were mindless without the original host. Still, these were kids. Yet, I could see the first of them getting to their feet. Their bodies had already changed, and they were ready to come for me.

What I did next, I’ll never be comfortable sharing and will never be comfortable thinking about. At times, this job fucking sucks. At others, it’s nothing short of gut-wrenching.

Once I was done, I chased the remaining kids outside, pulled the unconscious caretaker from the room, and threw a flamer inside. No other way. I had to make sure everything in this damned room was gone.

When I walked from the building, I was stunted and shaken. Tears were streaming from my eyes. The area was swarming with police and worried people. In-between I could see Headquarters agents in their dark, inconspicuous suits. They came for me the moment I exited the building. They told me a lot of things as they escorted me from the premises, but I didn’t remember a single thing.

What happened that day was ruled a gas leak. When a caretaker had lit a candle to demonstrate something, an entire room went up in flames. The caretaker and all the kids in the room were killed. Overall, almost half the kids present at the daycare died. The whole thing made big news, despite Headquarters trying their best to handle the situation. There were questions and way too many of them. Parents wondered about the supposed gas leak. Others mentioned the police had already been on the way before the explosion, and someone reported suspicious people in the area. Headquarters had to handle a lot of paperwork, and I’m sure they had to pay off many people to get it all covered up.

A mere two days later, I was confronted by an adjudicator. Headquarters had analyzed the entire incident and my procedure of handling it. There’d be a thorough investigation of my abilities and my mental state. She admitted, though, it was an unprecedented case. In the end, I was pardoned. The situation hadn’t been fit to be handled by what they referred to as a low-ranking exterminator all on his own. They should’ve evacuated the building and the kids should’ve been isolated from one another before I’d arrived at the premise.

They wrote an entire fucking protocol about the day, a record of my failure, and made it into a textbook example of how not to do things. That was it. No word about the kids, nothing at all. They became nothing but another statistic, a number that was noted down and stored away in Headquarters’ vast archives. For them, it was nothing but business as usual, even if things had gotten out of hand.

I don’t know how long it took me to get over that incident. No, to be honest, I think I never did.

Ever since I started this line of work. No, ever since I was little, I don’t dream a lot. Most of my nights are nothing but dreamless sleep. If I dream though, during the few nights I do, I’m back there. Right back in that room, surrounded by screaming and dying kids and I watch myself pull the trigger again and again and again. Until nothing’s left but deafening silence.

Fuck monsters and fuck the days you become one yourself.