An outstretched hand came for him, slapping the shotgun from his grasps and going straight for the neck. It closed around his collar so very tightly, squeezing the life from his soul and what little breath left from his body. Slowly, surely, yet ever so vigorously, it lifted the man from the ground up and held him against the bare brick walls, letting the Hunter dangle free — letting the Hunter gag and choke and gasp until both his eyes turned very much bloodshot red.

He was running out of time quick; something needed to be done, and something needed to be done now. The shotgun was way down there somewhere, by its feet and by the shadows, out of reach and out of commission. It was no longer an option. He had to work without it — temporarily, at least.

The man reached deep into his coat pockets, fiddled about, grabbed onto one of his many gadgets, then bit the pin free. He thrust the ticking time bomb onto its face and shut his eyes, real, real tight. This was going to hurt it far worse than it was going to hurt him, and that was absolutely fine. That was manageable.

One.

Two.

Three.

Click.

A blinding display of flashes and an ear-splitting ring erupted from his stun grenade, lighting the basement up in nothing but dazzling beams of bright lights. The creature — or if one could ever even begin to call it that — promptly dropped him, clawing at its face and letting a piercing howl erupt. It was hurt.

So badly and terribly hurt.

The man found his shotgun from amongst the veils of darkness and cocked it ready once more. He had time to catch his breath, gasping and panting and shaking himself awake, and it had time to suffer.

Good then, suffer.

Suffer long and bad.

Engineer Howell was right, after all — as he always was. A little bit of light and ring went a long, long way against the likes of this thing. All it took was some pyrotechnic metal-oxidant mix of magnesium, and an oxidized igniter of potassium nitrate; it made for one hell of an invention, turns out. The Engineer called it a ‘Flashbang’ — “a necessity in the fight against dark” — and the man sure loved every single second of its demonstration. It was bright, loud, so very powerful, and certainly worth every penny. Hell, the first time it blew up in his face, he could barely stand, let alone fight for the next half minute or so. But this creature, it that lived all its life in the dark and quiet and had utmost sensitive hearing, was surely more than just a tad bit dazed.

It wailed and shivered and threw itself against the basement walls over and over and over again, trying desperately to block out the white from its eyes and the ringing from its ears.

The man raised his head, taking a good long look at the screeching monstrosity. It was taller than he was — by about a head — hunched forth, terribly skinny, deathly pale, and an absolute eye sore to stare at. It had arms too long for arms, legs bent backwards like that of a bird’s, long overgrown fingernails dirty and blood-stained, skin stretched impossibly thin over sinewy muscles, and an oversized, hairy, puss-riddled, hunched back. It almost passed for human, if not for the face. The face was that of a man’s from the far east, who once lived under the sakura trees and the cold winters. It was the face of an old, old man, with a mess of white and gray for his hair and beard. He — no, it — had an absurd grin splayed from ear to ear, and blood rolling down the corner of both shut eyes and jagged ears.

It was an unholy creation, not belonging of this world or the next.

And the smile. . .

The smile was something the man couldn't seem to get past.

It was not human.

It was not natural.

It did not belong on a face.

Worst yet?

He had seen it all too many times.

This was not the first.

The man forced himself up, swallowing hard. Fighting in the basement would prove troublesome: the absence of proper lighting and lack of space would surely hinder his abilities. There were Hunters who preferred to fight in such tight spaces — up close and personal — but he was not one of them. To the man, it was all about distance and proper ranging.

His shotgun was useless at ranges over 15 to 20 meters, and highly effective below ten to five. That five meters gap between was generally where he positioned himself, close enough to deal significant damage, yet not close enough to risk a deathly engagement. But down here, in the confines of the basement, he couldn’t quite maneuver properly; there was simply not enough room to dodge its advances and return its strikes. He needed to leave before it got a hold of him again, for the second and final time.

It lumbered forth, hunched over and hands outstretched. “Give. . . Papa. . . A hug.”

Five bullets before a reload. If the man could stagger it — maybe make the thing flinch for but a fraction of a second — then he’d have the time to break away and create some distance. There was no telling how fast it was; how quick it was able to slice at him and lunge forth.

So be it, then.

The man just had to be faster. He didn’t need to be faster by a whole lot, just by a bit — by enough to make it count.

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Move.

One.

The shotgun fired, spraying pellets of silver and lead towards the creature. They tore through its skin, cutting into flesh and disintegrating the bones beneath. Still, it pressed on, lumbering forth, unfazed and seemingly unhurt. There was no reaction from it.

Two.

The shotgun fired again, this time taking out its entire left knee and everything below. The creature stumbled, caught itself with a bony hand, then, still one leg short, leapt abruptly forth. It was a blur in the wind, and certainly far nimbler than the man would have thought possible for its size.

He threw himself aside at the very last second, barely skidding past a flurry of swinging claws and flailing flesh and other such instruments of death and horror. The creature came crashing into the brick walls ahead, stirring a cloud of dust from the floors beneath and all sorts of debris from their rest in one, big resounding boom. And then, for the slightest moment after, there was but silence.

The silence of the ages the factory came to know, adopt, and love.

Stand, aim, fire, fire, fire.

The man forced himself up once more.

Three, four, five.

A hail of bullets sailed towards the shrouded figure, splattering its grotesque green blood onto everything around, and shredding both skin and flesh right down to the wire. There were holes in its body the size of golf balls, and entire limbs pummeled to but bits of red and splinters of white. It took a beating, that much was evident.

Whether the beating sufficed was a whole different question.

The man looked.

Probably for longer than he should've.

And that was a mistake.

By now, the creature was less than a walking assemblage of bones, strung together and barely held by whatever dark forces brought it into this world. And yet, there it stood still.

It turned to face the man, grinning ever so brightly.

He took a step back, then, another, and then, yet another again.

He watched as the pools of blood beneath its feet began to stir, began to writhe and bubble and rise. He watched as bits of the creature’s burnt skin and torn flesh and broken bones began to crawl, slowly, surely, feverishly, back towards it. He watched as the occult devilry began reconstruction of its puppet: shards of bone mended themselves back together, strands of flesh stitched themselves unto one another, patches of skin glued themselves unto its grimy exterior, and suddenly, what was once nothing more than a walking, disfigured, terrible corpse, had returned to form.

A monstrosity.

A grotesque creation.

An unholy abomination deserving of organic deconstruction.

It was good as new, once more.

And it was hungry.

Click, click, slide, reload.

Five in the chamber, and only three chambers left.

Now was not the time to butt heads with this thing. Now was the time to bolt up the stairs and get as far away from this shoddy basement as humanly possible. And so the man did, all whilst cursing The Foundation’s name under his breath.

This was way out of his pay grade. The thing was capable of advanced tissue regeneration, and such an acquired skill was only mastered by Type 3’s and up. He was not in any way, shape or form, prepared to hunt something this far up the ladder. He could send dozens, hundreds, thousands of rounds its way, and still, it’d be alive and kicking the very next reload. This was too much for the man to handle.

He thought it was out of the ordinary for a contract to leave out such critical, time-sensitive information. He thought it was out of the ordinary for no one else — not a single other Hunter in the entire organization — to snatch such an enticing job offer at once. He thought it was out of the ordinary for a C-Grade assignment to come with quite the bountiful pay.

And he was an absolute baboon to sign his name under such contract.

The man glanced behind — terrible mistake, that was. It shot up the stairs on all fours, bounding from step to step, step to wall, wall to ceiling, then back down to the ground once more. How the thing managed to cling onto bare bricks with bare hands was a mystery to the man, but there were far more pressing matters in need of his attention.

Like the swinging claws coming for him.

He raised the shotgun, fired, hit it square in the face, then resumed his climb. There was just one more flight of stairs beyond the first landing, one more flight of stairs between him and open ground.

Quickly now, the man hustled, choosing rather to ignore the ache in his legs, the pain in his shoulders and arms, the sore in his throat, and the screaming of his lungs. He chose to ignore his body's protests and forced himself up the steps, three at a time.

He saw the crack of the door ahead and above; a few more steps, and he was there.

Five.

Three.

Two.

One.

The man crashed through the basement door, slapping an extra bullet into the shotgun chamber as he came barrelling out. Instantly, he spun on one heel, whirling around, anticipating a flurry of slicing maelstroms and snapping fangs and whatever other nasty tricks it had up its sleeves. There were none. There were neither teeth nor claws, danger nor threat. There was but an empty staircase and the silence of centuries past. There was but quiet.

Breathing hard, the man steadied himself. He didn’t hear it retreat back into the basement, which meant it was out here, with him, right now. It was out there somewhere, hiding in the dark, waiting to strike, and that didn’t at all sit right with him. He needed to find it quick, before it saw an opening.

And took it.

Quickly now, he searched for the compass, patting his pockets down, diving deep into his coat, scanning the open floors for perhaps a glint of silver.

He came up empty handed.

It was lurking, shifting, preying, and now, he had no way of knowing; no way of knowing when it’ll leap from the darkness and bite his head clean off. No way of knowing when the claws and fangs will descend upon him. No way of knowing when death comes.

The man held his breath, listening intently. All he needed was just a little — a little peep, a little squeak, a little anything at all to catch even a whisper of it. All he needed was to know where it was. Roughly.

And at that moment, he knew.

Splish.

It was to his back, roughly 10 to 15 meters away, and if he had to guess, it probably didn’t notice the puddle of water until then, until after it inched forth and made a mistake — that is, letting the man know where it was. And now, the man knew where.

Which was enough.

More than plenty enough.

All at once, he fired the entire chamber way off into the darkness, showering the hallway in hails of lead and pellets of silver. He could hear them make contact with something soft, fleshy, alive, and that very same thing topple right on over and collapse. He could hear its anguished cries and defeated moans. He could hear it slowly dying as the magic bound in its soul — in its every cell, tissue, organ, and every fiber of being — began to unravel.

The man inched forth, reloading the shotgun for a third and, hopefully, final time. He didn’t have much left, after all; there was maybe another reload, and that was it. That was that.

For his sake, it better be dead. Or very close to dead.

He saw its silhouette in the distance, all small and shriveled and staying very much still. Perhaps it used up too much of its regenerative properties in the basement fight, and had little to none left coming up here. Perhaps it sought to finish him quickly just then, and without much trouble. Perhaps he overestimated it a great deal.

The man stopped just short of his target; a bead of cold sweat rolled down his back. Even in the dark, he could tell as much: whatever was lying on the ground before him, was not the creature.

He nudged it with his foot.

And it rolled.

The mannequin rolled face up, greeting him with a blank stare.

And it descended upon him, claws and fangs and all.