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Chapter 5

The snow begun to cover the ground again, after two day of good weather it was inevitable. That's how it rolled up there in Faeras, at least now all the blood was gone.

Elise arrived where the massacre took place and couldn't believe what happened.

When she and her team were informed about Lewis's suicide it was a sad moment. To lose an opportunity that wouldn't present itself again if not after decades, it was just an horrible news. For how much she believed it could not be true, she had to in the end.

Without him they had nothing. To even think she waited forty years just to watch the new creature die before revealing itself, it was depressing. A new age about to born, not anymore.

Elise had asked the secret services to continue their work to find the creature, even if only his corpse. But to dredge up an entire river to find one person was just impossible, also it was possible his corpse had already arrived to the northern ocean. It was just a waste to continue searching for it, but she asked nevertheless.

Two days, for two days they had no news, no sign of him. Then, that afternoon, a miracle happened, something everyone was waiting for without any hope. The news hit her like a boulder.

«Dr. Meyn... you may want to come see this.» one of her collaborators said looking at his monitor.

They were all at the scientific base in Nethir at that time, but no one was really doing his work, not even Elise, too depressed. That excitement in his voice was enough to ring a bell, but it wasn't a honest reaction in comparison to the importance of the news.

«We have detected another anomaly. - he said - It is a... huh... class-2 event!? No! It's different. All the energy scales are wrong... I don't understand.»

Elise jumped from her seat hearing that arrived beside him. She began watching the flows of data herself, confused as she never was before. All of that didn't make any sense.

«I've never seen such a thing.» she whispered contemplating the unknown. She was sure of only one thing, that was not an anomaly.

Never in her entire career there were two events in just a couple of days, they were extremely rare events, spread through years; the shortest time was about six months between one another. The logical consequence was that this was not a natural event, it had to do with something else.

«Continue monitoring it, I want to know the exact place where it happened. I have a strange feeling about this.» she instructed her subordinate. She had an idea in fact, but she wasn't sure about it at all. After a few minutes she had the answer.

«I found it! It's located almost three hundred kilometers north of Nethir, right in the middle of the forest it seems.»

«Where it is compared with the Colwak river?» she asked not calm at all. «From where Lewis fell!»

«It is seventy kilometers north.»

«It is him.» she said with a smile on her face. She couldn't be more sure than that. «Call our contact. We need to go there immediately.»

A military aircraft arrived a few minutes later, ready to bring them to their destination. Their transport was a new jewel of western technology, something only the higher tiers of the army could use. Elise was impressed by that, it looked like the governments were taking that situation very seriously.

«Welcome aboard, Dr. Meyn.» the captain said while inviting them on the aircraft.

«I'm surprised the secret service involved the special forces into this. This whole operation was not meant to be of public domain.» she said like she was blaming his general.

«I think it won't remain secret much longer. Have you not heard what happened?» he asked. When she denied he explained the situation was more complicated than expected. «Yesterday a man was killed in the little town of Lerad. It is not public for now, but whatever killed him was not human.»

She asked him where that town was located. Upon hearing that it was just a little eastward from where they were going right now she began putting things together.

She was clueless how he survived falling into a river without drowning or freezing, and how did he managed to walk so much on his feet after that. But he...

«Did he killed a man?» one of her subordinates asked. It was the same woman that asked her about Xanthe when they first arrived in Nethir.

«Yes. - Elise said - He killed, probably in fear. He is just a lonely creature afraid of everything, of what he is become and of what others may do. We must be careful with him.»

But, seeing what he did, Elise asked herself if they had to be scared of him for what he could do.

Some had the decency to cover with sheets the three corpses on the ground, to hide the mutilated bodies of those poor men, but the snow was still red around them. She tried to ignore those and focus on the most important things.

Elise and her team were really interested by the black shards stuck on the trees. Even if his subordinates never saw those things she did in fact saw them once before. She recognize those as solid representations of the Unknown Energy, as she later explained to the others. It was not strange therefore that the shards were vanishing in smoke the moment they were touched. They were not meant to even exist, only remaining real as long as they were untouched.

Looking at what they were able to do Elise wondered if she greatly underestimate this creature powers. For what he had before her eyes was clear.

Lewis was able to condensate the Unknown Energy into a power able to alter matter. That was in the end what eve she wanted to achieve through technology, but he was able to do it naturally by himself. If he was capable to control the immense power of the unknown then he could truly be unstoppable. As she herself said: "there could not be an upper limit..."

If a scared creature can kill three men in an instant on his first attempt, what could he do on the second one? The thought was frightening. If we let him train alone, not under control, still scared of everyone, he might not understand what he's capable of.

It was a danger for himself and for everyone, at least until they found him.

Elise looked back at the captain and his men. There were a dozen of them, armed like that was a war zone, they were worried about all that situation just as she was.

«Captain...» she said approaching him.

«...Rowar, Dr. Meyn.»

«... you and your squadron are under my command, aren't you?» she asked without caring about his interruption.

«Yes lady.»

«I don't need you. The last thing I need are a bunch of dangerous men ready to provoke the creature. He's just enough scared of his own, I need him to feel safe, not endangered. If he was more, self-assured, or less powerful we could have tried a different approach. But in this situation is not possible. I don't want to end up like them.» she said pointing at the corpses. «If you want to be of any help, then make sure you and your squadron are calm enough for this mission. There won't be any use for lethal weapons. Did you understand?»

The captain looked at his men, then back to Elise.

«Yes, Dr. Meyn. We're ready.»

«Good, now I'll need to talk to the civilians.»

Captain Rowar guided her back to the aircraft, where they momentarily held the four men that they found on the site of the massacre. They were all affiliates of the police department, that was going to make thing a lot easier.

They were all sit and handcuffed, some of them were even pretty angry. The moment they saw the captain and the woman enter the transport they began to shout again, but they all soon fall silent when she began to talk.

«Now... this is an unpleasant situation for all of us. If you cooperate you'll be free to go without consequences.» she said watching them one by one. «What do you know about what happened?»

They remained silent for a moment or two, but then the older one of them, the chief of the police station in Lerad, said, angry and almost crying:

«I know three of my men died today, killed by a monster...»

«A tragedy that must not repeat itself, that's why we need your collaboration. Everything you know may be important to find the creature.» she replied.

«You are searching for him?» asked one of the other. It was one of the two detectives, his eyes were empty of any emotion and his voice barren. «To kill him?»

Elise had to dodge the question, which better way than making a new one?

«You two are from Nethir, what were you doing in Lerad in the first place?»

«Investigating about the death of a man. - he was talking slowly, as to make an accent on every word - His throat was cut open by a single bite.»

They talked a bit more, but in the end she decided to let them all go free after telling them not to reveal anything about all that matter.

«Are you sure letting them go is a good idea? I wouldn't trust their word.» the captain said to her when they were left alone. She continued looking at the four of them return to their chopper to return to the city.

«I do not trust them. That's why I want your commander to put a couple of men after them, especially the two detectives. They didn't convince me at all.»

«Why did you let them go then?» he asked. What a stupid question, she did not answer him, instead she went back to the location of the massacre.

It was time to go, they had a couple of hours, but now the weather was worsening. A storm was coming. In a few hours every kind of track left back by the creature would have disappeared. And he run away on a motorcycle.

There was no way they could find him by simply following him in the forest, he had an obvious advantage in there. It was easier in another way.

We just need to wait for him to make a mistake. If he uses his power again, we'll find him.

And this time we'll be ready.

Jack and Kyle were freed in the end, but for all the way back to Lerad they thought about that conversation they had with that woman. A figure of authority that elegantly handled the situation, she gave them the idea to be a dangerous person.

«It was her after all.» Jack said once they were back in the car. «It was her who stopped us from continuing the investigation. She didn't want us to discover the truth, she didn't want me to see what truly happened.»

«Hey man, I don't think you should take it too personally. This was going to happen whomever the case was given to.» Kyle replied, even if he was just as mad as ever.

Jack shacked his head in denial.

«No, there is more: yesterday morning I was working on another case and I was stopped from continuing it too.» he revealed. «It was that woman even then.»

«What? Really? - Kyle uttered - What... what was the case about?»

«A suicide. A young man jumped in the Colwak river.»

Kyle thought about it for a moment. Then he realized that the river in question was not so far away from them.

«Don't you think that...»

«Of course there is a relation between the facts.» Jack replied. «A man is believed dead fallen into a river, then, the day after footprints are found that from the river arrive to a town, were a man is killed. And the same footprints go east...»

Kyle didn't know what to say, but if it was possible to believe that a monster exist then the possibility that it was actually a man before wasn't strange at all.

«Lewis Hart... transformed into a monster, murderer. Now I see why he tried to kill himself in the first place. He didn't want to become a monster.» Jack said, everything was so clear, he saw the dominoes all in lines. The only one he was missing was the first to fall, but he believed that they knew, that woman knew why he became a monster. She was searching him, the army was with her, she didn't want to kill him.

They're going to use him. Make him a weapon, use the power he conceal.

«What do you want to do then?» Kyle asked. He already knew, but he wanted to hear the same answer from Jack.

«We're going to find him.»

They were going to get fired for that, but they both didn't care, actually Jack had already his mobile ready. He dialed his assistant's number, but not to quit.

«Sarah, it's me Jack... So, you know... Well, me and Kyle have something in mind... Are you going to help us?»

We'll find him before it's too late.