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My name is Adam Hewitt.

There was once a time when I was just an average 18 year old, among many who were going on a special trip on the weekends to relax, after we were done with A-levels exams. It was supposed to be the last school trip we were going to have before we break up from school, for good.

What happened instead, would change the lives of everyone who went, including mine.

***

June 2013.

***

Oh, shit. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

Straw stumbled slightly as he hurriedly descended from the rocky outcropping that he was previously lying prone on, deftly holstering his compact binoculars back into one of the pouches on his chest while maintaining his precarious footing. As soon as his feet landed on the ground with an audible crunch of dried up leaves, sticks and roots, he ran briskly to one direction, ducking and weaving past tree branches on the way of his head while swatting away the ones lower to him. As the trees eventually cleared from his view, he reached for his portable radio speaker strapped to his shoulder.

He was told to roam the outskirts of his team's designated surveillance area, which included the road that led to an intersection to three different neighboring towns, for any sightings that could prove to be a liability to his and his teammate's primary objective: To search and destroy what's believed to be a recently-built nest of Ferals.

He was hesitant at first, questioning the need for something so trivial, confident that the nest is in a location remote enough that there couldn't possibly be much in the way of human lifesigns, if at all, but he knew that he had to go, even if it was just a quick sweep. He's been on this job long enough to know that there's almost always something lurking around the corner, and he was more than qualified to make sure of it, if no one else. Still, he was hoping that he would be wrong, and that it would all just be a waste of his time. After all, he agreed that the nest was a much higher priority, and it didn't feel right for him to leave his team without a scout worth his salt, not even for a minute.

Boy, did he wish he was REALLY wrong now.

"Buddy, you probably ain't gonna like this," he said in between breaths, "but there's a bus full of kids comin' our way, right into the nest we're supposed to be watchin'!"

"How many?" the radio responded after a brief crackle.

"Full house, Tiger! I don't see no other set a' wheels!"

"... Where are you now?" Straw could hear some commotion and another, frantic and flustered voice from the radio.

"Ain't far!" Straw replied, stepping on the guardrails from one corner of a road curve, and jumping a significant distance to the opposing curve, landing past its guardrails by just a meter and a half. "Get my ol' trusty ready, just don't break nothin' 'til I git to y'all, alright?"

"We'll be waiting. Tiger out." The radio fell silent. Straw could see some lights just beyond the next patch of trees coming to his view. Great. He can just think of one person in his group who's losing his marbles right about now, and it's probably the one that made the noise he heard on the radio just now. Not that he could possibly blame him; not only is the operation partly compromised by this new unknown, but their original plan has all but gone out the window indefinitely.

They were meant to search and destroy using firearms three of the five operatives were granted permission to deploy with, but using them now would spook everyone in the bus. If they knew that this was going to happen beforehand, they would've otherwise made immediate use of their firearms while the bus was out of reach of the gunfire. Their next best contingency plan now is Close Quarters-Combat, with a healthy supplement of some electromagnetic and air-propelled crossbows, a sword, and a machete attached to a shotgun. Straw has yet to find out what his two Hunter teammates brought with them as a backup weapon for this occasion, but he's damn well hoping it's a good one for each.

God, this shit's going to get real hairy, real soon.

***

My friends, Stuart, Wei and Tim and I were on our way to a weekend school trip, in a hotel just on the outskirts of Yokely. Just about enough students and teachers to fill up the entire bus. It could've been at least an hour quicker out of the four, five-hour trip if a few of us didn't end up getting sick on the way. When we finally came to the hotel, the teachers, through a proper comedy of errors, forgot just how small it was, and I ended up in a room crammed with six other people.

Tim decided to sod off to the hotel's pub, while Stuart and I stayed, along with three others: Nathaniel, a short, dark-skinned, primly clothed boy with windswept hair; Lewis, a buzz-cut bear of a lad who contrasted Nathan in his boorish clothing that could have him easily mistaken for the hundreds of chavs you see in the streets; and Casey, a tall, willowy girl with short cut hair, wearing a white sweater and black tights. All three carried with them various shades of a relaxed, almost inattentive demeanor, as if they're lost in their own little world with little to no regard of others. They were making that clear in the puffing of smoke they were projecting in our general direction.

"Oi! If y'got time to puff up those fags, then give us a hand with these beds!" Said Stuart, coughing from the smoke.

"Mate, it's not like this shit'll kill ya," chuckled Nathan.

"Would it kill ya t' not make me smell like them?"

Nathan groaned mockingly and rolled his eyes, while Casey began chuckling as well. "Oh, leave 'im alone, Nate," she said, playfully slapping him on his shoulder.

"You can't rush art, bruv," said Lewis. Not much of an artist if even YOU were coughing, Lewis. You couldn't completely hide it from us.

"Couldn't you at least do it outside?" I said, between coughs.

"With those wanks outside? Fuck that," said Nathan, shaking his head in mock defiance. "Besides, none of the teachers are gonna come in here for a while. Might as well make the best of this pack," he sneered. I wasn't impressed one bit; his attitude was really getting on my nerves.

Eventually, the smoke started to linger in the room. Everyone, myself included, had all silently agreed that we weren't putting up with this for much longer, especially given that the room's small, solitary window was practically sealed shut, the locking mechanism having been painted over like the walls.

I rushed the rest of the packing, only taking out the bedwear, and thoughtlessly threw it at my bed.

"Fuck it," I murmured, turning around to Stuart and Wei. "Right, I'm off to the pub to meet with Tim, who wants to get smashed with me? Stuart? Wei?"

"Aye," Stuart replied. Wei nodded, picking up his wallet off his bedside table desk. On the way out to the door, I shot a glance behind me, looking at the three, clearly continuing to enjoy their state of zen from underneath all the smoke and reprehensibility.

Nathan noticed me, and raised his lit cigarette up to his forehead. "Have fun, poppet!" He chuckled, along with Lewis and Casey.

"Oh, fuck off, mate," I hissed, turning around to leave the room, the door being left open. With one last quick glance as I kept walking down the hallway, I see Nathan and Casey sticking closer together like paper and glue. Ugh.

"Fuckin' cunts," I murmured, shaking my head.

***

"Naaaaate, look what you did!" Cooed Casey, lightly shaking him side-to-side.

"Whaaaat?" Huffed Nathan, turning to her with an attempt to convey a concerned expression on his face.

"That was mean, you know," Casey harrumphed, pouting like a baby and pressing her cheek against his forehead, to Nathan's mock surprise. "You should apologize to them!" Lewis laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of two of them before taking another drag of his cigarette.

After a while, Nathan noticed that Casey was staring slightly into space.

"Babe, what's wrong?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing."

Nathan shifted his head, wrapping his arm around Casey's shoulder and gently pushing the side of her head to his shoulder.

"Really, luv, what's wrong?"

Casey takes a drag out of her cigarette, deep in thought.

"Did either of you see that fucked up thing on the way here?"

"I was sleepin'," said Lewis, shaking his head.

"I was sitting on the opposite side, it's all open hilly view from there," said Nathan. "Wait, what fucked up thing?"

"I dunno, we went by it pretty fuckin' fast," said Casey, slightly shaking her head. Her face briefly went waxen. "It was... big. Kinda fuzzy, too. I think it was eating something?"

She gasped.

"Nate! You think it's Bigfoot?!"

"What the fuck would Bigfoot be doin' in the UK?" Said Nathan incredulously.

"I dunno," mumbled Casey, pouting again. "Maybe it ran out of shit to eat in Alaska or wherever the fuck, tried to look for more, got lost, and ended up on a boat to here somehow."

Casey shook her head frantically. "Aaaaaah, I don't wanna get eaten by Bigfoot!" She wrapped her arms around Nathan and buried her face to his shoulder.

"Jesus, luv, you're gonna scare baby Lewis to death like that," said Nathan, smirking as he's gingerly stroking Casey's hair.

Lewis coughed slightly in reaction. "Fuck off, bruv, I got pubes!"

The three of them began bursting into laughter.

***

Opposite where three people had been laughing from beyond the window, a pair of large, glowing eyes belonging to a large wolf-like head, had been laying low, its gaze fixed on the direction of the window. It slowly rose...

... Only for it to have had a long, straight blade lodged from the back of the neck, its stabbing edge protruding out the cleft of its upper mouth several tens of centimeters. The glow slowly dissipated, revealing eyes that looked apart from where its head was facing.

The blade was held by an enormous figure with wolf-like paws to match, that looked vaguely humanoid. With one paw firmly holding the blade by the grip, it held the sides of the lifeless creature's skull with the other paw, quickly pulling the blade out. Then, in one quick motion, the figure swung the blade from high facing to the side then down, severing the creature's head from its body with a quiet "chuk", the body helplessly collapsing to the ground.

Wasting no time, the enormous figure gripped the severed head with it's sword-hand and effortlessly picked up the body with the other, placing it on its shoulder. It ran further from where the window was, stopping to a clearing from behind the hotel's bushes.

The clearing was littered with several corpses similar to the one the figure was still holding; they had been all lined up in a row, laying shoulder to shoulder. All of them were missing one or more of their limbs, though they had few noticeable cuts. Some had their bones fractured, broken, or some combination of both. Others had bruises so severe that it became bulbous growths with patches of skin laceration, a few of which even had exit wounds opposite the bruises that resembled explosions that left large cavities. Despite all of that, what corpses that remained relatively intact had matching heads placed on the ground, next to where each of their necks used to be.

The enormous figure gingerly placed the body and severed head he was holding onto the ground, next to another corpse, in a similar posture. After a brief moment, the figure scoffed before turning to look towards the hotel window behind him.

It rose, and ran off along the edges of the bushes.

Shit. Just how many of them are there?