"This is Sawyer, any updates on-"
Sawyer's message into his radio is cut short by a hand grasping his heel - it's fingers digging into his leg trying to drag him down the roof. The anomaly-affected man reveals himself, crawling up the roof to seize Sawyer, who tried to kick the monster in the face in an attempt to get it off.
When that didn't work, Sawyer wasted no time pulling out his handgun, shooting the disfigured man in the face three times causing it to let go of his leg and fall down the roof and splat on the ground, the mystery eggs that filled it's eye sockets and mouth now oozing out onto the dirt along with blood.
"H-HEEEELPPPP!!!"
An older man's voice echoes through the area, alarming Sawyer who spots the man being dragged into the darkness and through the trees. He swiftly climbs down the rooftop and rushes to the screams, scrambling through bushes to reach the man being dragged away - cutting down each of the affected victims without losing momentum in his chase as they viciously reach for him.
The screaming stops abruptly, but that doesn't stop Sawyer from running to the man's rescue. What does stop him- is the sight of another corpse that he spots on the ground near him. He zones out staring at it for a moment, noticing a young man with a bloody gap on his neck, likely someone who was killed by the affected ones.
The sight wasn't noticeably strange or especially gruesome, it just… reminded Sawyer of something. A different corpse, laying on the ground in a completely different place years ago. But the sensation of standing over it took him back to that moment, the dead body he remembers wasn't significant, but it was tied to the event that, in a way, led him here.
Sawyer's reminiscence was cut short, as the blood-curdling screams of the man being dragged away started back up.
Following the noise, Sawyer ran through the trees and into an empty meadow in the middle of the forest. The trees no longer blocking the moonlight caused it to hit his face, Sawyer's eyes adjusting to the slight brightness increase, and scanning for the man - whose screams stopped once again.
And there it was, standing in the middle of the meadow.
A tall, thin and gray-skinned humanoid with long, boney arms and strangest of all - a beak where his mouth should be. But of course this entity wasn't anything close to a person, yet Sawyer took a few casual steps closer. It hadn't noticed him yet.
The monster was holding the man it had taken from the cabin site, his screams muffled by what was happening to him. The monster was pouring the eyeball - like eggs from its beak into his mouth. His mouth gaped open as the eggs filling his mouth caused his skin to stretch and turn gray, his eyes to roll back, and his fingernails to dig into his flesh in reaction to the sensations.
But then it stopped.
The entity, noticing that Sawyer had found it and was approaching, scrunched up the deformed man and threw his body at Sawyer. The corpse whizzed past Sawyer, barely missing him and hitting a nearby tree, shattering into bloody bits.
Sawyer remained calm, unwavering in the face of the horror he had witnessed tonight. The soldier drew his sword and marched towards the entity, which was now holding an unbroken stare into his soul.
Spriting behind the trees, Sawyer vanishes from the entity's line of site - but it soon follows, running in his direction with its long, bony limbs. The monster dashes to where it believes he would be, reaching out with its elongated arms around the tree, only to find nobody there.
Just then, several bullets were shot into its back, causing it to tumble slightly. It turned around as the bullet wounds healed, the monster's flesh and skin regrowing - stretching and reattaching over the holes as if it was never injured.
"This is Sawyer Ambrose. It is 04:25, August 19th 2024. I've made contact with the Cryptid. Hostile, possible low - "Magper" level. Neutralizing now."
The cryptid turns towards Sawyer again, the twitching of its eyes is followed by an eerie creaking sound. It sprints towards him with its arms flailing in front of its body, lunging at Sawyer who dashes to the side - but the monster is quick to react, following his movements and swiping his hands at him.
Unable to dodge out of the way, Sawyer slashes his sword at the monster's hand causing it to retract. The other hand however came much faster, with no time to relocate his sword, Sawyer turns to the side and takes the impact with his arm held up. He grits his teeth and thrust back a decent distance and into the bushes, the approaching Cryptid wasting no time in scurrying to his location and grabbing him from the bushes to hold him up, thrusting its beak into his chest to end his life.
As soon as the monster's beak made contact with Sawyer, his body, his clothes, and any weapons he had on him started to disappear and twist into a hair-like substance with the color and texture of flesh. The material gathered into an imperfect ball in the center of where Sawyer was a second or two ago. Now that he was gone, the lump of maroon hair- like anomaly dropped to the floor, the cryptid's uncertain observation interrupted by its sense of danger being sprung back up by rapid footsteps behind it.
It turned around but all that followed was a sharp and rapid slice to its lower back, the man who had just disappeared into near nothingness in front of the cryptid's eyes was suddenly behind it, attempting to dice the monster down one slash at a time with his sword.
Like a blur, Sawyer sprinted behind the nearest tree as the cryptid followed again, like an expected cat and mouse chase. It's elongated, bony arms miss in its violent attempt to splat Sawyer like a fly, hitting the tree and causing it to shake.
A small object flew by the cryptid going unnoticed. The monster then prepares to spring at Sawyer, lunging at him only to be unexpectedly stopped by an explosion.
The object that was thrown by Sawyer just a second ago was a grenade that had detonated to the side of the cryptid, blowing its shoulder off.
Its torn off arm now dropping to the floor, Sawyer was determined to give it no chance to heal - he slashed its other arm downwards, stabbing it and pinning it into the ground with his sword. Letting go, he uses the pinned down arm as a platform to leap up from and grab the cryptid's shoulder to use as support as he takes out a dagger from its sheath strapped to his lower back.
The cryptid tries to turn its head around to impale Sawyer with its beak, but Sawyer's rapid movements give it no time.
With one strong slash of the dagger, Sawyer decapitates the cryptid.
The large gray head drops, soon followed by the rest of its body ragdolling to the side. Its skin and muscle shrivels up as now the head is too far away to attempt to regenerate.
Sawyer takes a deep breath, but gets straight back to finishing the job. He collects his sword and returns it to its sheath on his back, and takes a few steps away from the corpse.
"This is Sawyer Ambrose. Cryptid reported at 04:25 has been neutralised. Over."
He begins to walk away, but just then his earpiece receives a call.
"Sawyer, you there? Nice work out there, we found the kid you sent over. He's alright, just pretty shaken up. We managed to find a contact for his mother so I'm sure it'll be okay in the end. Though this kind of thing isn't something that you can just forget about, we'll have to give them a story that doesn't involve… all of that. The Cleanup team is on the way. Over."