Bartholomew
Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.
Grant was always a trouble maker, even when he was but a young boy. His parents always had trouble keeping him walking down the right path. Grant always felt like an outcast with his chin stuck up to the sky. Other kids would point fingers at him as if he was a dead body and they were poking him with sticks. Grant never fit in so he got into trouble. From stealing to vandalism, even assaulting students and even teachers. Grant felt like he was always watching the world through the looking glass, but every time he tried to touch something, the glass would crack.
Trouble often followed him everywhere he went because he was the epitome of trouble. People often said Grant would get himself killed and they were probably right. He brought his own shovel with him, draped it over his shoulder and every step was another patch of dirt. One day he would dig a six foot hole and hop himself in, don't forget his tombstone. His epitaph? "Grant brought this upon himself." As Grant got older, he only got worse. Grant broke into homes and stole from people, assaulted police officers, got into bar fights, landed himself in jail a couple times. Grant was troubled with enough demons to make his own Hell. He could not hold down a job, wrecked every car he ever had because he was addicted to the bottom of a bottle.
Yes, Grant was quite damaged and despite the help he was bequeathed by his parents, he never got any better. Therapy always ended in disaster with the therapist demanding he see someone else. His anger would cause him to fly off the handle to the point he would claw at their throats. Multiple restraining orders and eventually blacklisted from every therapist. Grant would spend the rest of his life paying his dues to the man for all his deeds. That was, until the incident happened. The day the monsters showed up. It started by an explosion in the middle of the city with these creatures crawling out, ripping and tearing with large claws and maws to crush bones. That was the night everything changed.
Grant was twenty one when shit hit the fan. He watched the world he thought he knew crumble underneath him as unfathomable horror became its legacy. During the day? Crime was afoot for people were convinced this was it- this was the end of the world. With the incident, a strange plague began wiping people out. It started out as a flu and turned violently worse. People were ending up in body bags, on the streets as they withered away. Multiple parts of the city were closed off due to quarantine and those that weren't? People were required to wear masks and gloves, only go out to work and for food. Anyone caught outside for any other reason would be charged with failure to comply, fined and placed on house arrest. If further incidents would occurs, they would be thrusted into jail and left to rot. The world was not a pretty place.
Politicians took advantage of the scourge, using it to boost their campaigns. Some claimed they could do away with the monsters, send them back to where they belong; others boasted they would find a cure for this novel disease wrecking havoc in the homes and on the streets of the common people. They were walking a living nightmare that gutted the world in a way no one saw coming.
There was a light at the end of the tunnel. Special people known as Super Users began birthing all over the globe. People with abilities who used said abilities to fight back the monsters. While the sun brought crime and corrupted police and politicians, the night brought them. Monsters would level homes and buildings, murder people on the streets in cold bloody leaving their innards to decorate the sides of buildings and dark alleyways. Super Users began contracting themselves out, taking money to destroy these creatures. Some did it for free, they thought the liberation from these blood thirsty animals was enough payment. While others? They thought the monsters justified and necessary. They thought the world breathed in the human bullshit enough and this was just its way of relinquishing the humans from the world for a chance at fresh air.
These Super Users fought against the heroism, thus tossing the world into a civil war beyond any proportions it has ever seen. Insurance companies tried to bank on the catastrophic warfare, only for their pockets to dehydrate as people were losing more money than they could afford. Buildings were leveled nightly by these creatures and the war; places were bombed during the day and businesses were broken into, swept dry of their contents or destroyed. Homelessness was at an all time high and was the leading cause of many deaths from the plague to other fatal diseases. Murder and feasts for the monsters.
Grant tried his best to steer clear of it all, but even he was not void of the chaos that had taken hold of the world with two hands and tried to squeeze the life out of it. Though he broke into homes and businesses, stealing their valuables and pawning them off, Grant was not the one to straight up murder someone for any reason. He was a bad egg, but even he had morals. It was a fateful day, late in the afternoon when Grant found an abandoned building. Curious, he found his way in through a broken windows and began exploring. The building was old; the walls were claimed by dust and decay as time began to peel the pain and litter the floors with debris from the ceiling. Holes were everywhere, forklifts were rusting and pallets rotted. It looked like the people who worked there left it in a rush.
Packages strewn across the floor, ripped open while their contents of metal rusted away. They looked like tools and gears. Whatever these people were making, no one would want these. Grant was not paying attention to where he was stepping, too focused on the warehouse itself when he stepped on a crack. The floors began to buckle and he fell through. The fall was not far enough for him to fall through and he was not bombarded by the concrete floors, but the smack of his head had knocked him unconscious.
His eyes fluttered open, his head feeling like he just took a mallet to his cranium over and over again until his brains spilled onto the floor. The left side of his face was smeared with blood and he could barely stand without falling backwards and hitting his head again.
"Ow. That hurt. Where am I?" Holding his head with his right hand as if it would fall apart if he didn't, he looked around the abysmal darkness. His brows furrowed and he took a step when lights flickered on.
He stood in a vacant open area painted completely white with a hall of glass staring him in the face.
"What the…"
He heard stories of an underground facility from the whispers of the outside world; it was the talk of the town some might say. He never thought he would find himself stumbling across it. Well, technically he fell in, but who's keeping tabs? He began walking through, looking through the glass. He saw white cells, and people inside. Fucking people! What the hell? Why were there people here? Some were muttering nonsensical whispers as they looked up in the air, some were rocking back and forth, their knees to their chins and hands on their heads.
"Okay this is fucked up."
The hallway lead to another hallway that split in two directions: left and right. He did not want to do it, but something kept him going against his volition. His body was like a machine and someone pressed the button, he would keep moving until he was face to face with the last cell on the left. He stopped, turning to look inside. Another person; somebody else being held against their own will. But why? What was the purpose of all this? Who was doing this? Grant heard stories of people being taken from the streets. They said a white van would pull up, put a brown sack over your head and inject you with something that would knock you out. Were these the people who were kidnapped? What were they doing here?
Trouble often followed him everywhere he went because he was the epitome of trouble. People often said Grant would get himself killed and they were probably right. He brought his own shovel with him, draped it over his shoulder and every step was another patch of dirt. One day he would dig a six foot hole and hop himself in, don't forget his tombstone. His epitaph? "Grant brought this upon himself." As Grant got older, he only got worse. Grant broke into homes and stole from people, assaulted police officers, got into bar fights, landed himself in jail a couple times. Grant was troubled with enough demons to make his own Hell. He could not hold down a job, wrecked every car he ever had because he was addicted to the bottom of a bottle.
Yes, Grant was quite damaged and despite the help he was bequeathed by his parents, he never got any better. Therapy always ended in disaster with the therapist demanding he see someone else. His anger would cause him to fly off the handle to the point he would claw at their throats. Multiple restraining orders and eventually blacklisted from every therapist. Grant would spend the rest of his life paying his dues to the man for all his deeds. That was, until the incident happened. The day the monsters showed up. It started by an explosion in the middle of the city with these creatures crawling out, ripping and tearing with large claws and maws to crush bones. That was the night everything changed.
Grant was twenty one when shit hit the fan. He watched the world he thought he knew crumble underneath him as unfathomable horror became its legacy. During the day? Crime was afoot for people were convinced this was it- this was the end of the world. With the incident, a strange plague began wiping people out. It started out as a flu and turned violently worse. People were ending up in body bags, on the streets as they withered away. Multiple parts of the city were closed off due to quarantine and those that weren't? People were required to wear masks and gloves, only go out to work and for food. Anyone caught outside for any other reason would be charged with failure to comply, fined and placed on house arrest. If further incidents would occurs, they would be thrusted into jail and left to rot. The world was not a pretty place.
Politicians took advantage of the scourge, using it to boost their campaigns. Some claimed they could do away with the monsters, send them back to where they belong; others boasted they would find a cure for this novel disease wrecking havoc in the homes and on the streets of the common people. They were walking a living nightmare that gutted the world in a way no one saw coming.
There was a light at the end of the tunnel. Special people known as Super Users began birthing all over the globe. People with abilities who used said abilities to fight back the monsters. While the sun brought crime and corrupted police and politicians, the night brought them. Monsters would level homes and buildings, murder people on the streets in cold bloody leaving their innards to decorate the sides of buildings and dark alleyways. Super Users began contracting themselves out, taking money to destroy these creatures. Some did it for free, they thought the liberation from these blood thirsty animals was enough payment. While others? They thought the monsters justified and necessary. They thought the world breathed in the human bullshit enough and this was just its way of relinquishing the humans from the world for a chance at fresh air.
These Super Users fought against the heroism, thus tossing the world into a civil war beyond any proportions it has ever seen. Insurance companies tried to bank on the catastrophic warfare, only for their pockets to dehydrate as people were losing more money than they could afford. Buildings were leveled nightly by these creatures and the war; places were bombed during the day and businesses were broken into, swept dry of their contents or destroyed. Homelessness was at an all time high and was the leading cause of many deaths from the plague to other fatal diseases. Murder and feasts for the monsters.
Grant tried his best to steer clear of it all, but even he was not void of the chaos that had taken hold of the world with two hands and tried to squeeze the life out of it. Though he broke into homes and businesses, stealing their valuables and pawning them off, Grant was not the one to straight up murder someone for any reason. He was a bad egg, but even he had morals. It was a fateful day, late in the afternoon when Grant found an abandoned building. Curious, he found his way in through a broken windows and began exploring. The building was old; the walls were claimed by dust and decay as time began to peel the pain and litter the floors with debris from the ceiling. Holes were everywhere, forklifts were rusting and pallets rotted. It looked like the people who worked there left it in a rush.
Packages strewn across the floor, ripped open while their contents of metal rusted away. They looked like tools and gears. Whatever these people were making, no one would want these. Grant was not paying attention to where he was stepping, too focused on the warehouse itself when he stepped on a crack. The floors began to buckle and he fell through. The fall was not far enough for him to fall through and he was not bombarded by the concrete floors, but the smack of his head had knocked him unconscious.
His eyes fluttered open, his head feeling like he just took a mallet to his cranium over and over again until his brains spilled onto the floor. The left side of his face was smeared with blood and he could barely stand without falling backwards and hitting his head again.
"Ow. That hurt. Where am I?" Holding his head with his right hand as if it would fall apart if he didn't, he looked around the abysmal darkness. His brows furrowed and he took a step when lights flickered on.
He stood in a vacant open area painted completely white with a hall of glass staring him in the face.
"What the…"
He heard stories of an underground facility from the whispers of the outside world; it was the talk of the town some might say. He never thought he would find himself stumbling across it. Well, technically he fell in, but who's keeping tabs? He began walking through, looking through the glass. He saw white cells, and people inside. Fucking people! What the hell? Why were there people here? Some were muttering nonsensical whispers as they looked up in the air, some were rocking back and forth, their knees to their chins and hands on their heads.
"Okay this is fucked up."
The hallway lead to another hallway that split in two directions: left and right. He did not want to do it, but something kept him going against his volition. His body was like a machine and someone pressed the button, he would keep moving until he was face to face with the last cell on the left. He stopped, turning to look inside. Another person; somebody else being held against their own will. But why? What was the purpose of all this? Who was doing this? Grant heard stories of people being taken from the streets. They said a white van would pull up, put a brown sack over your head and inject you with something that would knock you out. Were these the people who were kidnapped? What were they doing here?