Within the Darkness

Pitch now had a partner in his investigation, someone who knew his new identity that he could confide in, a familiar and friendly face. It felt off that it was now at all times that Pitch seemed to get a friend. He had been slowly closing himself off from the world even before the transformation, as he had often found it difficult to connect with others. James had always assumed it had to do with the trauma of that day in first grade. A deep subconscious fear that if he got close to someone they would die too. It only got worse after the loss of his parents, the only family of his he actually cared about.

Pitch washed up and got ready for work. Taking a shower in the human facade wasn't really necessary since it didn't sweat unless Pitch needed it to do so and didn't produce body odor. Yet he did it anyway, if for no other reason then the feeling of normalcy. Once at work things started out basically the same as normal with him cleaning and not being bothered by anyone. That was until Kat caught him in the elevator. “H-hey.” Kat fixed her hair. Pitch looked over to Kat. “Hi.” Kat shuffled about in the elevator. “So, any specific plans?” Pitch shrugged. “I was hoping you had some ideas. I've already been working here for five years and got nothing.”

Kat nodded. “Well I have some ideas on where to start. If there is some secret here then odds are my boss would know. He's been here for ages. Things should go faster and smoother now that you have someone working for the same goal. Teamwork makes the dream work as my dad always says.” The elevator opens and the two both step out only to immediately freeze. On the floor were several men in military grade gear wearing uniforms that Pitch definitely recognized. “Crap.” He said under his breath. “Those are the anti-monster people.”

The two do their best to look and act normal as they walk up. “What exactly is going on here sir?” Pitch asked one of the men. “I'm not authorized to disclose any information at this time.” Kat looked over at them scanning the blood from yesterday. “You guys aren't normal security and I've never seen equipment like that before.” The guy once again responded with “I am not authorized to disclose any information at this time.” Pitch sighed. “I’d like to speak to your commanding officer or whoever’s in charge here. Now.” His commanding tone definitely got the attention of a few men. The guy sighed and called for the commander.

After a bit a muscular and older Japanese American man with salt and pepper hair walks over. His uniform has stars on it and reads “Ishwada”. He looks at the two before focusing on Pitch. “Have we… met before?” Pitch though about it for a while before shrugging. “Not sure. Names James Holden. This is Kathryn Smith. We work here. Obviously. We wanted to know what was going on but this guy was being super unhelpful.” Ishwada blinked a few times. “Holden? Any relation to a Sergeant Jack Holden?” Pitch took a step back in shock. “Y-yeah. He was my dad. He uhh… passed away a few years ago. Car accident.”

Ishwada nodded as he rubbed his chin. “Jack was a good man, a good soldier. I served with him during ‘nam. There's little I can tell you at this stage but since you are Jack's kid and this place already has you under an NDA I'll assume you can keep a secret. We are a special task force, technically a sort of civilian militia. Most of us are formerly military though. We investigate and sometimes combat unusual situations that normal law enforcement and military are not equipped or trained for.” Pitch looked around before asking “Would your men have been investigating say… a coke bear incident about sixteen years ago?”

Ishwada went pale. “W-what do you know about that?” One of the other older men leaned over and whispered in the general’s ears. “O-oh. You… you were the one kid who survived. I've read those files so many times over you'd think I'd remember that. Guess this new case has me sidetracked. The reasons we are investigating this case include the attackers having access to equipment that isn't commercially available and…” Pitch finished. “The fact that no bodies were found. That alone would count as unusual.” Ishwada nodded. “Officially my group doesn't have a name, but some call us the Black Eagles. Only reason I'm telling you is I think because if you are anything like your father you'd be perfect for our outfit.”

Pitch seemed to consider it for a moment. “I uhh… I don't think I can jump into something like that without at least a week to think about it. I never did military training or served myself. I'm not sure if I'd be a good fit.” Ishwada writes his personal number on a paper. “Well if you decide you want to give it a try just call me. We could always use good loyal men. I'd suggest you go about your day and alloyus to investigate.” Pitch salutes the general and walks away with Kat. “I didn't expect that. Not only is the anti-monster task force one hundred percent real, but I know a high ranking figure in it. I even knew his daughter.”

Kat looked over to Pitch. “Oh? Don't tell me you dated the general's daughter.” Pitch shook his head. “She was in my first grade class.” Kat gave a deadpan “Oh.” Then after a pause a louder “Oh!” Before expressing her thoughts “That explains his motivation for being in the task force. His daughter died because of the thing that attacked your class. The shadow monster. Do you think he suspects anything?” Pitch nodded. “He suspects the shadow monster is in the area, and thanks to me he's partly right. From now on I'll have to be extra careful.” Kat nods as they walk together.

After a moment of silence Kat breaks it. “You know this is a great opportunity to find some answers. We can investigate the Black Eagles by eavesdropping on them or you could jump in one of them and wear him like a skin to get in close.” Pitch sighs “That ability has drawbacks like the mental bleed and if I'm in there too long my body will eat his from the inside out. I won't be able to simply exit and leave him in pristine condition.” Kat looked over at an air vent. “You could always use the vents. I mean they are far too small for a human but for a floating blob of extra fine black sand it should be fine.”

Pitch looked at the vent entrance then around. “I'll need to find a blind spot that has a vent and I know just the place. You get to work business as normal and we can meet up after our shifts and exchange notes. You'll likely get questioned since you were there. Be careful.” Kat nodded. “You two” before the pair split up on their separate missions. Pitch went into a janitor supply closet and let out his true form before flying into a vent and going through the building to where the men were so he could spy on them unseen.

Even with his amorphous nearly gaseous body the air ducts felt a bit cramped, but Pitch pressed on since he had a mission to complete. Set up above the men who thought they were alone he was in a prime position to overhear their conversations. Two soldiers standing at the end of the hallway are casually talking now that the floor was cleared of other people. “This is kinda scary, you know. This Umbrian already took out an entire platoon of our guys even with the special training and equipment.” The other guy then said “yeah, well, we should have sent more men. The Umbran has the highest threat rating of any Cryptid, and that's saying something. I mean have you read the files on some of those things? Those are just the ones that have been encountered and cataloged. Who knows what else is out there.”

Pitch takes a mental note of the fact they used the term “Cryptid” and confirmed there are more than one with the name of what he was specifically actually being spoken out loud. Finally he had some confirmation, some solid information he could build on. For the first time since this all started Pitch was finally closer to answers. The fruits of his labors are finally paying off. He just hoped that Kat was doing just as well as he was.

Kat went to her lab as if everything was normal for a while before her boss came over to her station with Ishwada in tow. “Hey Kat, I know you already gave me a statement but you're going to have to give it to this guy too. Sorry for the hassle.” Kat nods and follows them into a private room before going through the motions telling Ishwada the same thing she told her job. “It was dark and I curled up into a ball in fear. I didn't see anything, I did my best to cover my ears and ignore the screams. Then when the screams ended and I looked up all that was left was the aftermath.”

After Ishwada took his notes, thanked Kat for her time and moved on, Kat's boss grabbed her shoulder and kept her in the private room for a moment. “Just hold up a moment Kat. There's one more thing we should discuss.” Kat got a bit nervous and couldn't exactly keep it in. “Y-yeah?” the boss sighed “Normally we wait at least a few years to get a good read on someone before we do this but in light of your recent encounter I guess it's now or never. Before I go into full detail I'll remind you that you are under several NDAs. First things first that you should know. Monsters are real. Our lab has partnered with the Black Eagles to study these monsters in order to help them find weaknesses to these threats to humanity. You said those men were after a basement that doesn't exist? Well it does. It's where all our Cryptid research is done. Today, you'll get the tour.”

Pitch sat in the vents for what seemed like forever, getting mostly mundane coffee break talk. Occasionally he would overhear encounter stories for other Cryptids, learning the names and classifications for a number of them. It seemed that Cryptids were mostly classed by different fears for some reason. The Umbran was considered a Nyctophobian Cryptid. Ghouls and the Wendigo (of which there were apparently two different kinds) were Ososphobian. Doppelgangers were currently classified as Automatonophobian but the classification was apparently being debated for some reason.

Pitch wished he could ask why the classification of Cryptids all had to do with fears, he wished he could ask about how they've been keeping the existence of monsters a secret as well as whatever else they may know. All Pitch could do was sit and wait and hope information would casually come up in a conversation. It wasn't like these people were going to start expositing information for the sake of an unseen audience.

Kat is taken to a hidden elevator with a security system in it that combines a number pad, a hand scanner, and a retina scanner. The elevator only has three buttons. G, B1, and B2. The boss man covers the number pad while typing in his code before placing his palm and eye to be scanned. Then he hits the B1 button. The elevator starts going down giving Kat time to talk. “So not only do we have a secret basement, but a secret sub basement. What's in the basements?” The boss responds quickly. “You'll see what's in the basement and be given access but you won't be entering the sub basement. All that's down there is a special generator that powers the building keeping it off the city grid.”

This raised more questions than answers. If this building has its own generator in a secret sub basement, how the hell did those thugs cut the power. “How many people have access to this generator?” The boss raised an eyebrow at this question but saw no reason not to answer it. “Counting myself, six people I've personally selected.” The elevator door opens and Kat is taken into a secret laboratory with containment units holding literal physical monsters. Kat actually recognized a few from popular culture and Cryptid form pages some of which are full of conspiracy stuff. Some of which might be true considering what she is seeing. “What… is all this?”

The boss gestures around the room. “This is how we really pay the bills. Did you really think we turned a prophet from our humanitarian crap upstairs? Blag Eagle captures them, dead or alive. Then we contain and study them looking for weakness so we can develop new weapons to combat the threats these monsters pose.” Kat looks at the various different monsters all in cages having experiments many would consider inhumane even on an animal like a rat and has to keep herself from getting sick. “These are still living things though, right? Don't they deserve some measure of decency?”

The boss grumbled. “If I had a nickel for every new person who said something like that… look, these things aren't some lost species of animal. We've done blood tests and most Cryptids don't even have traditional DNA. They spit on the face of everything we know about biology. There are two prevailing theories as to where they come from and how they come to be and both rely on a relationship with energies created by strong emotions. They are either born from or drawn to these specific energies. That's why a lot of them are tied to fears as those are thought to either be the origin point or driving force of these entities.”

The boss takes a breath before continuing. “It requires a high concentration of a specific energy so there is a population range of where these things spawn whether it's here or pulled in from some place out of phase with our reality. Too few people and there isn't enough energy, too many and you encounter something we call “fear pollution”. Basically too many different energies mix and nothing can spawn from it. So Cryptids tend to spawn in rural areas with a few exceptions. There are a few examples of ones not born from fear or in highly populated areas but they are outliers. The most well known example is the onrio or poltergeist. They are born from high amounts of hatred, pain, and or regret of a single person on their death.”

Kat is handed a tablet with a ton of files on it. “Here, you can read these to catch up. This tablet can't connect to the internet at all but I'll still ask you to be careful with it. Showing it to anyone is a breach of NDA.” Kat nods. “Understood sir.” She then finds a place to sit so she can thumb through the files. Folders labeled by classification make it easy to find what she is looking for. After scrolling through folders she finds one labeled “Nyctophobian”. “(If anything fits as a classification for Pitch, fear of the dark does.)” She then opens the folder.

Inside there is a primary text file along with supplementary image and video files. Kat decided to read the text file. “Classification: Nyctophobian Species: Umbran. This particular Cryptid is associated with the fear of the dark and is not be of if not the oldest kind of Cryptid there is. Appearing like a living shadow, the Umbran seems to be made of a bunch of extremely small solids that are somehow suspended in the air moving in unison. Though believed to have once been common, it is currently believed that only one or a small handful remain. Known weaknesses include intense light with a high amount of ultraviolet having more effectiveness and intense or focused bursts of sound. No members of this species have been captured. A recent discovery of a cave painting may shed some light on the decline of the population and potential social structure of the Cryptid.”

Kat looked at the videos which included dash and body cam footage of encounters with either Pitch or something like him. With one showing the monster destroying a platoon of soldiers and jeeps. Also included are images of the aftermath of several suspected attacks. Although Kat knew not all of these were Pitch she began to wonder how many people he had eaten. Six years with two a week being the normal amount. That's somewhere around two hundred and eighty eight people. Kat felt a bit sick thinking about this. Even if every single one was a criminal who had committed unforgivable acts that was still a lot of people consumed.

Kat shook those thoughts. Pitch doesn't have a choice as to whether or not he feeds, but what he does choose is who he feeds on. The fact he's picking the lesser of evils is proof he's not a bad person. Especially considering the possibility that starving himself would make things worse. Not feeding manually ment his body would do so automatically. He would kill indiscriminately and likely whomever was closest and potentially not regain reason after. Kat would have probably done the same thing if it were her instead.

Kat put the tablet into her lab coat before looking at the living and dead Cryptid specimens in the secret laboratory before going back to the elevator and making her way out. She texted Pitch's phone letting him know they would meet at his house rather than just outside the building. Once they compared notes they would have to plan their next move. Things would be more delicate now that Black Eagle was investigating the area looking for Pitch. Seeing the files made it clear the General had a personal grudge against the Umbran, because one was responsible for the death of his daughter.