“They used to tell stories. About monsters, but not your every day bigfoot-type monsters. No, these were not from this world, maybe even this universe. However, they came uprising from a normal pond. Nobody expected it, nobody saw it coming. But can you blame them? Some say that those who were chosen to fight them could never return to their normal lives again, if they ever made it back alive. Forever scarred. Mentally insane. First to ascend was a bear-sized humanoid, covered in razor-sharp spines. Virtually bulletproof and took no notice of the returning fire from the doomed men. The damned thing walked straight through the enclosure. 3 meters of solid concrete. Took the life of 23 well-trained men.”
“What happened to it?”
“They bombed the s**t out of it. Finally neutralized with napalm.”
“Why don’t they send an investigation squad through the pond? A submarine, maybe? If this was a real problem, there would probably be more fuss around it.”
“They did, two years ago, under the name of R.L Iron. Melnik Haus, do you recognize that name?”
“Yea, he got promoted few years back. Never seen him since.”
“Ever wonder why?”
“I’d assume he got deployed in a different region. Maybe K.I.A”
“That’s exactly what they want you to think. Nobody from the so-called “promotion” ever came back. You’d think at least some of them would survive if it was a normal deployment. Wallance?”
“Confirmed K.I.A. In Serbia, why?”
“No, he was part of the investigation squad. There are no documents of him ever going to Serbia. No planes, trains, convoys, no nothing. Zero.”
Jasper looked up from his dirty boots and met his fellow soldiers eyes, shining in the slim light of the campfire. He didn’t know what to believe. A breeze hit his face from the cold winter night.
“And how, exactly, are you so sure of this? I mean, it might just be another campfire rumor. A horror story to keep us on edge.”
“No, Jasper, you don’t get it. This is for real. There is proof. Of the Chaos Insurgency, of the pond, of the monsters and the lives lost fighting those. They just don’t want us to know. We are too vulnerable, they think we will let the word out. It would spread like a disease and before you know the whole world knows about it. You know why that’s a problem? The same reason the government wouldn’t tell us about aliens. Or why NASA wouldn’t tell if an astroid were about to hit.”
“Chaos,” Jasper whispered.
“Exactly. And nobody would want that, right?”
“Right.”
“So, to combat this, they only choose highly trustworthy soldiers. I don’t know what they base that decision on, however I do know that Melnik was one of our best medics, which is why he was chosen.”
“And Wallance?”
“Top of his class. Broke nearly all Navy Seal records – sharpshooting, free diving, terrain running. All of it. Seems weird he’d just go K.I.A on a random deployment, doesn’t it?”
