Prologue

Yes. It's fantastic. A masterpiece. It will do amazing. It cannot go wrong. It's m̵̘̿̉͜a̴̯͌r̴̙̮̅͑v̶̟͒ẹ̶̐l̴͍͌o̷̰͍͛ú̵̪̭s̷̮̔̋.

Chapter

One

    It was 1 A.M. Me and Marissa were asleep. Until banging came from downstairs. I opened my eyes.

    "Marissa..." I said. "Marissa, is that you?"

    I nudged her arm.

    "What?" She said. "No, It's not me. Is... Is someone in the house?"

    I sat up.

    "Sh*t," I said. "You think it's a burglar?

    "Who else would be in our house at..." She glanced at the clock. "One o'clock?"

    I grabbed a pistol from my drawer.

    "Wait, why do you have a gun?" Marissa asked.

    "For situations like these." I answered.

    I slowly left the bedroom and made my way downstairs. The crashing was coming from the kitchen. I turned the corner with the pistol up.

    "Who's there?" I shouted.

    There was nothing there. Plates and bowls were lying on the floor, but there was nobody in sight.

    "What the hell.."

    "Is something wrong?" Marissa said coming down the stairs.

    "There's nobody here." The kitchen is messed up, but there's nobody here.

    "That's odd," Marissa said. "Perhaps it was a raccoon or something?"

    "This is Alaska, there are no raccoons here." I said.

    "Then it was probably a squirrel,"

    "Yeah, that makes more sense."

    "Well, let's go back to bed. We'll clean up this mess in the morning.

    I yawned. "That sounds like a good idea.

    And, of course, we went back to bed.

    In the morning, we went downstairs and cleaned up the kitchen.

    "I don't think a squirrel could have done this." I told Marissa.

    "Well, I don't know what it was." She replied.

    After we cleaned up the kitchen, we basically forgot was had happened.

    We sat down on the couch and stared at the fireplace.

    "So," Marissa said. "Are we going to talk about your gun?"

    I looked at her. "I told you, It's for burglars."

    She gave me a look.

    "Jake, It's been six months," She said. "Put it behind you."

    "I know, I know," I said. "But I don't want it to happen again. I want to be able to protect us."

    "They haven't come looking for us," She said. "I doubt they even remember us."

    She grabbed my hand.

    "We'll be fine."

    She was right. It had been half a year, and they haven't come looking for us.

    "You're right." I said.

Chapter

Two

    It was 1 A.M. More crashing came from downstairs.

    "Oh my god," I said. "Not again."

    Marissa sighed. "I'll go check it out. WITHOUT the gun."

    "What if it is a burglar this time?" I said.

    "I'll be fine."

    She walked downstairs. For a minute, there was silence. Until Marissa screamed.

    I shot up.

    "Marissa!" I yelled.

    "Who the f*ck are you?!" I heard Marissa scream.

    I ran downstairs.

    "Marissa! Are you okay-"

    I froze. Before us stood an eight-foot-tall creature. It was shaped like a human. Two legs, two arms, and a round face. Except, it had two skin-covered horns protruding from its head, And it had no eyes.

Its brown skin was covered in blood.

    "Jake..." Marissa whispered. "What is this and why is it in our house?"

    I held up my gun. I had grabbed it when coming downstairs.

    "Marissa, get down!"

    Marissa dropped onto the ground. I pulled the trigger and shot the creature in the face. It didn't even flinch. I shot it again. Nothing.

    The creature stepped forward. Looked down at Marissa.

    "Marissa, be still," I said. "It has no eyes, so it probably can't see."

    I was wrong. The creature let out a shriek, and lunged onto Marissa.

    Marissa screamed and kicked at the creature.

    I dropped the gun and kicked the creature in the face. The creature stopped clawing at Marissa  and looked up at me. It slowly stood up.

    "Um... Hi?"

    The creature growled and swiped it's had across my face.

    My skin was torn open, and blood splattered against the floor. The creature the jumped onto me, knocking me down. The creature pinned my arms to the floor and slowly leaned in while opening its mouth, showing its huge teeth.

    Right before it bit my face up, Marissa grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed the creature. Black blood started to ooze from the wound. The creature stood up, the knife still in its back.

    The creature turned around and grabbed Marissa by the neck, strangling her. It slowly lifted her up. She started gasping for air.

    I stood up.

    "Hey!" I shouted. "Let her go, bastard!"

    The creature didn't listen. I picked up the gun. I shot the creature in the back of the head. I didn't expect it to do anything, but the creature dropped Marissa, and then fell limp onto the floor. It must've had a week point on the back of its skull.

    "Oh my god, are you okay?" Marissa said running over to me.

    "I'm fine," I touched my face. The wound was bleeding, and I could feel the flesh.

    "Oh, damn." I said. "Maybe I'm not fine."

    Marissa drove me to the hospital. Three days later, the wound was stitched up. On the drive home, Marissa brought up the creature again.

    "What even was that? It wasn't one of the creatures we saw in the facility."

    "I have no idea." I said.

    When we got home, we paced around the kitchen.

    "What do we do?" I said. "What if another one comes?"

    "Should we call the police?" Suggested Marissa.

    "Good idea." I said.

    I grabbed my phone. But right before I could dial 911, the power went out.

    "Crap, no power," I looked at the phone. "No service, either. Looks like we'll have to wait."

    Suddenly the sound of glass shattering erupted in the other room. Then shouting.

    "هنا!" 

    Oh no.

    "Jake!" Marissa shouted.

    Suddenly, masked men in armor holding pistols kicked down the door into the kitchen.

    I pulled out my gun and shot one in the chest.

    "Over here!" I yelled to Marissa.

    The men started shooting. Marissa grabbed a glass plate and threw it at one of the men, and it

shattered against his face. We jumped behind the couch and flipped over the coffee table.

    "Marissa, stay behind the couch."

    I picked up the coffee table and used it as a battering ram against the men.

    "القرف!" One of them shouted.

    One of them jumped up with their gun in hand. I swung the coffee table at them, and they flew back, crashing through the glass door behind them. 

    Marissa stood up. She grabbed a knife hand knife from her pocket and threw it at one of the men. It impaled him in the neck, and blood flowed down his body as he collapsed onto the floor.

    "So you just keep knives in your pocket?" I said to her.

    Only one man left. He was holding one of those glowing rods. He lunged and hit me in the side. The rod sent me flying into a window, cracking the glass.

    Marissa kicked the man and the stomach, and punched his helmet. This proved futile, as all this did was hurt Marissa's wrist. The man stood up and raised the rod, about to strike her down. I picked up my gun and shot him in the chest. He fell lifelessly backward.

    "They know were we live." I said out of breath.

    "That isn't good," Marissa replied. "We need to tell the police."

    We got in the car and drove to the nearest police station.

    When we got there, we were shocked to see that the police station was burning down.

Chapter

Three

    "What the hell happened here?" A firefighter asked.

    A police officer answered.

    "We have no idea. It must've been arson."

    Arson? How does someone burn down a police station?

    We drove back home.

    "My god," I said. "Was it them? Were they trying to stop us from telling anybody?"

    "Probably," Said Marissa. "But how did they know we were going to tell the police?"

    Suddenly, we realized. The sound off pots and pans crashing came from the kitchen. When we got there, we found out we were right. It was a drone. It was large and clunky, colored black with a red camera lens on the front.

    Marissa grabbed a knife and threw it at the drown, impaling it through the camera. It fell and hit the floor with a loud crash.

    Then, a fading robotic voice spoke.

    "It's still alive." And then the drone shut off.

    "What's still alive?" I said. "The eyeless monster?"

    "Well that's impossible," Marissa said. "You killed it. Unless... it was pretending to die?"

    "Why the hell would it pretend to die? It could've killed us easily. Why would it just give up?"

    "I don't know." Marissa said finally. "But I don't think we'll have another break unless we stop the facility."

    "How are we going to stop them?" I asked. "We have no idea where they are or when they're going to appear next."

    Marissa thought about it for a moment. "We need to go back." She said. "Back to the facility."

    After much debate, we decided it was the only way. We had marked the location of the facility on the map so remind us to never go there again, but now we were using to map to find it.

    We got there at midnight. The facility was in a large forest, with tall trees and lots of foliage. We walked into the forest, Marissa armed with a knife and me armed with a gun. The leaves crunched beneath our feet. The wind howled ominously. The trees swayed.

    Coyotes howled in the distance. There were other animals is the forest. Wolves, bears, and who knows what else.

    "Why did we have to come at night." I muttered.

    Crunch. Leaves. Crunch. More leaves. Crunch crunch crunch. That wasn't us.

    "Marissa," I said. "Do you hear that?"

    "Hear what?" She asked.

    A loud shriek broke the silence of the forest. A beast leaped out of the bushes and onto Marissa. She was knocked over, and her knife went sliding across the ground.

    "Hey!" I shouted.

    I shot the beast four times in the back. It didn't even flinch.

    The beast was trying to bite Marissa's face, but she was holding its jaws in her hands. My gun ran out of bullets. I dropped it and kicked the creature in the eye. Now it noticed me. It forgot about Marissa and looked up at me. A deep growl echoed from its mouth.

    Well, now I didn't know what to do. The creature was shaped like a tiger, and it had black and white fur. It had four eyes and huge teach and claws.

    Marissa's palms were torn opens. Blood was spilling onto the ground.

    The beast slowly stepped forward. It looked me dead in the eyes. I grabbed a large, spiky stick and threw it at the creature. That was a very bad idea. All this did was piss it off.

    It lunged. One of its huge paws hit me in the chest. I was flung onto the ground. Marissa got up and reached for her knife. The creature noticed her and pinned her to the ground. It growled and stared at her. Marissa struggled to use her free arm to grab the knife. Before the creature noticed she sunk it into its neck.

    This proved futile. All it did was, again, piss it off. the creature roared. Marissa couldn't do anything. All she could do was lie there, anticipating death.  But before the creature could finish her off, another growl erupted from the forest. The creature looked up. We all froze. The creature removed its paw from Marissa's chest and crept toward the sound.

    It disappeared into the darkness. Several seconds later, the sounds of growling, shrieking, and fighting echoed.

    About a minute later. Another creature walked out of the shadows. It was the eyeless monster. Except, this time, it had four long appendages coming out of its back, and it was covered in more blood than last time.

    It was holding a heart in its hand. It squeezed it, and the heart exploded. Blood splattered over its hand and onto the ground.

    "It's still alive." Marissa said.

    I got up.

    "Marissa, we need to go."

    Marissa tried to get up, but she couldn't.

    "Jake, I think I broke my leg."

    The creature slowly stepped forward. I picked up Marissa and she wrapped her arm around my shoulders.

    The creature growled.

    Marissa stood on one leg, and got the hell out of there.

Chapter

Three 1/2

    "Are you sure this is really necessary?"

    "What other choice do we have? He knows too much."

    "He won't tell anyone. We don't need to kill him. I understand your frustration-"

    "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MY FRUSTATION! He needs to die. We have no other choice."

Chapter

Four

    I set Marissa down in a patch of leaves.

    "How's your leg doing?" I asked.

    "It hurts." She replies.

    I felt her leg.

    "The bone isn't broken, it's fractured."

    "Since when were you a doctor?" She asked.

    "I used to go to medical school. I dropped out. Anyway, you should be fine as long as you don't put too much pressure on it."

    "Jake," She said as she stood up. "Look."

    She pointed in front of us. The facility was right there.

    "Huh," I said. "That's convenient.

    We walked up to it. Luckily, the door wasn't locked. We opened it and stepped inside. What we saw shocked us.

    Dozens of bloody bodies hanging from the ceiling. Their necks were snapped and their eyes were missing.

    "What. The hell. Happened here?" I said.

    "Well," Marissa whispered. "Looks like our job is already done.

    "We turned to the door. The creature was standing in front of it, staring at us.

    "You've got to be kidding me." I said.

    The creature seemed to be staring at us. I couldn't tell, though, because it didn't have eyes. Or, at least, no visible ones.