Chapter Sixty-Four - Anglerfish

As he remembered the words of the lovely Doctor, Private Johnson's stomach turned cold, he turned instantly to his companions and shouted a warning. "Stop it guy's! You need to run away right now!"

The soldier who had mocked him looked at Johnson blankly, she was ready to make another joke when she heard a strange noise coming from behind her, it was like the noise of a sack full of liquid being crushed, something red splashed on her armor and she heard another sound, that of something falling.

When she turned around, the scene had completely changed, the entire upper part of Carlo's torso was gone, the flesh and bones of his spine were completely visible, part of his guts were showing, and blood was smearing all the walls in the hallway.

The soldier was ready to scream, but Jhonson pulled her and motioned for her to be silent, and he noticed that the other soldier, who had been beside Carlos when he attacked the creature, had also disappeared.

The infant corpse rose from beneath what was left of Carlo's body, his wounds began to close at a visible speed, soon he looked like nothing more than a harmless child again, he grabbed the stuffed animal and started walking in the towards the two remaining soldiers, crying and calling for his mother.

"I'm going to end this thing!" The soldier girl screamed, from under her helmet tears streamed from her eyes, she always had a crush on Private Carlos and seeing him die like that had left her on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

She started shooting, her bullets went through and ripped through the childish creature without any difficulty, exploding parts of his body and sending that rotten brown blood flying in all directions, she screamed, as she emptied the entire magazine she kept crying, she didn't stop at all. when the creature fell, even though the creature's head had ceased to exist she continued to shoot the torso, even when its bullets ran out she continued to squeeze the trigger without stopping.

When she realized that her gun was no longer firing, the soldier girl threw the rifle away and ran towards her body, kicking it over and over again with violence. Private Johnson wanted to stop her, but he couldn't find the will to do it, it was no secret that Private Collins had feelings for Private Carlos, so he could understand well the reason for her outburst.

But Private Johnson found himself wondering, how could a creature that fell so easily be responsible for Carlo's death? Where's the other soldier? How was a creature like this at a level greater than its sensors could measure? Something felt wrong.

It was then that he realized.

As Private Collins kicked the mutilated body, the space itself began to open up above her, a spherical tear opened in the air and teeth began to pass through the hole, a structure like a tube of flesh filled with sharp teeth at the end began to descend. slowly over the soldier's body, the tube was opening more and more, showing that its interior was covered with sharp teeth, arranged in a circular fashion in the wall of that unholy mouth, it opened as if it wanted to devour the entire Private Collins in a single bite.

Private Johnson didn't think twice, he ran and jumped on Private Collins, knocking her off the top of the corpse she manhandled non-stop, just as they got out of range, the meat tube struck, and Johnson could feel the sharp teeth graze his armor, the mere touch of the teeth was enough to leave a deep imprint on the metal.

Soldier Johnson stood up, he pulled out his rifle and aimed at the strange creature, Collins was uncomprehending and ready to attack Johnson when she noticed the monstrous being, which was slowly returning to the space tunnel he had opened.

"What the hell is this?" she questioned.

"I have no idea! It appears to be some kind of unknown apparition!" Johnson replied. "Quick, go to the living room and wake the others up, I'll try to hold this thing here!"

Collins obeyed, she got up and ran towards the end of the corridor, Johnson watched the space the creature had disappeared into, with his gun cocked and his heart pounding violently.

The infant body began to regenerate again, its brown blood flowing back into the body as its shattered limbs and the pieces of its head came together and reformed, soon the 'child' was unharmed, he turned and saw Private Johnson, again he started to cry and walk towards him.

That's when Johnson understood what he was up against, he might not have been the most brilliant of the Bureau soldiers but he wasn't dumb, he certainly had never seen a creature like the one that had devoured Carlos, but he understood at the time how the creature acted.

Johnson was very fond of fishing, fishing was actually his favorite hobby, his grandfather was a fisherman, just like his father, he didn't follow in their footsteps and went into the military career, eventually he achieved so much that he was invited to join to the Bureau, but whenever he could he went back to the sea.

He remembered the time his grandfather, pulling the net, had caught a very strange fish, a fish with huge white eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth, with a tentacle in its head that gave off light. The fish had aroused fear in the boy, who thought the creature was a sea monster, but his grandfather spent time explaining to the boy that it was just a fish from the deep, an anglerfish, after hearing his grandfather explain, the boy's calmed down and even found the fish interesting.

Lophiiformes, this creature acted exactly like one, but instead of a glowing tentacle it used this infant form as bait, attacking anything that got close to the 'boy', Johnson was absolutely sure the creature acted like that.

The boy kept coming towards Johnson, but he didn't care, he kept his gun ready for the real danger, the child figure opened his mouth exaggeratedly and attacked his leg, but just as Johnson expected the bait had nothing attack force, it was nothing more than a futile attempt to attract his attention.

Jhonson ignored the small figure clinging to his legs, the boy roaring and screaming, flapping his arms violently, but not causing even a scratch on his protective suit.

Just as Private Johnson had expected, the space above him began to manifest that same strange phenomenon, a round hole began to open up in the air itself, and now that he was at the bottom Johnson could see clearly, the hole was an endless depth of darkness, a haze of nothingness and a dark abyss. As soon as teeths began to pass through the edge of the hole, the same tube of flesh with several sections of serrated teeth began to become visible as they slowly lowered themselves over Private Johnson's body.

He waited patiently, the tube of teeths and meat began to expand as he prepared for the strike, as soon as he realized the tube had reached maximum expansion Johnson jumped, kicking the bait up with the movement, the teeth descended for a powerful bite. and ended up finding only the infant creature, which was torn to shreds by the sharp mouth.

Johnson wasted no time, aiming his gun he emptied the magazine against the meat tube, the special bullets left a trail of light in the air, as they hit the creature it began to explode against the monster's skin.

The tube of flesh opened and roared in pain, just as Johnson had hoped his weapon was unable to do enough damage to finish the monster with a few shots, but he was more than happy to know that at least the special ammo looked efficient. He took advantage of the breach as the monster writhed in pain to reload his rifle with his last remaining special bullet clip.

The creature had hurriedly returned to the space tunnel, but unlike other times the tunnel had not closed but remained open. The other agents left through the door of the room, meeting with Johnson who was keeping guard pointing a gun at the tunnel.

"Behind you!" Durand yelled.

Johnson responded quickly, jumping onto the ground and rolling away, at the same moment a huge clawed arm grabbed the place where his body was, a second more and he would be caught, he was surprised when he saw a portal like the one that the mouth had appeared, but this time what ran through it was a long, lean arm with sharp claws on each finger.

'So that's how the other soldier got caught!' Johnson thought.

His companions opened fire on the arm that quickly retreated back to the dark hole in the void, other holes began to open in the air, and more arms like the first began to sweep through them, all seeking to catch a soldier.

"DEFENSE POSITION! SUPPORT FIRE!" Durand yelled.

The soldiers organized themselves into a circle and began firing at the barrage of cadaverous hands heading towards them, with each shot one hand returned back to the hole it had come out of, but the number was still too great.

'There's no choice!' Durand thought, she took a deep breath and her eyes lit up, she began to float slightly as her body shifted again, wings of light grew on her back and the golden half halo appeared on her head, allher body emitted a warm light, which began to burn the creature's arms and forced them all to return to the dark holes they had left.

The soldiers were ready to celebrate, when they noticed something frightening, a hole bigger than the others formed at the end of the corridor, the hole started to open more and more, the hands started to reach out and grab the edges of the hole, forcing the same opening wider and wider, the hands then began to come out and dig into the ground, dragging a huge body out.

The creature's shape resembled a giant centipede, the body was long and full of arms, it had no head, just that tunnel of flesh and teeth that came out of the top of the body, all its skin was white and stretched, it roared, its countless arms were pulling its body out of the hole with difficulty, the thing ignored the powerful light burning its skin, cast by Durand, it looked furious, it crawled as it screamed, its skin emitting a strange black mist.

Durand increased the strength of the light it emitted, she also created bolts of light and threw them at the creature, hitting it several times, the creature screamed in pain and continued to crawl out of the dimension, Durand's attacks seemed to have him enraged and a putrid mist continued to seep from his body, the tube of flesh that was his mouth swelled exaggeratedly, and he spat out a stream of stinking liquid.

Durand responded to the attack by creating a shield of light, which blocked the jet launched by the monster, but the creature didn't stop there, he continued to launch pulgent liquid attacks as he crawled out of the portal, it seemed his body had no end, the number of hands were already countless and they ran towards the soldiers who held fire.

Durand was left with no choice, she focused all of her energy on a glowing sphere of light and released it, the overuse made her wings disappear and she found herself back on the ground, the only remnant of her transformation was the half golden halo that still floated over her head.

The sphere of light flew at the creature, illuminating the entire hallway in the process, when it hit the monster it exploded into white light, the creature screamed as its form was consumed, its arms began to burn and its body shattered, the portal through which he passed through and shattered as if made of glass, cutting it's body in half, the light continued encompassing everything as his body slowly disappeared.

The soldiers looked happily at the disappearing enemy, they raised their weapons in celebration, Tamar supported Durand who was staggering, she ordered the soldiers to secure the surrounding area, which they immediately obeyed, Johnson was following the other soldiers when he realized something strange, the monster's corpse was still emitting that pulsing mist as it disappeared, but the mist wasn't fading, it was accumulating in one place, in the place where the remaining pieces of the 'bait' had fallen.

To his sheer horror, the fog was getting inside that childish half-body, rebuilding it at visible speed.

"IIT IS STILL ALIVE! IT'S THE FOG! IT'S THE FOG!" Johnson yelled, the other soldiers, Durand and Tamar turned toward him.

The child had risen to his feet, the mist still surrounded him and entered his body, he turned to the soldiers, his body was the same as before, a child about three feet tall, but his face was completely different, his eyes were pitch-black and dark tears leaking from the corners, he watched the soldiers with a strange expression of curiosity, until his eyes fell on Durand and he smiled, an evil and cruel smile, the kind that no child could ever manage to do.

Johnson pointed the gun at the creature and was ready to fire when he realized that the boy was gone, he felt a strong impact in his stomach and found himself thrown against the ceiling, his whole body hit the ceiling hard and he felt the impact even with his armor, he fell back against the ground senseless.

Johnson was lucky, other soldiers weren't so, the creature moved like a ghost, with every movement a soldier suffered a powerful attack, their armor couldn't withstand the force and their limbs broke from the damage, soon the soldiers were all on the ground, many with strangely curved limbs, the creature seemed interested in keeping them alive.

Durand pushed Tamar, she tried to transform again to face the creature, but before she could a small hand grabbed the back of her neck, it hit the woman's head with extreme force against the ground, she withstood the first attack due to her nature, but the creature continued to beat her against the ground and she soon found herself unconscious.

Tamar lunged at the infant creature, her claws ready to rip the boy open, but he smiled and disappeared, grabbing the panther woman's leg, he hurled her against the wall.

Tamar was too strong to fall like that, she squirmed in midair and landed safely, ready to lunge at the creature again, that's when she saw something that startled her. Dozens of other 'people' like the children are started to enter the hallway, all having their eyes the same shade of black, with evil smiles on their faces, she realized they ignored the other soldiers as they moved towards Durand, her terror increasing even more when she realized they were they were...drooling.

The panther woman roared and ran, positioning herself in front of her fellow agent, she braced herself for what she knew would be her last fight, looking at the humanlike creatures she couldn't help but smile, the image of a little cub crossed her mind.

"I'm sorry honey, it looks like mommy won't be able to see you again..."

She raised her claws and prepared for the end.