Attack
Haiti sat in front of her table, still trying to find more about the people that she held the profiles for. The room is a cluttered mess with bottles of booze and beer scattered around the floor and the tables.
There were ten monitors per one CPU on each desk. A corkboard rested against the wall with pictures and strings connecting each pushpin to the other.
Windows lined all around the room though the blinds were pulled down, almost making it seem like it is night inside the room. The lights from the monitors in front of Haiti are the only source of any kind of light in the room.
Soren's call flashed through her mind as she looked at the clock on the wall.
12:24 p.m.
It is still in the afternoon. She thought, stretching as the three monitors in front of her showed the profiles of three high schoolers she saw in the other dimension.
They did have a strong accent but she thought they were just international exchange students. There has been an influx of international exchange students in the past year for some odd reason.
It took her an entire day and night to find them, making sure to write down their contact numbers but she had to pause at these three.
The words under their profiles write, 'Deceased.'
What was even unsettling is the fact that they died on the day the wave happened most recently. That same day when the creatures and even the dimension acted weirdly.
Leaning back against the chair, she stared at the ceiling, trying to piece everything she could together.
It has been a couple of years since the wave began. More than half the city's population was wiped out and no one could tell what happened. They just turned up dead, their bodies looking like raisins.
It took a DNA test from the bones and teeth to identify the people properly but for some of them, one touch and they turned to dust.
She was tasked to help gather the bodies in the city and to mark them by her superiors. It was a daunting task. Especially when the bodies would crumble away when they picked them out.
What was even worse was when they went to peoples' houses to inform them of the deceased loved one.
The cries and the questions they could not answer pulled at her conscience. It did not help when some of the people would turn to them, anger flashing in their faces when they asked why they didn't help them.
The blame game got worse the younger the victims were.
"Did you do anything??"
"He was just a child!"
"She wouldn't have been able to defend herself!"
Haiti shook her head, trying to get the memory of them screaming at them and, in their anger, tried to attack them as well out of her head.
They were just hurt and angry. They needed a place to release these negative emotions of shock and horror.
She never minded if they blamed her for their loved one's death, better they blame her than they blame themselves and begin to grow in guilt.
The suicide rate increased within that year alone and she had to take a break away from her work as she began to feel more and more overwhelmed as the reports grew.
With her mental health not stabling, she could not use herself as a test subject. That was her initial plan at first.
To use herself as a test subject and improve her mental health to see if that will stop her from going into the other dimensions. But her environment did not allow her to do so.
One by one, her colleagues are dropping like flies and they are always the people that have been in the other dimension with her. They either die in the other dimensions or they kill themselves.
It is either-or. Everyone knows they are going to die at some point and most would rather die of their own volition.
Because of this, the number of people that have been in the other dimension is decreasing steadily while increasing at the same time.
Most do not want to talk about it because they do not want to acknowledge that it happened and decide to chalk it up as a dream.
Others are still in a state of shock while more are beginning to live their lives recklessly. Knowing that something like this could happen any time again and they could be the next one found dead.
The general public does not believe those that try to talk about this though. It is too much to expect people that have never gone through something like this to believe that this happened.
Haiti made a team to investigate this and, so far, only their city has been hit. It is one of the biggest cities in the world, ranking only second to another city.
No reports around about this kind of thing. If it did happen to other cities, someone would have said something. But no news about it came.
Sighing, she walked out of her chair to the window, pulling the blinds up and stared outside at the fog-covered city.
The fog was fairly thin and dispersing at the moment but there is something that unsettles her about it, though she could not place her hand on what that would be.
The gloomy atmosphere only made her start to remember all the other people that used to be in the room with her.
Her small group of twenty has now reduced to eight. She told many to take breaks if they felt too much. If they think they need breaks.
Most have other jobs they have to juggle as well so everything can start to feel overwhelmed. The random waves are not helping either.
Some like Orion bring in more people but not all want to devote their time to trying to study more about this and she understands. They cannot force anyone and do not intend to.
Most of the people in her team are part of the military in some ways, some working in space stations and others were scientists. This makes it a little easier to work but not by much.
They are still limited with what they can or cannot access, especially government databases.
She frowned as she stared out the window, tired eyes going back to the wall clock.
1:14 p.m.
Only an hour has passed yet it felt like years of her life already passed by in just a whim.
What am I doing with my life? She thought, hand resting on the window. Everyone is bound to die in the end. This only speeds it up for some.
Should I care? Does it even matter?
Looking around the messy room she released a tired sigh. No one will remember the people here or the work they did.
"Will it even be worth it in the end? Our work." She remembered one of her coworkers asking while Haiti attempted to seal up the wound at her side from when a pole opened a large hold on her side as she fell from the building they were in.
"Of course it is," Haiti said, hands covered with blood as she pressed against the opening on her stomach.
One of the people they were trying to save, she was standing on the ledge of the window to escape the creatures, panicked and grabbed the woman's hand a little too hard. The force from her pull made her lose her grip on the window.
She was able to pull her into the room but could not do the same for herself and plummet into a flag pole. The sharp side of the pole cutting her stomach open as the second wave came and they were transported back to their dimension.
Haiti called an ambulance but it seemed that they were out of ambulances as they got several calls at the same time and sent help to the first few callers. But they said that they will be sending help still.
Haiti attempted to put the woman's guts back into her open wound but both knew that it is too late for her anyway.
"I just ... I just want to know that I spent the remainder of my life doing the right thing." She said, tears falling from her face as the blood form a puddle around her.
She turned a frantic expression to Haiti, grabbing her hand and covering her with more blood, "Was it worth it in the end? Haiti. Tell me. Will ... will my children know that their mother neglected them to try and find a way to prevent them from living through hell on earth?? Will they?"
"I-" Haiti felt her throat swell as she attempted to come up with a proper answer but her mind went blank and flashed back to when she had to pick this woman's kids up from school.
It was dark and raining and the two kids had been waiting for three hours at the very least.
She found them huddled in the corner, hungry and wet.
"Does mama even care about us anymore?" The older boy asked, eyes burning with anger. "Do we ... not exist in her world anymore?"
Haiti was suddenly brought back to the present with a gasp when she felt a cold air brush against her arm. The feeling of the woman's hand falling slack still lingering.
Shaking her head, she looked around the room and noticed a window open, cold air entering the room.
I never opened a window. She thought, seeing movement at the left of her before the figure charged at her, movements quick and quiet as something glistened on their hands.
What the hell-?