Chapter 17 it's all starting to make sense now

Chapter 17: The Secrets Beneath

Zack sat at his desk, the dim light of his desk lamp casting long shadows across the cluttered surface. His hands rubbed his eyes, worn from the sleepless nights spent chasing leads that went nowhere, piecing together bits of a puzzle that seemed to have no solution. The creature was getting stronger. It was no longer just an elusive terror—it was becoming a nightmare that stalked the city with relentless hunger. But every night brought new mysteries, new questions, and new disappearances. Tonight, though, something felt different. Something was waiting for him, hidden in plain sight.

Zack's phone buzzed on the desk, breaking his concentration. He picked it up, seeing the name of his partner, Jason, flashing across the screen.

"Zack, I think I found something you're going to want to see," Jason's voice came through, strained but urgent.

"Send it over," Zack replied, his curiosity piqued.

A moment later, the email arrived. Zack opened it, scanning through the contents quickly. His stomach tightened as he read the attached files. It was a missing persons report, one that had come up years ago but now seemed eerily relevant. Sarah Hayes.

The name struck a deep chord in Zack's memory. It was a name he had seen before, buried in old reports—reports about a little girl who had gone missing, a girl whose disappearance was never solved. The case had been shelved, closed with the assumption that Sarah Hayes had likely perished that rainy night, just another name lost to time. But now, reading the details again, Zack felt a familiar chill creep down his spine. The similarities were impossible to ignore. The disappearances of people, the strange circumstances, and the sudden appearances of the creature. The pattern was emerging. But he needed more.

Zack picked up the phone again. "Jason, where did you find this?"

"I've been digging through some old files from the army," Jason replied. "Sarah Hayes disappeared several years ago, but that wasn't the only thing that happened that night. Her father... was found murdered in the woods."

Zack paused, his heart racing. "Murdered? What's this got to do with the creature?"

Jason's voice lowered. "I found a report. The army had been involved in the search for Sarah. But when they went into the woods... they found something strange. A metal box. It wasn't human—no known markings. And the army made sure to take it, but the thing disappeared. Nobody knows where it is now."

Zack's hand tightened around the phone, his mind racing. He had seen the symbols before, those same markings, the ones etched into the metal box from the footage. They were not of human origin. This was bigger than he had realized. He had to find out more.

"Get me everything you have on that box," Zack said, a note of urgency in his voice. "And Jason—look into her father's murder. It's all connected."

The line went silent for a moment. Zack could hear the faint hum of a printer in the background. "On it," Jason replied.

Zack leaned back in his chair, his mind swirling with a mix of disbelief and determination. The creature—the one that had haunted the streets at night, attacking people without warning—had somehow been tied to Sarah Hayes. But how? What was the connection? Was it possible that she wasn't just another victim but part of the creature's origin?

He stared at the screen in front of him, the blurry photograph of Sarah Hayes taken before her disappearance. The little girl looked so innocent, unaware of the fate that awaited her. Zack felt a pang of guilt, knowing that the authorities had declared her dead all those years ago. But what if they were wrong? What if she had been taken in a way they couldn't understand? And what if, somehow, she had become part of the creature?

The creature. A being that hunted only at night, leaving behind nothing but the sounds of its attacks and the emptiness of the missing. But now, Zack understood: this was more than a simple monster. It was born from something far darker, something that reached into the unknown, driven by a force beyond human comprehension.

Zack reached for the old reports Jason had sent over. He scanned through them, noting the similarities to the recent cases they had investigated—people disappearing without a trace, strange noises echoing through the night, a palpable fear in the air. He flipped through the pages until one caught his eye. A report from the night Sarah Hayes had gone missing.

It was late, just past midnight, when Sarah's father had been found. The report was vague—just a few short sentences describing the body found near the woods. But there was one key detail: the metal box.

The report described the box as having strange symbols carved into its surface. There was mention of something more disturbing, though: the box had been "activated" somehow—opened—by the touch of the missing girl, Sarah. Zack's mind reeled as he read those words. The box had opened by her touch. And that's when everything had gone wrong.

Zack remembered the images of the creature that had appeared in the city. It had come to life in the shadows, hunting and killing without mercy. And now, it seemed the creature had a beginning. It had a history, one tied to Sarah's father, to that box, and to the symbols that were far from human.

The details of her disappearance were growing clearer in Zack's mind. But they raised more questions. What had happened to Sarah? What had happened to her father? And where was the box now?

The answer lay somewhere in the forest. Somewhere in the past.

Zack sat back, his mind working over the new details. He recalled the night of the murder, when Sarah's father had been killed by a group of armed men—the army. But there was something else in the report that didn't make sense. It was the strange mention of a fight. A fight between Sarah's father and the army men. The reports said he had been holding the box when the men arrived, trying to protect it. He had fought back against them, but in the end, they had overpowered him.

Zack's thoughts flashed back to the night they found the video footage of the box. The symbols. The presence of something dark, something ancient, that had been awakened. The army had come for the box, and when they found it, they had taken it with them. But it was gone now. And so was the creature.

Zack stood up, his decision made. There was one place he needed to go. The woods.

But as he prepared to leave, he received another notification on his phone. This one was from the missing persons department. A new report. This time, a different name caught his attention—another child had gone missing. The same pattern. The same circumstances. It was happening again. The creature was hunting, and the only way to stop it was to find the source.

Zack grabbed his jacket and headed out the door, his thoughts consumed with the need to find answers. It was time to end this. Time to confront the creature that had haunted them for so long.

But the more Zack thought about it, the more he realized something else. The creature wasn't just hunting—it was seeking something. It was searching for the box, for the key to its power. And it was up to Zack to stop it before it found what it was looking for.