It all started going to hell just a few minutes after I finished the previous file. Mutt never even got a chance to read it.

I had to get out of the “prison” trailer. It was suffocating, and I knew I didn’t deserve to be in there after helping to catch the Girük. Mutt agreed, and despite my cold attitude towards him, he convinced Lab to let me ride in the RV, the second vehicle behind the frontliners who rode in the armored truck.

Stops were infrequent, and always in the middle of nowhere. They were only done for refueling, so any food or bathroom breaks, or shuffling of personnel between vehicles, was handled at the same time. It was around midnight that I finally had a chance to get out and be escorted to the RV, under the cover of darkness somewhere in rural Nebraska.

The whole team knew that, officially, I was being taken to their home to get tested for “contamination.” But no one believed that. If anyone did, they would’ve been worried about me falling asleep, since it’d mean that a soul-sucking parasite would fly around all the slumbering towns we were going by and wreak havoc. If they were truly worried, they’d keep me hopped up on caffeine at the very least until we hit a safe area. But, they didn’t do that, or tell me the truth. And that was fine. We’d settle for a quiet understanding: they were lying, and I was smart enough to know it.

So, yeah, moving me to the RV was the least they could do; Lab still had enough humanity left in her to give me a consolation prize. What was I going to do, anyway? Run off into the freezing night without a phone or any ID?

At least the RV was warm, and had comfortable seating. The elevated vehicle only had windows in the front, but it did have all the typical trimmings: a sofa, a table, a mounted TV, a desk, and a small bathroom and kitchenette. At one point, Mutt let me get a peek at his sleeping arrangements.

Behind a lockable door at the back of the vehicle, taking up the width of the room, was a rectangular metal pod hooked up to a machine, like right out of a cyberpunk story. It generated the same field we had used to trap the Terror of Kennel, letting Mutt sleep soundly without requiring a drug or the need to worry about an internal psychic vampire going out for nightly meals.  

Other than that, we weren’t really talking. He could tell I wasn’t interested in excuses, apologies, or assurances. Our gifts gave us an advantage over others; he had the power to help me. Would it be at the risk of his own life? Maybe. But that shouldn’t stop him from considering the right thing to do.

Once all the vehicles were topped off and we resumed the journey, the lights in the RV dimmed, and I buckled in and laid down on the couch. I couldn’t sleep and didn’t really try, so all I had were my thoughts and the comfort.

Up front, Mutt chatted with Husky, who was driving, about nothing in particular. I picked up topics from sports, to what bands they liked growing up, among other pointless banter. The only thing of any interest was when they shared typical complaints about their superiors back at base, and how they’d get chewed out for any operation that went less than perfectly.

But then, around an hour after our wheels started turning, I heard Mutt let out a long yawn and tell Husky, “Even the damn strong stuff is failing me now. I can barely keep my eyes open.”

“Eh. You’ve been up forty-eight hours straight,” Husky replied in his plain, midwestern tone. “That’s easy for us to pull off, but last night—that had to have been rough on you. Don’t feel bad if you need sleep, man.”

“Shit…” Mutt grumbled and sounded disappointed in himself. “I’ll never stay awake to Nevada now, anyway. Okay. Fine. I’ll get some shut-eye.”

“You gonna suppress it tonight?”

“Yeah. We have to be extra safe. Cargo’s too precious to take risks.”

“I hear that. Fresh syringe is in the fridge. Sleep tight, pup.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

A seatbelt unbuckled, and I cracked open an eye to watch Mutt while pretending to be asleep. He went to the sink and washed out a large thermos that reeked of strong coffee. In the fridge’s light, I then saw him fill a syringe with a clear liquid from a vial and shoot it into his upper arm. It must’ve been the stuff that kept his parasite slumbering.

After a trip to the bathroom, he retreated to his bedroom, locked it with what sounded like a sliding latch, and sealed his pod with a mechanism that was audibly similar to multiple deadbolts moving into place.

For a few minutes, I just listened to the road noise and felt the bumps of old rural highways. I was too restless to sit there in the dark for much longer. Though a little nervous about it, I unbuckled and went to the front, where I tenuously stood on the little set of steps that lead into the “cockpit,” or whatever you call the place that holds the driver and passenger seats.

Like the rest of the guys with the guns, I barely knew anything about Husky. But he did turn around, look up, and smile at me. He seemed friendly.

“Hey, Pom,” he said, using my code name. “You can sit, if you want. You get a nice view from the big windshield. And I’m not a creep, if you’re worried.”

Someone just saying that kind of thing didn’t put me at ease, but I was an asset being brought in, so I figured he’d get his ass handed to him if he made any kind of move or gross remark. Cautiously, I stepped down and slid into the passenger seat. Still smiling like his day had gone just great, Husky put on the seat warmer for me, and admittedly, it was comfortable, especially for a vehicle that was used by some sub-sub-branch of the military or whatever.

“So. What did it look like?” Husky tried to make conversation after around five minutes of silence that I’d been just fine with. “Because we can’t see it, you know. Mutt described it to me, or tried, but he’s not a very visual person. His description kind of sucked, in other words. The cameras and the archival videos back at base don’t do it justice. They make it look like a flat, two-dimensional shadow. Nothing like how you must’ve perceived it.”

“It’s… scary as hell,” I murmured back, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.

“Oh, I can imagine. That’s about all people like me can do. But the science guys that are smarter than us—they cite math and equations when they explain how it’s always folding in on itself, and that its volume and density is difficult to determine and so on… They make it sound like a being that’s in constant flux.”

“Y-yeah. I guess you could say that. It’s kind of like… smoke that’s stuck in the shape of a monster?”

Husky kept his eyes ahead, the headlights illuminating nothing but empty roads. That eerie smile stayed on his face. We soon passed by a sign that indicated some town was six miles away.

“It’s really not a monster,” his delayed response suddenly popped. “I do get why you’d say that about something that’s hard to define, but it’s still a thinking being, measurable and constrained by the rules of nature. For now. They’re lying when they tell us we understand almost nothing about it.”

“… What?” was all I could say.

“Look, our superiors know a lot more than they lead on. They just don’t share their findings because they think we’ll be too afraid to do our jobs. It’s also one of the reasons they barely give us any training.”

“What do you mean?”

“Doberman and Lab are the only two on the team that aren’t considered expendable. You didn’t get that impression yet? They’re not going to waste years’ worth of proper training for the rest of us. Our life expectancy is too low to warrant the cost. Even Mutt’s value ends where his gift isn’t needed.”

“Um. Okay…” I replied, still having no idea what he was getting at.

“They don’t care if we die. That’s all. But you and Mutt—you’re special. I’d even call it blessed. You can see the Girük with your own eyes, in a way.”

“I don’t think I’d call it ‘blessed’ when it wants to latch onto us.”

“No, you are blessed. Do you want to know what you’re looking at when you see it? We hear things over the years. Nuggets of wisdom in the rumors and theories that trickle down. One day, we’re all in the mess hall, talking about how the scientists are saying that the Girük exists in a higher dimension, and we can only see the shadow it casts on our more primitive reality. Then a month later, they’re calling it a leech that got lost and will eventually drain all the energy from our universe—that it’s storing everything it absorbs until it can evolve into a much larger creature we’d never be able to stop. And I sit there and listen to them show disrespect to something divine, because I’m patient and forgiving. They’re all wrong, you know.” He turned to me and smiled creepily again, and I really regretted sitting up there. “They’re wrong, because they’re trying to identify, categorize, minimize, and understand a miracle. I used to believe in their mission. Then I found the beauty of the Girük.”

I’m now thinking, is this normal? Does the rest of the team know this guy is crazy and works around it? Or did he choose me to confess all this to for the very first time? I figured that if it was the latter… then the rising feeling of dread in my stomach was warranted.

I should’ve acted in some way other than shrinking down in the seat while there was time, but how would I have ever known what Husky was planning? That was the first time we’d spoken. Introducing yourself by proclaiming your love for a hyper-dimensional monster kind of knocks the other person off kilter.

“Today is going to be a great day,” Husky said, and pulled down the wired transponder from the sun shade. He then told the rest of the team, “Need to pull over, having a problem.”

Around what looked like a mile outside of the next small town’s lights, he slowed and turned the wheel hard to the left, driving the RV onto a dirt road behind a billboard. The lead truck in front of us made a U-turn, and the other drivers followed suit. This road was bumpy and dark, and the headlights picked up a building not far off the highway. It was some old church, likely long-ago boarded up, its parishioners forgotten by now.

“Husky, come in,” Doberman’s voice said. “Where the hell are you going?”

That was when I knew for sure that something was very wrong, and after having been chased by the Girük and losing some of my childish fear, I eked out just enough nerve to act. As Husky turned to find a parking spot, I leapt up and ran to the back of the RV, where I rammed myself against the locked bedroom door in an attempt to get to and wake up Mutt. It sounded like there was a car rally going on outside; I could hear dozens of engines, getting closer.

The door had no actual lock that needed a key, only a latch, and it wasn’t reinforced or anything; it was basic and for a sense of privacy, not security, so the material was flimsy and bent inward with each impact. I shouted for Mutt—I used his real name that he’d told me at one point when he was trying to “make things up” to me, even though I knew my voice alone wouldn’t do much.

It took at least a dozen body blows, but eventually the latch splintered off the wall and the door flew open. There was some slamming of vehicle doors and shouting from outside by that point, but I could hear very little it. Only Doberman’s commanding voice was able to reach my ears through the walls; he was repeatedly saying variations of “you are interfering with a military operation” to people that obviously weren’t listening.

I approached Mutt’s sleeping chamber and banged on its surface, knowing I couldn’t just open it while he was asleep and let his half of the Girük out. It was still sealed, but there was something wrong with it that I couldn’t put my finger on. Even so, I kept trying to wake him up until Husky eventually snuck up from behind and wrapped me into an unwanted bear hug.

“Shhh,” he said, no hint of malice or anger in his voice. “Easy, girl,” the large man, the biggest in the group, calmly ordered as I thrashed futilely in his arms. “It’s already done. Listen—the machinery isn’t running. I set a circuit timer so it’d turn off within minutes, and I swapped his vial with saline. His half of our new god has been roaming around or riding with us for a little bit now. But we’re fine, see? He doesn’t want to hurt us. Not while we serve Him.”

New god? I thought blankly as I melted in his grasp.

“That’s better. I don’t want to hurt you, either. Now, I’ll carry you out if I have to, but it’s not dignified, is it? Come on. I want you to meet some good friends of mine. They want to meet you, too.”

I was completely at his mercy; bewildered and way out of my element. I may have been able to do amazing things while asleep, but on this side of the astral plane, I was a scrawny and frightened kid.

Husky and I emerged from the RV onto a scene that was stranger than anything I could have dreamed up. Our convoy was packed in tight outside the old church, but we were outnumbered in both vehicles and people. Like a circle of wagons, cars and pickup trucks now surrounded us, having been in hiding somewhere nearby. They came in all colors, models, and years. There was even a Prius, and a classic Volkswagen Bus among them.

“We’re in deep shit,” I heard one of our guys—Spaniel, I think—whisper to Lab before the others saw me with Husky, at the risk of damaging morale.

At the moment it was a standoff, but the dogs were in a bad spot that their mostly-meager training wouldn’t save them from. They still had their sidearms raised, yes, but they were facing off against roughly fifty or more smiling men and women dressed in all black. Maybe you could confuse them for some militia or paramilitary group, if not for those smiles, and the telltale empty eyes that went with them. They were definitely a cult. And it was clearly an all-American one, as they had armed themselves with rifles and shotguns.

And poor Beagle. He wasn’t built to handle this kind of thing, either. The two of us were the only ones who had no guns at all, and he usually stayed in the van all day. The guy was a tech junkie in his late twenties, and here he was, trying to hold it together as a mob who seemed seconds away from telling us about their savior pointed barrels at us.

“Please. Lower your weapons,” the elder of the group, a man with a thin gray beard, commanded in this off-putting gentle and optimistic tone. “We are peaceful, but we will defend ourselves. We only want you to witness it with us.”

“Defend yourselves? You ambushed us,” Lab retorted, her steady hands on her pistol grip. “And witness what?”

“The reunion. Nearly a century in the making. The conclusion of a miracle that our prophet, Stanislaw Kozak, first seeded long ago.”

“Oh, God…” Beagle leaned over and dry-heaved.

Doberman tried one more time to dissuade them. “We are a military transport, moving materiel to a base in—” he stopped himself, even despite his strong disposition, when the elder raised a finger to his lips.

“Husky, don’t tell me you’re with these lunatics…” Foxhound muttered as the team watched him coerce me over to the elder.

“Ah…” the old man said and studied me once I was uncomfortably close. His eyes were cloudy and he must’ve had poor vision, but that didn’t stop him from seeing me the way Moira had. “Yes… She certainly has the gift.”

I recoiled as the old man’s wrinkled and scarred hand hovered over my forehead, though he never made contact.

“Will they be getting any help?” he asked Husky.

“No. The second convoy went ahead a few hours ago, so they could arrive early and prepare the containment transfer. They won’t get here anytime soon. Won’t even turn around until we fail to report in at the top of the hour.”

“Good… No interruptions.”

“Hey, Husky!” Lab shouted out to him. “When the hell did all this happen? Far as I know, you passed your most recent psych-eval. How long have you been in contact with these assholes?”

Husky turned around and continued to speak pleasantly, “It was only recently that I saw the Girük in a new light. But we all know how to blend in. We contribute to the machine. We aren’t chanting around bonfires or prostrating ourselves in public. If we worshipped in the open, do you think we would’ve lasted so long?”

“Is this everyone, then?” Doberman scoffed.

“Only those within three-hundred miles, who could make it here in time. A fortunate few who were divinely selected to see the reunion.”

“Are we on hallowed ground or something?”

“We’ve never been here before tonight. But it was the land He chose for us; the place we were meant to intercept you and give rise to our new god. This piece of earth holds no value to us… but it will. As much as a rock in Jerusalem has meaning to others. More, in fact.”

“Moira’s insanity really brushed off on you guys.”

“She was not insane,” the elder snapped. “She was the prophet’s successor, and I manage her flock. I have the gift of remote sight, same as her. I can see the divine being, that needs our help to ascend into its heavenly form.”

“Oh, for fuck sake…” Foxhound fearlessly spat out, I think putting what the rest of us were thinking into words.

The elder turned towards the ADS truck, which Terrier had been driving, and made the visage of revulsion on his face unmistakable to everyone.

“Look at this vile, crude weapon, designed to inflict pain on our new god. It’s sickening. A symbol of your efforts to destroy or imprison something you can’t understand. My friends, please bring it to the ground. It disgusts me.”

Ten of the men in the group, all of them looking on the stronger side, went over and in a coordinated effort, toppled the one good weapon we could use against their “god.” The large panel that produced the powerful microwaves was now face-down in the dirt and useless amid complaints and groans from the team. Their pistols were all on the ground by this point, and yet they still didn’t seem to be taking these jokers seriously.

“I know you think we’re nothing but a bunch of crazy, backwoods cultists, but we’re just everyday people that believe in a god that is tangible, that doesn’t hide—or at best, leaves behind only debatable evidence of His ‘love,’” Husky tried to defend himself, but his former allies only had ridicule for him.

“This isn’t the right way to handle workplace complaints, Husky,” Lab said dismissively. “You could’ve talked with us first.”

“Insult me all you want,” Husky said with a shrug. “I’m going to see divinity tonight. Nothing you say will take away that happiness.”

“It’s not divine,” Doberman countered. “It’s a damn monster—a killer, out for its own interests. Given a chance, it will slaughter you all with no hesitation.”

“These arguments and the proselytizing are useless,” the elder said. “We must begin before the attached half wanders too far.”

At gunpoint, Beagle and the others were forced to set up all of the available cameras on tripods and keep them pointed at the large patch of dirt lit up by headlights, with the unit that was affixed to the tech van also aimed at the spot. They worked fast under duress, and soon the largest monitor in the van was ripped out and messily positioned on one of the pickup tailgates so all the cultists—and us—could see the feed from each camera. In the van, where the video and power cables led, Beagle chose the view that filled the screen. He didn’t need any encouragement; he knew it was in his interest to give our new friends the best angles for what was about to happen.

“You people really don’t know what you’re doing…” Doberman continued the fruitless effort to stop what felt like a coming ritual, as some of the men approached the trailer that hauled Moira’s Girük’s containment tank with cutting tools. “Nothing good is going to happen if you let it out.”

But they were long past listening to reason. Bolt cutters were used to open the trailer, and then there was the sound of a power saw. I felt the hope drain out of me. All that work, for nothing. The deaths, my family losing Charlie—it had all been pointless. Once it got out, even if any of us survived, it would probably never be recaptured.

After Moira’s flock eventually got the tank open, or at least cracked a hole in it, they grew even more excited and gathered around the monitor so tightly that I could barely see it over their heads. But I didn’t need to find a new spot, because one of them got up on the truck and raised the screen with his arms to make sure everyone could witness the “momentous and joyous occasion.” What a shame, that Mutt was still sleeping through it.

Nothing happened at first, and the crowd stayed hushed, with the cultists behind us still pointing weapons at our backs. I couldn’t tell if they were trying to make true believers out of us or just wanted to prove a point. The man holding the display wasn’t about to let his arms get tired, either. I’m sure he thought any muscle fatigue was only another trial for proving his devotion.

Then there were gasps, murmurs, and maybe prayers as we saw a blotch of cloud-shaped darkness leave the trailer. It was an inky glob against the blue on the rest of the screen, the cameras so specialized that they barely gave any definition to objects, nor did they show temperature. They were designed just to translate what a select few could see naturally into something viewable to all.

The cloud tested its surroundings and gradually floated towards us. Once it fully realized it was free, or woke up in some way, it unfolded into the true predatory shape of the Girük and impacted the ground with an audible thud that sent a tremor through our feet. It was enough to bring many of the cultists to tears. Others shouted or professed their love for it. It might’ve been hard for them to restrain from getting on their knees and worshipping it completely, but they had to, as that would take their guns off of us. Honestly, as terrifying as all this was, I wish I could feel as strongly as they did for… anything, really. My jaded contemporary life was tough.

The Girük’s shadow on the monitor was fuzzy, and it did come through as two-dimensional via electronics. But we could tell that it was looking around and picking up something. Its long claws—they must’ve been its sensory organs used to study our world—appeared to taste the air. The cultists waited patiently as some of their vehicle headlights flickered from possible interference. And they kept waiting. I began to feel like what they were hoping for wouldn’t happen, but it was hard to say if that was a bad or good thing for us heathens.

After five minutes or so of them staring at the screen, there were suddenly more gasps. I didn’t see what they did right away, not until it floated further into view. The other half was approaching.

“I can see them both with my own eyes now,” the elder said as he grinned widely. “Oh, they’re beautiful. The poor smaller one, so underfed. It’s like a timid rabbit approaching a bear.”

He may have been crazy, but his description seemed spot on. Although its claws were just as long, Mutt’s half was otherwise little in comparison. It must have fed on far fewer people over the years, not to mention it would’ve been isolated and experimented on for most of its existence here.

Its wiry mass approached the far bigger half reluctantly. It was easy to imagine that they were staring each other down. Then the smaller one stopped. It sampled the air with its claws, like an animal twitching its nose nervously.

No one on Earth could predict what was about to transpire. Would they reunite like the cultists expected? Or battle for supremacy? Maybe the big one would simply eat or absorb the other half against its will. Hell, for all we knew, they were about to kiss and prance off to their home dimension together. Whatever we were about to see, it sounded like most everyone on both sides of the audience held their breaths.

What actually happened might’ve been entirely unexpected for us all.

The two halves, separated almost a hundred years ago and having existed very differently from each other—one a lab rat used to the dark that had only recently known freedom and begun to feed; the other hailed as divinity, prayed to, and a devourer of hundreds if not more—did not seem compatible anymore.

Actually, it must’ve been worse than that for the small one, since the big surprise it sprang on us was to simply… run away. And when I say run, I mean that it didn’t want to share an entire universe with what even it probably considered an abomination. It didn’t dart away or return to Mutt. What it did was back off, fold in on itself until it had compacted into a tiny black hole, and then blip out of existence in a flash of visible light that produced interference strong enough to shut off all the running power in the area for several seconds.

The darkness didn’t last long and the headlights soon filled the air again, but the van hardware had also gone down and the camera system needed time to reboot. We’d all been stunned into silence, until the cultists asked each other what this meant, and how they were supposed to interpret what they witnessed. No one on our side made any snarky remarks; probably a good idea. We didn’t know how the believers were going to react.

“Settle down, my friends,” the elder said with calming gestures. His creepy smile turned into a wide grin that was even more disturbing, given that what just happened certainly felt like a disappointment for them. “Moira told us it could go this way. Do not fear this rejection, as it means that the divine being now sees us as more worthy. We have been chosen to help Him in His ascension instead. We prepared for this possibility. This is a good day indeed.”

The cultists were soon all smiles again, and one after the next, they took out small wooden ornamental boxes and opened them to reveal syringes and vials. Oh, God, I thought. Were they going to use those on us?!

“It’s not too late to join us,” the elder offered as their weapons dropped.

“W-wait. Hold on,” Lab tried to reason with them, “you don’t have to do this. It thinks nothing of you. This is meaningless.”

“Oh, my child. You’re wrong. But that’s okay. His gifts are for all of us, even the non-believers. We will see you again soon.”

All together, they chanted, “Praise be the torn world’s Girük.”

We couldn’t stop them. Nearly all at once, they stuck themselves with their needles, right in their necks, and pressed on the plungers. Those smiles never left their faces. Whatever they took, it made them drop to the ground within seconds.

Husky was the last to go. I don’t know if it was out of hesitation—like he was contemplating renouncing all this—or if he only wanted a few seconds to be among his old team without those he had eventually sided with. When he gave us his own last final smile, a few of the others leapt over and tried to pull his arm away, but only succeeded in delaying the determined big guy’s own injection.

And, I mean… I know they were delusional, but they were in control of their actions, so it was hard to feel overly sorry for them. They chose to do it. Didn’t they? Still… Most of them must’ve had a normal childhood at one point…

“Are they all…?” I squeaked out as I stood over them.

It was Bernard, the medic, who knelt down, checked some pulses, and replied, “They must’ve taken a strong sedative. They’re all… sleeping.”

That’s good, was my first instinctive thought, and maybe that of a few others. Now I feel stupid for having forgotten, like, everything about what that really meant. The team looked at one another, and faces dropped.

“… Shiiit…” Doberman pushed out in a guttural growl. He got back into professional mode and began barking orders that were accompanied by hand gestures, “We have to move ourselves and our vehicles away from the bodies, and make some distance! We blockade the road, and then Retriever, get the armory open. We need rifles in every hand.”

I felt something like a very cold draft pass by, and right afterwards, one of the sleeping cultists let out a strange wheezing sound before their body suddenly went still. It was already beginning. The Girük had just been served a willing feast. I was a decent runner at school, and once it hit me just how much danger we were in, I started moving pretty damn quick.

Everybody got into one of our vehicles, save for the toppled ADS truck, and floored it to drive or reverse away from the ritual site, going through a gap in the wall of cars. The headlights of the cultists’ fleet were flickering more with each passing second, and I began to hear a strange buzzing in the air. Beagle had told me about how their own rides were hardened against stuff like EMPs, but would that be enough? He ripped out the wires for the screen the cultists had used and got the tech van moving, leaving the positioned cameras behind.

I hadn’t been told where to go, so I just returned to the RV. Lab got it moving before I had a chance to sit, and to make sure there was no lapse of control in a fluid situation, she was on the transponder the whole time, giving orders about where exactly they’d form a perimeter. For now, the plan was to hit the Girük with every energy rifle they had to keep it immobilized, or at least distracted and angry until someone could get the big “gun” back up. In between all these general commands were specific orders, like for Beagle to find out if the nearby town had weather sirens, and if so, to get them going and wake up everyone as to not add to the monster’s buffet. There was also a backup containment pod that needed to be prepped for any hope of recapturing it. Not once did anyone suggest simply running away. They may have been a motley crew of undertrained, likely underpaid sacrificial lambs, but they knew that they were all that stood in the way of an escalating threat.

The vehicles formed a curving barricade between the road and ground zero; a battle line against a horror that may no longer have need of me, or perhaps anyone who could project, even though it had the elder right at its feet.

During my time with these guys, I overheard a fear they shared: that it could start “self-sustaining.” There were assumptions about what it had been storing up for, and if the bodies out there were the last bit of sustenance it needed to reach some new stage… Were we all screwed? Would it reach a point where nothing we had could hurt it?

Retriever handed out rifles as everyone took positions behind vehicles, but they’d need to be able to see it to take effective shots. Lab told me to stay put in the RV before rushing out to join the others, but I wasn’t about to stay in there and hide. The least I could do was help Beagle get some video going again. But first, I had to check on someone everyone seemed to have forgotten.

My legs were shaking as I headed to the back of the RV. I felt in my gut that Mutt was dead, more certain of it this time than when he’d gotten stomped on in my school. I was pretty sure his half had severed the connection with him, and if it was like what happened to Moira and the Kozak guy…

I pushed at the bedroom door—and found that his sleeping pod was already open. My heart pounding, I stepped into the room and saw him on the floor, up against the wall. He was clearly disoriented, completely out of it, like he had no idea where he was. More worryingly, his nose was bleeding.

When I tried to snap him out of it, he stared at me as if we’d never met. But a little bit of clarity soon returned and he was able to discern, albeit through slurred speech, that something must’ve been in his coffee. He also felt “really strange, like a piece of me is missing.” I didn’t know what to do for him, or if we had some drug that could counter whatever was in his system… and the effects from losing his half of the Girük. All I could do was get him to promise to try and get his head straight before I took off.

By the time I got out of the RV, around three minutes had passed since it began feeding. It was hard to say how long it took with each person. Everyone was armed up and in formation, and I got to the van where Beagle was still trying to hack into the local alert system—which must’ve been faster than attempting to talk to officials at this hour. Contrary to what Lab asked me to do, he did need some help and got me started on the camera software. While I was opening programs, I saw in the corner of my eye and through the windshield that all of the cultist vehicles had lost power. Whatever was going on out there, it was only something like five hundred feet away and still felt way too close.

“It’s good you actually know about PCs,” was one of Beagle’s remarks that stuck out. “Thought all you youngsters only used tablets these days.”

Not exactly the most appropriate time for a tech chat, but he was one of those types that talked when under pressure. I wasn’t so much, and did my best to focus in such an unexpected situation.

There was something cosmically appropriate about the timing of the sirens and the moment that I got the camera going. The sound waves from the equipment used to warn the locals of tornados had stretched to the point where they were like trumpets, heralding in an angel or the end times. Given what we saw on the screen, it fit; the Girük, over only a few minutes, had transformed into a true eldritch terror. It was the worst kind of awe-inspiring sight.

It had turned into a behemoth, at least the size of a bus. At some point while we weren’t watching, it became too large to stay bipedal and got down on all fours in the middle of the cult cars, which had lost power for good. The microwave rifles had small side displays that mirrored the camera feed, so the team had an idea of where to shoot, even if it wasn’t from their perspective. But who knew how long the video signal would last with the worsening interference. Doberman didn’t hesitate in giving the order to open fire, while all Beagle could do at first was stare at what we saw.

“It’s humbling, isn’t it…” he had murmured. “That we share reality with something like that. We should’ve destroyed it while we had a chance.”

“That was an option, back in Kennel?” I quietly replied.

“Orders were to capture it. I think that’s impossible now.”

Beams of energy hit the stationary giant, and it clearly reacted like it felt them. I thought for sure it would come charging at us, but it either had other plans, or was already undergoing an unstoppable metamorphosis.

After a few seconds of sustained fire, the part that must’ve been its head looked upward and let out an ear-piercing howl which existed audibly in the world as we perceived it. It was a lengthy, heavy cry that hurt our eardrums, distorted and rich with noise. Before we had fully recovered from the sound, a vortex rose up around the massive creature, swirling counterclockwise. The particles trapped in it weren’t from its side of the universe; they were real, and visible through the windshield. A separate thermal camera showed that the dust had heated rapidly into a blistering temperature. Bolts of lightning tore through the maelstrom, either from friction or a strong electrical field. What had been a still early morning became windy, with gusts moving towards the swirling air.

The troops kept up their fire even in such conditions, but Beagle’s mind worked in strange ways, and he did a little experiment in all the chaos. With a trembling hand, he turned on a standard radio amid the computer hardware.

When he saw me looking at him curiously, he explained, “The hotel, where it first entered our world… Supposedly, their radio picked up a song from across time. I always wondered if…”

He turned up the volume as the van shook from the wind, letting the audio do the rest of the talking.

The sound was all over the place, on every frequency. There was mostly heavy static, but also bursts of clarity lasting anywhere from one second to just a few. Music played: old-timey, modern, and stuff I’d never heard. At one point, I swear a DJ announced a new hit from an artist everyone “was talking about,” yet the name was totally unfamiliar. There were also advertisements and news stories. Talk about the Korean War and the third moon landing. Mentions of a conflict breaking out between Russia and China. Famines in the Middle East; things that must’ve had yet to happen. They came in fragments not from across space, but time.

As we experienced temporal distortion, one word came to mind. I’ve never used it in a story before, but the event could best be described as reality itself being torn asunder.

Things were happening so quickly that even the radio only held our attention for a minute or so, as the latest development hit when we saw the Girük rapidly sprout enormous tentacles from its back, until there were four in all. They had different lengths, and took on rigid structures like they were arms with multiple elbows. Claws, which glowed in their typical amber color even on the monitor, also sprouted from each appendage.

Beagle, who had been gasping or swearing at just about every new event, ran out of words when we watched one of those arms harpoon a cultist vehicle, effortlessly pull it upward, through the vortex, and absorb the entire thing into its body like it was a snack. I saw it happen, on both the screen and with my eyes, which only observed a car taking to the air via an invisible force.

“It… i-it must be self-sustaining,” Beagle murmured, now looking like he was in shell shock. “It’s breaking down material, to keep growing, or…” He looked up and saw the fear on my face, and that seemed to snap him out of it just enough to return to his job. He got on the comms and said over the static, “We need to get that ADS running before it gets any stronger.”

A few responses came in, one of which declared it a “suicide mission.” But Beagle worked up the nerve to insist on it, because every available reading indicated that it was only growing more powerful and metastable. Someone needed to take the one truck with winch cables out there, pull the ADS upright, and fire. The range was close enough to do some real damage. On the downside, the range was close, well within the reach of the longer arms.

But it was doable, Beagle promised. “I’ll tell you where it’s looking, where its claws are—through text if I have to if the signal noise gets that bad. We still have a camera. I’ll have an eye on it the whole time.”

It sounded like a plan. Incredibly dangerous, but possible.

Or it did until the Girük finally seemed to get tired of being pelted by rifles and turned its attention towards us. I couldn’t tell on the screen where exactly it was looking, but when I felt that piercing ice in my bones, just like when Moira first stared at me, I knew. Even through pixels.

“It’s aware of the camera…” I pushed out weakly.

Beagle didn’t have a chance to ask me to explain. The lumbering beast’s longest arm grew even more in a matter of seconds, until it was towering into the air. It then came crashing down like a falling redwood, covering the length between us and ground zero. Whether from a minor miscalculation or just grasp unable to meet reach, the huge claw impacted some ten feet away from the engine with a powerful thud. It thrashed about wildly as it attempted to slash the van itself, and I watched as the colossus took a few lumbering steps towards us to close the distance.

The team saw this on their displays, and did what had to be done—by adjusting their aim to shoot at the limb. But they weren’t able to blast it away or sever it from the main body in time to keep the van untouched. A claw first swung right through the windshield, rending the glass cleanly and horizontally in half. It didn’t shatter; it was more like a foot-wide fissure opened up where glass had simply been erased. A second impact from the impossibly sharp edge of the claw tore off a chunk of the roof, and the third took out our last camera. It was a devastating loss, and Beagle and I were in the van when it happened, as we were too petrified to so much as run out the back.

Still, those soldiers outside kept firing their high-pitched energy rifles even as the claws turned on them next. That was when some of their duties were fulfilled, and I had to listen to… horrible noises of pain. Sounds of death and suffering, battle cries, the kind of primal shouting no one is born ready to hear. It lasted only a few seconds, and then the gunfire stopped.

I thought that surely, everyone must’ve been killed within moments.

Until Beagle tapped on my shoulder and got me to look through the slashed windshield, where the edge of one of those claws was dissolving into the air. Though not without loss, they had managed to tear apart the arm that held it even after losing visual.

“Don’t bring Pom out here,” Lab’s voice was the first we heard over Beagle’s transponder. “There’s… a lot of blood. She shouldn’t see this.”

“H-how… how bad?” Beagle asked, because he had to know.

“We lost Retriever and Dalmatian. Those claws… Like tissue paper. AndDachshund’s left arm is just… gone. Bernard’s doing what he can to stanch the bleeding. I think you’re right, Beagle. The ADS is our only shot.”

“I’ll get it running,” Doberman’s voice crackled. “Terrier and I will go out there. We can’t spare anyone else. We need to keep some fire on it from here.”

“Cap… Maybe we should… make a run for it instead?” Beagle suggested.

There was a long pause, and then Doberman replied over worsening static, “Tactically, that’s the smart play. But there’s something only Lab and I know, that we haven’t shared. Our superiors are scared of it; they see some kind of ‘infinite potential’ in its growth. I shouldn’t be telling you all this, but there’s been a contingency plan for a couple decades. If it ever reaches a stage like this, we hit it with something that packs a lot of punch in every measurable aspect.”

“W-what the hell does that mean?”

“Well, the town out there won’t survive, either, so use your imagination. Bomber’s already in the air. We have twenty minutes at most to fix this.”

Is he talking about what I think he is? I thought blankly.

“That’s a drastic next step, isn’t it?” Beagle said. “Isn’t there a team above us they could send in first?”

“The bomb is the next team,” Lab responded. “They stopped throwing highly-skilled bodies at this thing after it broke out the second time. The brass kept saying the cost-effectiveness ‘wasn’t there.’ Everyone listening in knows that. Face it; we’re a bunch of rejects who didn’t ask for this position. That goes for me and Cap, too. But we still have to try. Sorry for the shitty pep talk.”

Even now, after everything, no one argued. I took the captain’s revealing of the backup plan as a way of telling his men that this might be the end for them, but it was worth going down fighting if it meant Nebraska was spared both a radioactive crater and the loss of a few thousand innocent lives.

As I sat there in the torn-up van, wondering if I had done enough to help while not being obligated to, Mutt finally stumbled up to the opened back doors. He still looked unwell, like he was in a bad stupor, but he was clearly trying and pushing himself to get back into form. His half breaking their connection really did a number on him, and I wasn’t convinced yet that he’d survive.

“Beagle… rough estimate here…” he spluttered out as he balanced against the doors and Doberman and Terrier got the utility truck started up, “how long do you think we have? How dangerous… is this situation?”

“All of the instrument readings are useless,” Beagle stated flatly.

“Because… What? The measurements are too high?”

“No such thing with our equipment. No, I think they’re going haywire because they’re not tuned to the local environment anymore.”

“In other words…” Mutt looked afflicted by a migraine and groaned.

“It… might be starting to rewrite the rules of nature in the area.”

Mutt stared at us, but only for a moment before replying, “Of all the speculation we’ve heard over the years, that’s the idea that always scared me the most. We don’t have time. The truck isn’t going to make it out there on its own; we need a distraction. Even if it only gives them a minute or so.”

“Can you even project in your state?”

Mutt winced in pain and sighed, “No, not fully. Maybe partially, enough to get glimpses at it, but that’s it.”

Something caught my eye, and I turned towards the windshield. There were flashes of blinding golden light—not around the Girük, but instead seemingly spread across its body. They very briefly defined segments of its shape, yet not all at once. The bursts burned my retinas and caused shooting pain throughout my nerves. “Don’t look at it too long,” echoed in my head.

“Then how are we supposed to distract it?” Beagle wondered. “What would it still be interested in?”

Mutt looked at me, and I stared in disbelief when he took out a vial and a syringe. “I’m not asking you to do this, Pom—not this time,” he said sympathetically. “But if you keep your distance, don’t let yourself get pulled in, and get it to just look at you long enough to give them a chance…”

“You already used her as bait once. Twice, really,” Beagle reminded him.

“Last time. I swear.”

The utility truck’s engine roared to life, and its tires spun out in the dirt for a moment before it got going. They were making the attempt regardless of what I did. But I only wanted to go home. I didn’t belong in any part of this.

Still… All of those people nearby… I’d never meet any of them. I had no idea who they were, or what their town was like. But I didn’t want anyone else to die because of the monster outside, its vortex having expanded to the church as it devoured everything around it. Mutt was right, about projection making for a weak superpower, yet if it still meant a lot to the Girük… maybe it was enough.

Trying not to overthink it, as I had no time to, I nodded despite Beagle’s protests. Mutt prepped my shot, and with nothing comfier nearby, I got on the floor and leaned against the side of the van. I braced myself for the pinch, and as the sedative quickly took hold, thought of my parents and Charlie back home, wondering where I was. This felt like my only chance at returning.

“Good luck, kid. Stay safe,” was all Mutt could come up with as I faded.

The battlefield looked quite different when seen from the astral plane. I could see the now small house-sized beast with clarity, if not partially obscured by the swirling, chaotic storm—and a hazy blue psychic fog that must have emanated from its body. As I floated over the van, I looked down at the survivors still firing their rifles, which were as useful as laser tag toys at this point. Further away was the utility truck, driving in a wide curve at a safe distance that wouldn’t last. The last effective weapon we had was in the dirt, and scarily close to its target. Worse, the vehicle was toppled away from the Girük, meaning that to get it upright, Terrier would have to drive towards the enormous entity.

I cleared my mind to try and not dwell too deeply on what I was doing, and got up alongside the incredible creature, as close as I could while still able to resist the pull tugging me towards it. It continued to absorb vehicles… and the cultists, adding to an unseen collection of material it was gathering. Even the ground itself and the wooden planks being ripped off of the church were contributing, as the three remaining spinal arms took swings like wrecking balls to break up the building further. It didn’t appear to sense me, so I knew I had to get closer, and get it to actually see me. Throughout our time together, I had yet to see its eyes, and the thought of doing so was what scared me the most—even if I only kept them in my peripheral vision, as to limit direct contact.

The instant I saw the brilliant golden glow of its eyes—they had no discernible pupils or irises—the behemoth turned its huge head towards me. I looked anywhere else but into its blazing stare, and kept watch for the claws on its arms. Its four feet had degraded into mounds of melting sludge-like matter, hiding its original talons. Just what was it turning into? Did it know? Could it understand what its ultimate form, if it had one, might look like?

Then something else new and unexpected happened. I realized that its eyes, the “gateway to the soul,” as it’s sometimes said—they didn’t actually hurt at all. They were powerfully luminous and burned through the fog that masked its body’s finer details, but they might as well have been the eye of a hurricane. They seemed placid, even… calming.

For some number of seconds, we simply looked at one another. Despite its violent, hungry nature, its gaze was serene. But why? This was a being of opposites. Ugly, cruel, a vicious predator that maybe hijacked the soul itself, and yet… Maybe that tranquility was the feeling that made Moira and Kozak want to keep the Girük a part of themselves. I’ll never understand how it made them feel, and I don’t want to, but there must have been a certain symbiosis to it.

After peering into those liquid starlight pools a little longer, I think I may have seen past them to something else. I can’t describe it with certainty, but I feel like I saw sadness, and pain. As if it was crying out, and its existence was torment yet willful, but it had no way to express this to us.

I made one final discovery before the end of this story. I don’t think the team would have seen them, but it had been firing small globular spores from all across its body for at least a few minutes. They looked made out of the same shadowy material, and hit the surrounding ground where they sprouted into strange tree-like structures, both limbs and roots made up of gnarled tendrils. No idea what they could’ve been. A primordial form of its young? Or maybe just flora from its world. Perhaps it was starting to terraform this rural corner of the farm belt. Honestly, by this point I’ve said everything I can put into words. Husky might’ve been right about trying to describe miracles.

I lost track of time while we were staring at each other. However much of it had passed, it was enough for Doberman and Terrier to get to the ADS, hook up its carrier to the cables, and kick the utility vehicle into high gear. But there was nothing else I could do. My usefulness came to its conclusion when the Girük heard the engine and spun its head around to see what was going on behind it.

Still under the effects of its mesmerizing eyes, I watched with little remaining emotion as two of the long arms launched out at the utility truck. One destroyed its engine. The other pierced the windshield and must’ve killed Terrier in an instant. But he had carried out his task, as one of the sacrificial soldiers his bosses shoved out into the world to do this kind of work; the ADS truck was up on all six tires again, and the weapon was already pointed at his killer.

Captain Doberman climbed up to the truck’s door, opened it, and…

The same claw that got Terrier went right through his back.

We were so close, was all I could think in my calmed daze.

But the captain was tough, and after the claw withdrew, he started moving again. I couldn’t see everything through the fog and at my distance, but he might’ve hit the trigger during his dying breath. Before the Girük could attack him a second time, or go after the emitter, it fired. And it must have fired at its highest power setting. The microwave energy was wide and sustained. I can’t describe the controls, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had been set to keep at it until something overloaded or the power ran down.

The result…

It was annihilation, and unreal to see. Here was an almost unassuming human weapon, shredding apart a god in its early stages. Layer by layer, it disassembled the Girük’s large body, and it let out a final howl as it collapsed to the ground and waves of energy and heat peeled it apart… like it was nothing but a big clump of dust in a blender. I made sure to stay clear of the visible heat haze coming from the weapon as the fog and the vortex dissipated.

Its eyes turned black, and it went still. Dirt and shrapnel fell to the ground as a “very rare Nebraska wintertime night tornado” died and faded.

Finally, after a minute or two, the ADS turned off. At first, all that appeared to be left in its wake were vanishing black particles. Until I realized what I was looking at. Where the Girük had been, there were now… bones? It seemed like half of a spine, a few ribs, the back legs, and a small top section of skull the size of an open umbrella. They were solid black yet crystalline in appearance, reflecting the moonlight like volcanic sand. The material it was gathering—it must have been trying to create a real body that could exist in our world. But I was done thinking about what-ifs and wild theories concerning beings from other dimensions. I was sleepy.

Before the effects of looking into its eyes wore off, and as the town’s sirens fell quiet, I gazed up at the clear night sky provided by the cold weather. It was lovely out.

I don’t know how to finish what I assume will be my last file, Mutt. I had to get it all down, even if I wasn’t asked this time. It helps me deal with everything that happened as much as any process can. Nothing that transpired afterwards really feels relevant, or important enough to mention. So… I’ll let this be the ending. I’m so sorry you lost some of your friends.

For what it’s worth, I think you all did the best job you could have.

I’m getting tired again.

Wake me when we get there.

[End of document]

“You still working on that thing, Mutt?” Dachshund asked me, just after I finalized it for the last time, again. He vaped from a pen held by his prosthetic arm on the next bunk over, which was something he’d been practicing. “It’s been a month, man. Old news. Brass already read through all of it, anyway.”

“We all need our hobbies,” I grunted back as I looked at his vape.

I sleep in the barracks now. It’s a cold, underground concrete box, and still all that we’ve been afforded in this military installation. But it beats the hell out of the confining pod that made me feel like a vampire, and separated from the others. I finally started to get that sense of brotherhood after a few weeks of bunking with the rest of the team.

We’re supposed to be getting some new recruits soon. They should be in the part of the program where they’re learning all about the Girük, and how to combat one if we’re ever deployed again. The training’s still shit, but now that Lab’s in charge, she’s been advocating for improving the regimen. I thought we’d be treated like heroes when we got back, naïve old me. I mean, sure, some of the non-fieldwork guys were a little impressed with what we had pulled off, but it still came at the cost of our captain and three others, and we lost our grip on Husky, so maybe it all kind of balanced out.

“Think we’ll finally get a Poodle?” Foxhound just asked from his bed off in the corner as I type, where the glow of a portable game system bathed his face.

“It’d be hard to get over the ragging,” Beagle said as he passed by on his way to the showers. “Might be bad for unit cohesion, or something like that.”

I enjoy the dumb jarhead-style banter from the others, really, but my mind’s still adrift. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been lost in your story, Pom. I’m sure the therapist I’ve been seeing on base would also tell me to let go, but rereading your “journal,” cleaning it up, adding little embellishments, correcting some facts, and going through it with a thesaurus has, I think, helped me process those events… and things that happened in my own life. I won’t go so far as to say I’ve injected my voice into your work or that we’re collaborators, but you left me with a story I could polish up just because I can. It’s not like there’s much to do in the off-hours down here.

I’m not sure if you’ll ever see these revisions, or this postscript or epilogue or whatever you want to call it, but for completion sake, I’ll work on finishing it up over the next few days.

You woke up around dawn, I believe. You seemed fine, if distant. By then, the second convoy had come back and was helping with cleanup and keeping the site locked down. Four body bags were put into a transport truck with the barest of ceremonies; treated as expected for expendables like us.

We also worked through the night, and when we found those bones you described—the skeleton it was creating when it got interrupted—we were taken by surprise. No rumors or theories that have reached us over the years ever mentioned that as a possibility. Their structure was pitch-black, yet the surface glistened like diamonds. We didn’t dare touch them after checking them out with our limited surviving equipment. They were boxed up (we could tell they were incredibly heavy) and brought to the higher-ups for study. Not much has leaked down to us so far, but I’ve heard a few whispers, mostly how they’re denser than uranium and might be made of an exotic element that exists in the island of stability. Have you learned about that in chemistry class?

Those bones probably bought the team some favor, not that we’ve felt it yet. Oh, and the Girük wasn’t completely destroyed, if it’s even possible for us to do such a thing. I found what was left of it at first light and directed the team in using our backup container to capture it. Thing’s a little floating puff ball, now down in a prison where my half used to be stored. Maybe it reverted to its most basic state. Or it’s the “core,” or some kind of egg. I’m sure it’ll provide endless new research for… the group I’m not on. It could still have its memories, though, and someday be out for revenge. I dunno. I’m not worried about it. Not yet.

We didn’t speak much that last day, with what little time we had left, so I’m not sure how clear Lab made it for you. It was Doberman’s idea to bring you in, the old by-the-books mule. For study, sure, but he probably wanted to turn you into someone like me, and get you trained while you were young and easier to break in. He’d been desperate to find more “astral soldiers” for this team. That’s why he let us tell and show you so much. Lab didn’t agree, and you can thank her for letting you go home. Nothing I said would’ve changed either of their minds. Not that I should’ve kept quiet about it like I did. She bought you some time, but you’re still going to be on our radar again eventually. Everyone that’s known to be able to project in this country gets on it. Sorry about that, kid. But she’ll do what she can to keep you left alone.

When we made that stop at the train station in Omaha to send you on your way, after you handed over the loaner laptop, Lab told you that she didn’t want you to have this kind of life. It’s an obvious sentiment, but it’s the nicest thing I’ve heard her say to anyone. And I’ll admit that, even though I fulfilled my obligations and I’m not a carrier anymore, I’m under pressure to stick with this team under an unspoken threat that they’d recruit you in a few years to replace me. But don’t feel bad. After the things I did, and the way I was in the past, I deserve to be here. I’m right where I belong.

Besides, there are worse losers to hang out with than these guys.

Before the train arrived and me and Lab got back in an SUV to rejoin the others, you shared one last thing concerning your family. It was about the dinner argument that you think drove your parents apart. Charlie had gotten a cochlear implant just six months before he died, or… lost his body. It was expensive, and they’re still paying for it even though he’s gone. They had a fight, and your dad ended up saying something in the heat of the moment that he regretted: an equivalent of it having been a “waste of money.” Your mom was livid, and they haven’t been the same since. I know you blame that moment for things changing in the family, but trust me, there’s more to it than a single instance. Losing a child isn’t easy, and they’re going to be hurting for years to come.

I can’t help you work past it from here through a one-way and one-time message. But I will say that you can help mend hurt like that. And I bet Charlie loved those six months and all the sounds he got to experience for the first time. Believe me when I say that a little bit of joy in this dark world is always worth it, even if it lasts just a brief while. It wasn’t wasted on him.

And as for the question that occurred to you in our last minute together on the platform, that I didn’t have time to answer… “Why didn’t Charlie just stay asleep? If he was so important to the Girük, wouldn’t it have spared him if he stayed in his body?” You made a good point, and I needed to think about it.

Maybe the nature of his gift was such that he always traveled when he slept. In which case his waking life may have begun to feel like the dream instead. Or… it could simply be that he thought he needed to run from the monster, night after night. Could you blame him?

I hope you’re doing well up in “Kennel,” and that you found him again. As for me, while I’ve been writing, I’ve had the growing and likely stupid idea that this should leak into the world. Most people wouldn’t believe it, definitely not, but then I think… What if there are more out there, skulking around, feeding on people as they sleep and slowly getting stronger? If a rise in deaths like that gets noticed somewhere else, as it did in your town… Who knows. Maybe somebody will hear about this insane tale and raise the alarm so we get there sooner. Could save some lives.

Of course, I’m not saying that I was the one who got past our security measures and put this long but standard “field report” on the internet. It could’ve been any number of people.

Okay. I have to wrap this up for real.

We just went to a briefing and learned of possible Girük-like activity in central New York. That’s where all this started in 1929. I can’t help but feel like there’s still a doorway there that never closed. It’s also possible the half I freed has returned.

Assuming a successful capture, I can only hope the higher-ups keep them separated, since I’m sure that the “reunion” the cultists wanted to see, for our sake, needs to be postponed indefinitely. If it ever happens, you might hear about it on the news. And if that resulting creature has eyes… please, keep yours closed.