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NIGHTWORLD

One: Arriving Somewhere

Rural Hungary, 2003

Make the choice that scares you.

Jaro blew sour air from his cheeks, the buffeting gale from the window of his 4WD rental snatching it in an instant. It was a two hour drive from the nearest town to his father's house, and not a comfortable one at that. Potholes and loose gravel covered the winding roads, fallen branches and dead leaves crunching beneath the wheels. Was it always this bad? Or did I just never notice?

It truly was a lonesome, miserable thing. A one-car-wide trail snaking through the overgrown Hungarian hillside, the air rich with the smell of wet soil and ice, the only company that of wild crows and deer. As a pup, on those rare occasions his family reluctantly chose to visit the city, Jaro had always found this road frightening. Fog clung to it like a menacing curtain between the trees, thick through no matter the time of day, while always in the back of his mind was the certainty that if they stopped the car and ventured out, they would never be seen again.

Even now, as a grown wolf that should know better, he felt the familiar anxiety that the 4WD's engine would suddenly die, and he'd be left here, food for the brambles.

The road ended in a small hamlet of sparsely placed farms, populated by a small group of people who did their very best to avoid ever leaving. They were hard, traditional Hungarians that preferred to mind their own problems. This road belonged to them, they maintained it, and it appeared on few - if any - regional maps.

Five years ago, all Jaro could think about was forgetting. Forgetting the old farm, the biting cold, their harsh language, he'd even looked forward to forgetting Pa and Ma. All he'd wanted back then was to run away and forget it all, figured he could become a different person if he just went to a different enough place.

Make the choice that scares you the most. That's what he figured.

He'd become someone who spoke English, then French, and then eventually Arabic. Who knew he had a knack for picking up languages? He'd visited four different countries, and met hundreds of people. There'd been violence and horror, but the whole time he was almost glad for the hardships. When he first left, it was because he couldn't imagine anything in Hungary ever scaring him enough to change.

Now that he was coming home, however, he couldn't have been be more terrified.

He tried to keep his twitching tail still as he pulled into Pa's steep driveway, the rust-mottled gate hanging wide open. He wasn't sure if his father had ever bothered getting a phone installed, and so all Jaro could hope was that his letter had arrived in time. After a world with radios and digital communication, it felt so antiquated to write a letter with a pen, but his father had always prided himself on doing things the old ways.

The driveway gravel was as slippery as it had ever been, but the 4WD was more than up to the task. The cattle mooed accusingly at him as he passed, almost scolding in their tones. The herd-sheep paid no real mind, just standing around in a little huddle, doing their stupid sheep things. Boz would have laughed if he could've seen it. Boz always laughed at those little things.

The house looked the same. A little smaller than Jaro remembered maybe, a little more rundown, but basically the same. A wide, two-story shack built against the hill that was warmer and nicer inside than the exterior gave it credit for. Jaro's great-grandfather had built it with his father, and each Tamasi that lived in it since added a new room or addition. Some of the wood didn't quite match and some of the windows had been patched over, and the roof had three chimneys despite the fact only two connected to anything. Still. It was something.

But it didn't feel like home. Despite the familiarity, all Jaro felt was that he was simply... arriving somewhere. Anywhere. Some ordinary and unspecial place. But not here. He didn't feel like he was 'coming home'.

Boz had always said, "home ain't a place you go back to."

"Guess you were right," Jaro muttered, pulling the handbrake and killing the engine, stepping out of the car.

The dusk air made his fur bristle as he stretched, nipping at his ears and sending a light shiver through his body. It smelled more like a farm up here, the gentle wafting of the livestock aroma unpleasant on the snout - especially when you weren't used to it. It felt eerie in the near-twilight, the wan light of sunset diffused by autumn clouds, the valley hills slowly cutting the farms off from the light.

The front door to the house dinged as it swung outward, and Jaro turned to see his father, Sandor Tamasi, step outside.

A grey wolf, like his son, Sandor was both shorter and rounder than Jaro, but the resemblance was definitely there. Coarse grey and brown fur around the neck and ears, with lighter markings through the face, neck, and belly. Seemed Sandor was wearing the same pair of clothes he always had - loose flannel layers and patched-up old jeans. He was slightly more hunched than when Jaro last saw him, his left leg carrying a more pronounced limp, but his eyes had the same sharp temerity they always had. Sandor Tamasi could grow to be a hundred and fifty years old, turn entirely grey, and lose the use of every limb, but he would never look feeble.

"Jaroslav? I got your letter but, I wasn't sure..." His father trailed off, limping down the front steps and crossing the gravel. Sandor's rural accent was strong, and even though Jaro had been back in Hungary and speaking Hungarian for the better part of a year, it still felt thick to him. Too rural, too honest, like the words had nothing to hide or hide from.

"I made it, somehow!" Jaro called, hefting his bag out of the back seat and meeting his father in the middle. "The road was longer than I remembered." They hugged awkwardly, and Pa pulled back, looking him up and down.

"You don't sound right, and you lost weight."

"Well... thanks I guess," Jaro replied, sighing. The air felt tense, he didn't know what to say. Sorry, I've been back for a year but couldn't be arsed seeing you. Not to mention the other thing. Just the thought of admitting it made him sick, a horrid double-whammy. Was it better to drop them both at once? Or let one sit first, then the other? Fuck, he wasn't even certain of the second part himself, let alone feeling ready to say it aloud. What would Boz have said? Which choice was he supposed to make when every option scared him?

Just go inside first, and sit down. One thing at a time.

"Come, come, enough fresh air," Pa said, turning and waving him toward the house. Jaro sniffed, shivering slightly as they moved inside. "You've gotten soft then? Coat too thin to take our winters, huh boy?"

"Oh, I haven't been gone so long, Pa. This isn't winter," Jaro replied, as his father closed the door behind them.

Sandor tapped his snout, winking. "Had to test you, eh? Tea?"

"Espresso?"

His father tutted, but nodded, bumbling off towards the kitchen. Jaro dropped his bag in the hall, staring into the parlour. A thin sheet of dust covered the piano and bookcase. They had always been Ma's pleasures, and without Jaro around to clean them...

"Your Hungarian does not sound so good anymore!" His father called. "You sound city! My country-grown son is gone, so it seems. After all that good work your mother and I did."

"I hardly spoken it," Jaro admitted. "Not many Hungarians in Chad, Pa."

"Eh? Who is Chad?"

Jaro grimaced. "It's a country in Central Africa, next to Libya and Sudan."

"I thought you lived in France." His father returned to the lounge, offering him a cup of hot espresso and beckoning him to sit. Jaro sat, feeling awkward on the old deep cushions of their couch. The Hungarian didn't sit right in his muzzle, it felt clunky around his tongue. He wished they could switch to English, but his father only spoke one language - though he often sang in three.

"No, that isn't how it works," Jaro explained, forcing patience. "We train in France, yes. After that, we went to Chad to try and help with the civil troubles there. To try and stabilise the region."

"Not Afghanistan?" His father frowned, leaning in. "Now that is trouble. You're... you are alright?" Sandor glanced up and down again, as if expecting to find Jaro missing an arm or leg he hadn't noticed.

"You started watching the news?" Jaro asked, blinking back surprise. He turned in his seat, studying the television in the corner. They only got satellite out here, and Sandor had only installed it thanks to the insistence of Jaro's mother - and he'd complained the entire time. The invasion had been a big deal all over the world, and he wasn't surprised his father had heard about September 11. But even so, to hear Sandor Tamasi actually ask about a current event...

"No, no, I pay no attention to world politics!" His father insisted, waving his paws. "It's... it's... Piroska, we have tea sometimes and she gossips to me. Thinks I should hear it, because my son might be there." Jaro raised an eyebrow. It felt like a pretty thin cover, but he didn't push it. "I don't need that world and it doesn't need me. I knew you wouldn't get mixed up in that mess." Jaro nodded.

"I remember, no news - only cow."

"Only cow," his father echoed, nodding sagely.

"Even so... I wasn't part of that, no. Some of my friends were, I think, but I left before they decided we should go." Operation Enduring Freedom. Jaro shivered.

"Oh," his father actually looked... relieved. Jaro hadn't imagined Pa ever losing much sleep over him, he was old fashioned; prided himself on being a 'such is life' kind of wolf. But now his tail wagged, just slightly. "So this is not a break? You are retired?"

"No. I'm... uh, I left."

"And..." Sandor shifted awkwardly, staring deep into his cup of tea, as if hoping it would spit out the answer to what he should tell his son. Ma had always been the softer one, the one that was good with words. Sandor was a doer. Ma could give a hug, Pa would change your oil. Jaro knew what his father wanted to ask, and more than that, he knew it would be better if he cut him off now. Told the truth.

Just say it already. He tried, but his tongue wouldn't move. Instead he just stared at his own coffee, while what felt like hours passed.

"So... you will move back home, you think?" Jaro flinched, a lance of guilt shooting through his chest. He glanced up, and saw his father looking... sheepish, almost afraid. It was something he'd never seen before. Of all the outcomes he'd expected from leaving for France, hurting his father had never been one of them. "I expect of course you might prefer to stay in France, now you know it and... all that, but... if you wanted... our home is always-"

"I have moved back, actually" Jaro interrupted, ripping off the bandaid. Didn't make it feel any better. "I mean... I mean I am back. In Hungary. After everything it was... time to come home."

"I see."

"Yeah, I've got an apartment in Budapest, and I'm working as a trauma nurse at a hospital there. They need people with experience and I... have it. I was a medic, y'know, overseas." His father's expression went through a series of odd motions, ones Jaro could almost track. Disgust, at the mere mention of the country capital; Sandor hated Budapest, and he hated that it was the only place people knew about in Hungary. He chose to live near Pécs for that very reason. Then there was maybe shame, or confusion. Leaving the country to become a soldier for a different nation had been hard enough for him to swallow, but now he was hearing his son was a nurse. A woman's job, in Sandor's mind.

"I understand," he muttered, placing his teacup down with shaking paws. "The world is changing. My son, a proper city-boy now, then."

Jaro laughed, wishing the moment would end already. "I suppose so." Each word felt like it was cutting through him, a hot knife driven through the tension knotting in his chest.

"And how long have you been back in Hungary? In... in Budapest?"

"Um," he hesitated, staring at his feet. Each word had to be dragged up by force. He wanted to be sick. "I didn't mean to... I meant to write you sooner, Pa, but. I didn't know what to say."

"I am your father, no? Why would you not know what to say?"

Jaro looked up, meeting his father's eyes. "I... left the Legion a year ago. Since then I've been in Budapest."

Sandor said nothing. After an agonisingly long pause, he stood, moving to Ma's piano, long shoved into the corner of the room. He ran a finger through the dust, examining it, as if only seeing it for the first time.

"I'm sorry, Pa," Jaro said.

"It is what it is." His father shook his head. "A year." Jaro had expected disappointment, even rage. He'd had premonitions of screaming and throwing, and in reality would have welcomed it. Anger was easier to match, it was an action that demanded reaction. His father was at heart a kind man, but he'd never shied away from the belt when Jaro was a small pup. This quiet, vulnerable sadness was somehow much worse. "My own son comes home a full year, and can't bear to tell me. Am I so terrible?"

"I should have told you."

Sandor only shook his head slowly again, still looking at the piano. "I'm not sure if this is your failure, or my own."

Jaro sat, shifting in place, unsure what to say next. He wanted to admit it was his own fault, that he was a terrible son for even leaving in the first place. He wanted to say something, anything to help pause the hurt his father was feeling.

His father sniffed sharply, pinching his muzzle. "Please, can you go to the cellar and... feed some fuel to the furnace."

Jaro finally stood, his paralysis broken. "Pa... I didn't..."

"It's going to be a very cold night." His tone was one of finality, and so Jaro only nodded, turning on his heel.

One down, one to go, he thought. It had gone, somehow, worse than he imagined. Now he only had the other secret. But how could he even be sure of that himself? Maybe it's easier to just let sleeping wolves lie. That felt cowardly though. What would Boz do?

In the kitchen, Jaro moved to the cellar door with a disquieting familiarity. It was as if he were seventeen again, obsessing over brochures about the French Foreign Legion, imagining himself as some hardened battle veteran, well-travelled and worldly. He felt small, like he had back then. Like nothing existed but this fucking farm in the middle of nowhere. He'd talked to many people overseas, and they all asked where he was from. Nobody could ever name a single Hungarian city outside Budapest. Just like his father complained about.

When you were here, in this place that had no name, the rest of the world simply faded away.

He opened the cellar door, staring down into the dark.

It's just a set of stairs and a hole in the ground.

As a small boy, the cellar had terrified him. Many nights he spent lying awake, imagining dark things crawling out from it. Even now it caused a catch in his step, and Jaro found himself blushing at the childishness of it. The door wobbled and creaked, the mildewy stonework laced with dust and cobwebs. It was dark, and the dim bulb swinging in the centre did little to help.

Each step his foot touched screamed no matter how gently you treated it, and though he rarely saw any bugs or spiders, still Jaro felt them. It was a shivering down his neck, an ancient primordial sense of being watched by a predator. Something crawling around unseen, precisely intelligent eyes stitching his every move.

Worse than that, there was something new. It was a feeling he'd never noticed as a small one, but he felt it now, a fresh sensation accompanying the old fears, all of them digging their claws in. He felt like the invisible eyes knew he was prey, he felt its pressure urging him to step deeper into the trap, to offer himself belly-up. He could practically feel the breathy whispers on the back of his neck, an invisible force nudging him along.

At the foot of the stairs, he fought against the urge to run to the end of the cellar. Instead Jaro forced himself to walk slowly, not jumping at the shadows, not shying away from the sinister shapes obscured behind blankets and crumbling furniture. There was nothing there, just the nostalgia for fear. Country folks this far out threw away nothing, and so anything Sandor no longer needed was stacked down here. That's all this is, latent hoarding.

The furnace lay at the far end, large and metallic, a soft red haze emanating from the fires within. Very old fashioned, but it kept the entire house warm and toasty in the chillier months.

Jaro could almost swear he heard his own name on the air, like someone calling to him. Beckoning him.

I'm not a child, and I'm not afraid of the dark anymore. He thought, gritting his teeth as he finally reached the furnace. It felt wrong to put his back to the cellar, like any moment whatever was hiding there would creep up and grab him. Still, he forced it, keeping his tail clear as he opened the latch and shoved four pieces of chopped wood deep into the heat. Boz would laugh if he knew something like this was unsettling him so bad. There's nothing here, I'm not frightened.

"But you sssshould be..."

Jaro flinched, whirling to face the dark. It sounded like... like someone had just whispered in his ear.

"Pa?" He asked, craning his neck, trying to peer deeper into the murderous shadows stretching before him. The cellar was large, but now it felt cavernous. As if the stairs were miles away, and the darkness were a great pit in the earth opening to swallow him whole. "Was that you?"

He still felt as if something were watching him, creeping about the edges of his awareness. Blinking. He could feel the stickiness of it blink at him. A predator, staring at prey.

What is that? He took one step forward, paw instinctually reaching to his hip, grasping for a pistol that wasn't there. As if a handgun would help against the threat of nothing. There's nothing there, this is stupid.

Was it? He narrowed his eyes, peering deeper until-

The silence was shattered by a sudden scream from outside, high pitched and pained, like a wounded animal. "Fuck!" Jaro winced backwards, one paw clutching at his heart. Shaking his head, he glanced around. A sheep. That was the bleating cry of a sheep in pain. Nothing more.

He turned back to the darkness of the cellar. Whatever 'presence' he had imagined before was nowhere to be felt now, and the size of the room seemed returned to normal.

You idiot.

Pushing it from his mind, Jaro skipped back to the stairs, taking them two at a time and ignoring their wails.

"Pa!" He cried, checking each of the main rooms and finding nothing. "PA!" He shouted upstairs, cupping his paws around his muzzle. "You heard the sheep?" When he got no response, he shrugged, returning to the door and tugging his coat on.

Moving outside into the cold night, he saw boot prints leading through the mud, past the 4WD and towards the big barn. It was the one closest to the house, and as Jaro followed his father's footprints he saw the two barn doors had been flung wide, now left banging in the wind, a lone figure slumped between them.

"Hey!" He cried, jogging over, mindful not to slip in the loose soil. The sunlight was all but gone now, and Jaro's eyes strained in the gloom. Relief washed over him as he realised the body was that of a stock sheep, splattered with gore. The relief soon soured however, as he saw what had been done to it.

Torn open at the neck, the head was scarcely still attached to the body, nothing but ligaments and scraps of flesh linking the two. Blood and gore had pumped out across the stones, still warm and stinking of copper. "Shit, Pa!" Jaro cried into the barn, getting nothing back. "Did you see this?! Damn it, PA?!" This wasn't a predatory area, and he had no idea what kind of wild beast this far out could do that to a sheep so quickly, but whatever it was it needed shooting.

Pushing forward, Jaro found the steaming bodies of two more sheep, his father's shotgun abandoned in the mud between their corpses. They seemed... deflated, their skin sucked tight to the bones of their small bodies. Jaro had seen a lot of corpses over the past few years, and fresh ones did not look that way.

What the hell is this? He wondered, picking up the shotgun and racking it - still loaded. "Pa?" He asked again, pushing deeper into the barn. Stacks of hay and large farm equipment kept him from a clear view as he moved, bracing the gun into his shoulder, barrel pointed at the ground. Had to be careful, the last thing he needed right now was to accidentally shoot his own father.

"Jarossssslav...." A whisper, barely an exhale, practically imagined. Jaro shook his head, trying to let his battle training kick in. His ears were struggling for something to latch onto, and in turn creating their own feedback loops. "Such a handsome boy..."

"Someone there?" Jaro asked, raising the shotgun as he stepped around a tall stack of hay bales. The whispers sounded like they were coming from him, like they were thoughts of his own. Only he could hear them, he would swear it.

He pressed deeper yet, fighting his stinging lungs to keep himself from hyperventilating in the chill air. "Pa? Pa?" He whispered through gritted teeth. The air stunk like blood and hay. "Pa, say something."

"_What a pretty slave you'd make." _

"Who's there?" Jaro asked, his own voice barely more than a whisper. His paws were shaking, even wrapped around the gun, fingers hurting from how tight he was gripping the trigger. Even in active warzones he'd never felt this way. What the hell was going on? The hackles on his neck were up, and every instinct in his body was screaming at him to run, to flee into the night and never look back.

He stepped past a rusted auger and saw it. His father, splayed on the ground belly-up, pale beneath his fur and missing most of his shirt, along with half the flesh on his shoulders. Crouched over him, heaving its emaciated body in time with vile slurping sounds, was what seemed like some kind of hairless feline creature. It had tall ears and a winding tail, shoulder blades protruding beneath taut flesh. It looked sickly and thin, the skin pale and weak, mottled by sores. Cancer-ridden.

"Quesquecette merde?" Jaro gasped, accidentally defaulting to French. The creature's ears pricked at that and it jerked suddenly. Despite having the frame of a person, it moved like a tarantula, all limbs swaying in one vile liquid-motion. It scurried to the opposite side of Sandor's twitching body, its face indeed that of some leopard, furred only in torrid small patches. It was pale like a ghoul, save for the crimson gore smeared from its lips to its chest, the red blood flashing in the dim evening light. It met Jaro's gaze and hissed through a row of needlepoint fangs, even as those whispers continued tumbling out in his ears, not coming from the creature, but not coming from anywhere else either.

"Let flow, children of the blood glow... ffffffor the one eternal...."

"What are you doing?" Jaro asked, in English. "Get back! Get back! BACK!" He said it again and again, waving the shotgun barrel, trying English, French, Hungarian, and even Arabic. None of them worked, and the creature only continued to hiss, rising slowly from its squat, jaw unhinging to reveal two major fangs protruding on either side of its mouth. Its eyes were night-black with blood red pupils, wide and swelling wider. Jaro almost lost himself in them, freezing slightly, hypnotised by the depth and intensity.

"Ssssuffer...."

The monster lunged toward him and he squeezed the trigger. The gun exploded, kicking as the buckshot hit the creature square in the chest, knocking it aside. It crashed into a post while hissing and wailing, instantly scrambling forward on all fours. Its limbs moved wrong, stretching too far, bending slightly too much. It scrambled across the ground as Jaro fired two more shots, leaping to the wall and bounding from point to point. It moved incredibly fast, faster than anything he'd ever seen. Just watching it sent ripples of revulsion coursing through his veins.

"Pa!" Jaro cried, spinning in place, just trying to keep track of the bloodied creature. "Pa, can you hear me?!" He glanced down, and saw his father moving slightly, a faint gurgle emanating from his chest. He stepped over him, taking a knee by his side, keeping one paw on the trigger of the gun. The monster had vanished, but he could still feel it creeping around the barn.

"What happened, what is this?" Jaro muttered, putting some fingers to his father's neck and feeling his pulse. A vein had been ruptured, and blood was still rhythmically pumping out, though it was difficult to tell how severe it was due to the number of wounds. "Can you hear me? Pa, can you hear?"

His father coughed, black blood bursting up to his lips. "Jaro... Jaro..."

"Pa, listen to me," Jaro ordered. He took his father's paw in his own, pushing his palm to what he guessed was the deepest cut in Sandor's neck.

A bite? Was it drinking his blood?

"Keep pressure here, okay? Push in, push down, hard as you can, and stay awake alright? Stay awake!"

"Run..." His father whispered, eyes rolling in his head.

"Pa!" Jaro cried. "Pa, please!"

Up ahead, the creature stepped out from behind the auger, still hissing as it moved.

"Fffilthy meal," it snarled, this time the words coming from its own throat. It was shielding one half of its body, the withered skin shredded from the shotgun's buckshot.

"Get back!" Jaro cried, giving up on any specific language and just shouting in what came naturally. The creature splayed its claws, and he saw each finger ended in a long bladed nail. The action was like that of a cobra, trying to rear up and intimidate its foe. The monster bared its fangs and Jaro fired again, aiming for the head. The shot connected as the creature was thrown back into a hay bale, but seemed otherwise unhurt, picking itself up and coming forward again.

Jaro put his back to the wall and racked the gun, and the creature seized its chance, lunging for him teeth-first. He slammed the slide forward as it hit. It was an incredible force, like being kicked by a bull. Needle-point fangs sunk into his shoulder as his paws fumbled, losing his grip on the gun as the monster's momentum continued forward into him, a loud crack sounding the two of them crashed through the wall of the barn, planks exploding outwards as they tumbled over into the muck.

They hit the ground, Jaro trying to rip free, to pry the thing off himself as best he could, but it was impossibly strong. With his shoulder locked in its jaw, it shook its head like a rabid dog, tearing muscle and greedily sucking up the spray of blood. He tried to gouge at its sunken red eye, but with one claw it easily shoved him aside. Panic gripped him - he felt like a child matched against an adult. The more he fought, the more he began to realise how incredibly powerless he truly was.

So strong!

He screamed, thrashing his legs, even as an agonising numbness began to seep through his body, pins stabbing at him from his toes to his fingers. The creature released his shoulder and snarled, allowing him a chance to try and crawl out from beneath it. It seized him by the face, lifting near half his body weight with the ease of one claw, before viciously slamming the back of his head deep into the ground. The soil was hard and cold, and white flashed in Jaro's eyes, his vision blurring.

"Nnnnugh, pleash." He gurgled woozily, realising blood was filling his mouth. He could feel it, the cold certainty that he was about to die. This thing, whatever it was, was actually grinning, licking the drips of gore from its lips.

"You're going to be mine, you pretty little ssslave..." the monster hissed, pushing its red lips against his own, a tight wrap of fingers forcing a perfect seal. Through his muffled screams, Jaro felt the thing's tongue push inside his maw. No... it was more than a tongue, it was like a long eel, it just kept going, deeper and deeper, forcing its way down. For a moment he couldn't breathe, his throat full of the strange, gelatinous undulations. He bucked in place futilely, eyes bulging in their sockets as his body screamed for air.

Then, as suddenly as it came - it was gone, replaced only by a thick, dull ache in his chest.

"No!" He babbled, saliva and gore dribbling from his mouth as the thing pulled away. He was barely fighting back now, pathetically trying to push it off, but it was like fighting the ocean. Impossible. All he could focus on was the vile sting in his throat. "What..." He wanted to retch.

"You'll be miiiine," the thing promised, using one claw to open up a slice through its own palm. It shoved him down, dangling the wounded paw above him, deep black blood dripping from the open wound onto his face, into his pleading mouth.

Jaro coughed, spluttered, revolted by whatever was happening. The creature laughed, like a person, as he rolled onto his belly and began to crawl away.

"You won't get fffffar without me, fresh one, they never do!"

There was noise in the distance. A motorcycle, or a car, maybe gunfire. Something. Jaro paid it no mind, he crawled for his life. His back was to the creature, and he had no thoughts but survival. He just... had to get away, had to stop feeling like a steak on the chopping block.

His vision was blurred, but he saw feet in combat boots, heard the braka-brak of automatic gunfire. People were yelling, and spotlights were all around him. He realised with a start he was moving, rolling along somewhere. Something huge was on fire, he could feel the heat. The barn? Where was the creature?

"Where, where...." He tried to say, the cold numbness from before spreading up through his belly and into his chest. His body wasn't working properly now, twitching and seizing as he moved. "Pa... P-pa?"

Someone was leaning over him, screaming in his face. What language? They were wearing a mask. Was he sick? It made no sense. What was that thing? Panic gripped him and he tried to scream.

He tried to ask for help, but none of it came out, only a horrible kind of regurgitation, bile and stomach acid burning his tongue. He could feel himself sinking, deeper and deeper into the ground. A helicopter whirled overhead. Someone stabbed him in the chest with something. Adrenaline? Was he back in Chad?

Where was his father? Was he alright, or even alive? He tried in vain to paw away at someone trying to get a needle in his arm, an oxygen mask on his face, they were also wearing a hazmat outfit.

Am I infected?

"No...." Jaro blinked, and once more, and then he was out.