No one is sure how this thing truly began, all we know is where we are at now.

  One of the first stories to come into public view was one in southern Florida, and everyone was rightfully confused. Many people didn’t believe anything was happening, and I’m sure you would be that same if you read the original article yourself.

  It went as followed:

  “Local family found in accelerated decomp in riverside home, Police are puzzled, and the US Government is silent”

  No one exactly knew what that meant, and the people apart of it were just as confused and scared. More scared then the public, because they knew that the article gave no word of how everything truly was. The thing was, no one knew everything, and we wouldn’t know much of anything until someone was able to go in and investigate the source. The first spot everything began, in that small home in Blackwater Florida.

  The preparation for this investigation took a couple of months before we decided to actually begin. We called in the family of the homeowners and talked to them apart from the home, wanting no one outside of the unit in any sort of contact with what may be inside.

  “So, did you see anything that may had changed in the days leading up to your sisters passing?” Dr. Gourmont asked the women, she was holding onto a bracelet tightly in her hand. A nice and clean silver bracelet with a simple seahorse charm hanging from it, it was her sisters. She shakes her head before looking up. “Nothing at all that I can think of, she was her normal self… She was a little more paranoid though, she would say some weird things.” She said, remembering something that she may had not connected until now.

  “What do you mean by paranoid?” He asked, she kept her eyes down.

  “Um, she mentioned how she wanted to move her and her child to a more safe town. She didn’t feel too safe in Blackwater anymore.” She said, earning the man across from her to nod.

  The two had been watched through two way glass, people on the other side taking notes on computers as well as having a small camcorder propped up to archive the session. They didn’t plan on a follow up, not that they thought she would agree to one as it took too much convincing even for this one. So they needed to ask all the questions, even if it wouldn’t be the most practical for the poor women.

  “Look. Meg I’m sorry for your loss but for us you need to answer all of out questions-” Gourmont said, but was quickly cut off from speaking.

  “You don’t seem to be sorry, asking me all of these damn questions when I didn’t want to come in the first place! Why are all of these even relevant to this case, nothing you have said so far makes any sense and it makes me think you have no clue what you are doing!” She snapped, face full of fury, tears pooling out of her eyes as her rage began to bubble over. Gourmont sighed out, slumping over onto the table to shrink himself down a little.

  In full honesty the man didn’t truly feel anything for this women, the idea of figuring this all out weighed much more heavy than a distraught ‘Patient’. He was a physiatrist after all, years of work before moving to what he does now made his compassion for others very short lived and hard to come by. This case is no different, he just knew what buttons to push on people so they would play like how he wanted them too.

  “I really am truly sorry, but all of this is between us and my higher ups. Nothing is shown or told to others outside of us. I am here for you, and I am here for your family in this time of need… I just need you to hold out a little longer so I can get my questions answered. They will make sense soon I promise.” He explained, she shrunk a little as he spoke. His words hitting her like warm butter, and it was working.

  “Fine. If it helps I will continue.”

  Bingo.

  This all brings us to the house, it sat on a lonely highway out side of town, surrounded in all directions with tall and dense trees. I’m sure this would look pretty if not considering the reason the home was so crowded. People stood in every room, holding clipboards and setting up camera equipment that would be on constant broadcast for the upcoming week. Nothing is to be missed and not a single square inch of the home is to not be covered by film. Gourmont was very particular is finding this all out, the idea of not made him burst into fits of anger that would affect all of us.

  I was on the tactical team, along with four others we would be the ones staying here for the rest of the investigation. Sleep here, and live here with whatever might had caused this. For this reason the air was thick, fear and dread from each of us was dense enough to cut with a knife and everyone could see this. Just, no one really cared. We all knew the risk, the probability of something happening was very high and the possibility of all of us not finishing is even higher.

  We knew we could die, and we knew at least one of us would. But we had nothing we could do to back out, we signed our life to this project when we joined under false words and promises.

  Myself and the others on the tactical team gathered in a small semicircle around our chief, he began to talk about the upcoming weekend and what to expect. But my mind began to wander as I ghosted my eyes over towards the house and then to the tree line. I saw a soft gust of a shadow, moving like the wind across the dense line of oak trucks. I blinked, I wanted to shake my head but before I could even begin that motion I heard my name being shouted.

  “Gallagher! Have you heard one word from my mouth?” He shouted at me, causing me to slightly flinch as I looked at him. “Yes sir!” I called back, in reality I heard not a word the man had said. He stared at me for a moment longer before giving a short nod, and continuing his speech.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  We walked into the house, and for the first time in this whole project so far that deep and guttural feeling hit me hard in the chest. The death, sorrow, fear… I felt every bit of it, and it felt so so terrifying.

  The thought of sleeping here, where this once happy family called home, now all covered in military and FBI to figure out their own demise. It would almost be poetic if not being so grim.

  I wandered a bit away, peeking into a room that was lit in a soft glow of amber. It had soft pink painted walls with a soft plush white rug sprawled across the dark wooden floors. Toys stacked neatly in the corner across from a too small bed decorated with once well loved plush animals. It was a child’s room, Analise….

  The small girl, no older than 6 I believe use to own this room. The air began to grow more and more thick, not from fear but from sadness. I could practically feel the small girls sadness from beyond the living, her soul floating across my own as if doing a slow dance. It was almost beautiful, but it wouldn’t end any other way than the small girl suffering from something she couldn’t even understand herself.

  “I see you found your bunk” I heard a voice behind me, I spun around seeing Gourmont stood there with a soft smile. “I saw it fitting as you’re the only women on our mission, to have this room to be your bunk” he said, but the smile he gave was anything over than comfort or warmth… it sneered heavy with venom, he wanted me to be scared. And it was working.

  “Fine, what are we doing first?” I asked, earning a small hum from him as he thought back. “Just a sweep to start off with, you’re taking down here along with Jameson, Richard will be taking the attic alone as it’s small and then the rest will be outside and in the basement.” He explained, which I nodded at. “Alright, I will go meet up with him after I put my stuff down.” I said, Gourmont nodded and walked out without anything further.

  I placed my stuff down, looked around the room once more before leaving out to find Jameson in order to start our sweep. Him and a couple other men were bunked in the living room, sleeping bags still curled up in the corner to leave the most space possible with that and all of our camera equipment. “You ready?” He called to me, earning me to look over to him and nod my head. “As I can be.” I said honestly.

  Jameson nods and grabs a GoPro to clip into his chest harness, throwing me one as well to do the same. We nodded to one another before going on to walk through the house, I took down the hallway while the other went to the kitchen to scope it out and use our small phone like devices to check for any changes in magnetic resonance and temperature change. I felt like those ghost hunters on TV, just a lot more dangerous.

  I sighed out, and as I walked under the attic ladder my emf spiked up to the middle for a moment. I paused, walking backwards a couple of steps and it did the same thing. I blinked for a moment in confusion before my thoughts were answered.

  Above me I heard a voice call out, before the most loud and guttural scream I’ve heard from a human play through my ears, Before a single gunshot was fired from a gun. My head snapped up, before I quickly sprint up the small ladder and into the attic, what I saw made me stop going up any further.

  Laid out on the ground of the attic was Richard, an older man who had hailed from my more run and go side of the FBI. I sweet, nice man who I had called a friend, now sprawled across the thin wooden floor with blood and brain matter flowing out of every possible place in his skull.

  It wasn't long before the others followed me up the ladder, seeing what had happened to our fellow comrade. If I hadn't had any prior stress and fear training before any of this I'm sure id be laid out on the floor soaked in my own piss as I scream cried in order for the picture of all of this to go away. But all I could do was stare blankly, widened eyes, as the man laid out on the floor.

  "Holy shit!" Jameson screamed. We all looked to him as he hurried down the wooden ladder and back down to the floor. "Wh-what the fuck! Did he do that to himself? Why would he shoot himself?" He asked, throwing up his arm in a rushed point towards the general direction of the mans body.

  "How are we meant to know? Someone has to go and grab the GoPro so we can look at his camera footage." Mathews said, all of us sending slight glances that said all they had to... I'm not fucking doing it, you do it. Mathews grumbled, shoving past me and unclipping the camera off of his harness before going back down.

  "Someone call the body truck to get him out." He grumbled as he walked more into the living room, disappearing behind the wall as he turned to the left.

  We all made our way into the small room and gathered around the tv in a tight squeeze. Jameson our resident tech went through the camera file and cased it's last recording onto the screen:

  Richard in the video sighs out, shoving his pistol into high thigh holster, checking to make sure it was secure and ready for any possible running or contact with the floor. No one here really knows what to think, let alone prepare for so we just think anything is going to happen because anything really can, and possibly will.

  Once he found it was nice and tight he clicked on his EMF reader and walked over towards the attic, reaching up and yanking down the heavy attic door with a loud squeak. "Lets get this over with." He mutters before climbing up the ladder. Because of the short celling he had to get onto his knees in order to make his was around the room. Shuffling along with dusty wooden floors he moves his flashlight and EMF reader along with where his eyesight took him.

  Before he paused, he saw something. "What the fuck is that?" He whispered to himself, moving a little more forward before stopping again. Only this time both of his hands began to shake. "Fuck!" He whispered out, voice cracking fear as his body moved to try and turn him around the get the fuck out of there. But it just snapped back into place to where he was last looking at. To him, there was something right in front of him, to us however is just an empty room with nothing but the glowing red EMF reader and a million particles of dust flying about.

  With his hands still shaking, his hand dropped the EMF reader to the floor with a deep thump. The hand once holding it then shakingly reached down to his side where a metallic click was heard, which had been the metal clip keeping his gun tightly in his holster. That then came into view, it would go up a bit, twitch back downward, go back up and repeat that process for a couple seconds before finally meeting its destination at the bottom of his jaw. Richard then screamed, the camera footage on his chest shook as he cried out, before the gun went off and his whole body crumbled to the ground in almost a wet thump. It wouldn't move again until Mathews went to grab it from his holster and finally turn it off.

  None of us knew what the fuck happened, or how to interpret it until later on in the mission but for now we didn't know what to do. All we could do was contact both the body truck and Gourmont to come back to cabin to help us with it... Which wouldn't be for hours with how far into the woods we were...