Journal of the Monster Hunter

The Agency

12/11/21

So the date was November 15th, I was sitting in homeroom texting Eilis about our date plans that night when the raid sirens started going off. Our town was under attack by the Appalachian Raiders again. Ever since the destroyed the last of our militia in 1990, they've attacked randomly whenever their egos felt bruised. The government only sent relief supplies after the attacks, not actually helping. This time, there were monster hunters in town so we thought they'd keep us safe. As it would turn out, NAMH had some sort of rule that they only killed Monsters unless attacked first. That's some bullshit right there.

Raiders busted open the doors and started shaking us all down. Now I wasn't gonna sit here and get robbed, these shit for brains haven't taken anything from me since they killed my father. So, I snuck into the tunnels beneath the school and intended to find Eilis first. Oh yeah, my high school has had a shit ton of renovations so there are tunnels and "hidden" access ways. Anyway, I got to the access hatch that would get me into Eilis' classroom. I lifted the hatch a little to see that one of the raiders was in the middle of an argument with one of the teachers.

"I'm not just gonna let you take these kids!" The teacher shouted.

"Yeah? Well I ain't askin' and the boss needs recruits." The raider says, pressing the barrel of his shotgun to the teacher's chest. "Now...you gonna be a good boy and comply or am I splatterin' your innards across the window in front of all these impressionable youngsters."

The teacher shut up. The rest of the raiders rounded up the class, all of them varying ages, and started leaving. I could see Eilis looking around, struggling in the grip of a Raider. She started kicking and punching the raider. "Let go of me!" She shouts. Another raider tried to cover her mouth but she bit him. "Leo! Help!" She called our while looking around right before being gagged. I leapt out from my hiding spot and grabbed a chair. With a battle cry I lifted the chair and slammed it into the side of the head of one of the raiders. I stepped up on one of the desks to propel myself into he air and attempted to land an absolute haymaker on the raider that was holding Eilis. That's when I was thrown into the wall by the first raider. I began to stand and saw Eilis being taken away.

"So kid, you're trying to play hero? What's with the shades? You hungover or something?" The raider, who was an orc, says as he cracked his knuckles. "I'll give it to you, ya hit kinda hard."

The teacher interjected. "You know, I would advise you just surrender, Mr. Krüger, your more likely to-"

"Fuck off! You're the reason I'm fighting this shit bag." I said as I tossed my sunglasses off and put my fists up.

"Don't worry kid, I'm not gonna kill you yet." The orc says as he pulled out a knife. "But I'll skin you alive in front of your girlfriend."

"Stop talking and fucking fight me!" I roared as I rushed him and landed a fist into his gut. I delivered an uppercut that barely made him stumble. He elbowed me in the back of the head, causing me to hit the ground hard. He stomped on my back.

"What? You really thought you'd win? What did you think would happen?" The orc grabbed me by the back of my shirt and lifted me up to be face to face with him. "Let me guess. You were gonna beat all the bad guys. We'd never come back, you'd solve all the world's problems and you'd get the girl all while you don't kill a single one of us cause if you did you'd be at our level." He says as he raised the knife. "You're not living in a comic book kid, as much as it would be fun to see that little Half-elf cry, you're just too pathetic to waste the time on." He attempted to stab me in the gut but a moved my leg in the way of the blade.

The blade pierced through my leg, scraping past the bone. I screamed out in pain bug a smile crept past my bone. I grabbed the hand that held the back of my shirt with one hand and put my hand on his face with the other. I pushed my thumb into his eye until it popped. He dropped me and backed up, holding his face and screaming. "You know...I fully intended to kill you the moment she was in danger. Every. Single. One of you." Ripping the knife from my leg, I began to limp over to the orc who stumbled against the wall.

He looked up and growled at me. "You little shit!" He ran at me, intending to tackle me. I didn't even move, just rose the knife above my head and as he slammed into me, I stabbed him in the neck. I dragged the knife until his neck was completely open then shoved him off of myself.

I could feel the rage boiling inside of me and began limping into the hallway. I got into the hall and saw that the raiders were gone. I started my way towards the front entrance. I opened the front doors to see trucks full of kids I went to school with. The raiders started driving away with six left behind. They had explosives. They were going to destroy the school. I wouldn't let that happen. I began to limp down the steps towards one of them, adrenaline took over as the pain in my leg was forgotten and my limp became a run. I leapt into the air with a yell, alerting the unaware raiders and landed on one of them, driving the knife down into his skull. I lifted my head to see one of the raiders already had his weapon aimed at me. That should have been the end for me right there, but the raider was gunned down, followed by the rest. A familiar voice spoke behind me. "You got a spark kid, we could use that."

I turned around to see the face of one of the school's janitors. But instead of the normal janitorial gear, he was wearing a tactical vest. In his hands was a gun. There were other armored and armed individuals in tactical gear. All of them had the same symbol on their shoulder patch, a red triangle with the words "Certa in Tenebris, in Luce Mori". He outstretched a hand to me. "We've been watching you for some time."

"How long?" I asked as I sat on the ground. I was panting and out of breath.

"Long enough to know you want revenge and were seemingly born for our job. Name's Carter." The janitor, who's name I had just learned, says.

"So...you're offering me to join your little kill team so you can exploit my differences while giving me the hope I can rescue my friends." I responded while tilting my head.

"Well...when you put it like that I guess it sounds ba-"

"I'm in." I said before he finished. I looked down at my leg. "Oh yeah...can I get some help with this?"

Carter laughed. "That's the neat thing, son. To join our 'little kill team'—as you put it—you need to be dead." I could hear Velcro unsnapping.

"What?" I looked up to see a handgun being pointed at my head. The last thing I remembered was the muzzle flash then it felt like I instantly woke up in a hospital bed. I shot out of bed with a jolt and a scream.

"Easy there, killer." A voice to my left said. I looked in the direction of the voice and saw a doctor. "You know, we don't know what you are. You appear human, your insides are human, but everything else about you doesn't make sense."

"Yeah, I hear that a lot. Where am I?" I asked as I looked at my arms. I was in some sort of military fatigues. A green-grey t-shirt shirt and green army pants.

"Well, officially you're dead. Well, technically you were actually dead for 48 hours. You tried to defying the Appalachian Raiders, took two of them with you before getting shot in the head. Welcome to The Agency, cadet." The doctor handed me a map. "Normally, bringing people back is easy and they wake up in the barracks where their questions are answered later. Not only did your body not only refused to die, it's almost like it refused to believe it had died."

"Uh...I have more questions." I got out of the bed and stood up.

"Follow the map down to Barracks 2-B and wait  for your drill sergeant to get there and join up with the rest of your company." The doctor says while giving me a stern look.

"Alright..." I said before I was on my way, following the map.

I gotta go again, my sergeant is calling my name.