The Croche Method

1

My eyes drift open. Hope fills me like it had filled me for the last 30 days. Then, it dissipates, like it did, for the last 30 days. The sun hadn't come up yet. The darkness still fills the air. Cauley stirs above me, and I get out of the bed. I yawn and rub the sleep out of my eyes, and then go to get breakfast. A plain apple. Well, two actually, so I take one and bite into it. I wince at the cold and sour. Cauley takes the other one, and we both go outside of the building.

Many people had died. Mostly humans, but there were a few of the dead that had magic. All of them, when we found them, had been bleeding from their noses. I just really hope Mum hasn't died. We had already thoroughly explored the facility. Well, maybe not thoroughly, but still, we searched. And we couldn't find anything.

We also had to avoid the Shadows too. We didn't know what was held inside them, but they were clearly something that had killed everyone. And we did not want to find out. These shadows chased you. There were growling sounds coming from them. They were horrible, the darkest kinds of horror you could find in the world. It was almost like they were nightmares, like you could see all your fears magnified in them. That was what scared me about them. I didn't want to face my fears, nor did I want to die.

We (my sister and I) had run through a few theories as to what it could be (a disease, a monster, toxic fumes, nuclear radiation, a new type of magic, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera), but none of them seemed right. Though I don't see how anything could be right in this world.

The grass feels soft and cool beneath my feet. In the darkness, it's hard to see, but it feels empty, like there is no life around us. We're hiding out, for now, in one of the buildings in the city. The whole city area was searched by government officials, who had been searching for any survivors of the Shadows. We just managed to escape, but they'll come searching for us again. They had practically forced every survivor to come, arresting them, beating them, even shooting them. It was horrible. I guess they were scared of the Shadows, just as much as we are, but why did they have to exert so much force into getting them to come to their facility?

We have found many survivors, but none that were human. It was almost like we had formed tribes that were separated but were connected all the same. If one group got attacked by the Shadows or the facility experimenters, at least some of us would survive. These were the two main fears and concerns that we had to worry about; Shadows and the government. We hadn't had time to worry about our now minor concerns, like my fear of fighting and confrontation with something deadly, or Cauley's fear of spiders. (They are not scary, I have explained to Cauley, and they are probably more scared of her than she is of them, but she just hates them.) It's surprising how much has changed since the Shadows arrived in this world.

Once we go back inside the apartment, I settle down onto the couch and notice something white, flat, and rectangular. I pick it up. It's an envelope, addressed to me. There isn't any suggestion as to whom this letter is from. I rip it open, not knowing what the hell I was going to find inside, pull the letter out, unfold it, and start to read:

Dear Hallet and Cauley Croche

You must be wondering who I am, first of all. It isn't every day you receive a letter from a strange person, asking you to do something that probably hasn't been done before, although I imagine that it would be a good turn-out for you if you succeed. But before I get into all of that, I would like to tell you a bit about myself. My name is Inos Dock, and I used to know your mother.

June and I used to work together, as agents for an organization called the AMM, or the Administrative Ministry for Magic. We had worked together for years on several projects and missions, some secret, some not. But one mission, in particular, was, in a way, one of the most important ones in our career. It would change my life forever, and hers. This mission, called the Luckwoss mission, was an investigation that eventually turned into a halting protocol, into the methods that were used to study a new creature that had been discovered by researchers only a month before we caught onto it. The creature in question was called informally, the Shadow Creature. A more formal name for it was decided on soon. They were called the Luckwoss.

These creatures travel in shadow, and almost always in a pack. They had the ability to show your deepest, darkest fears, and that is why people are killed as soon as they come into contact with them. Their fears overwhelm them, and they die. The investigation continued, long after the creatures were discovered. It was clear the experimenters were hiding something. This led us to an idea; your mother could go undercover to work at the facility, to truly uncover what they were hiding. It was actually her who proposed the idea. But, as you may know, after her first shift, she took you home, and everything went to hell.

You must often think why that happened, don't you? Well, I can tell you that it was because your mother found something out, something that the experimenters did not want her to find out, if they had known that she knew. June found out that the experimenters were planning to release the Luckwoss into the world that night, a month ago, and kill everyone in it. Well, maybe not everyone. The reason why is unknown. She had just managed to wire this info to us before they called her, and she decided to stop them herself. But she was too late. They had been released and they had killed every human in this world.

But you might be wondering where your mother actually is. Not to worry. We, the AMM, have her in the building, alive and well.

You also might be wondering why I am writing this letter to you. It's not just to tell you all this, is it? There must be some hidden agenda behind this message, mustn't there be? Well, I am sorry to say that, yes there is an agenda, and I am sorry for requesting this hard favour from you, but I would like you and your sister to visit the facility and find out exactly what was going on there, and why the experimenters wanted to kill everyone in the world. I know that you would rather see your Mum than do this tricky task, and, of course, nothing is stopping you from coming to the AMM building without completing my request, but I would just like for you to consider this task, without any pressure of doing it.

Kind Regards

Inos Dock