Bladed Cross

PART ONE: THE ATTACKS: COLLINS

Our story changes the world. The world, unaware, adapts to it. Despite our pain, our suffering, our very Future is what it depends on. The voices of their hearts will impact the very foundations of a bloodied and exhausted humanity.

COLLINS

It had been an intense morning, due to Owen Collins having an argument with his wife over personal matters.

       

Theirs was no toxic relationship, quite the opposite. It was the typical nature of human disposition that gave him the need to get away for a while.

A gentle summer wind blew through the trees and out onto the lake, which shimmered and sparkled. The sky was blue and cloudless. A large hillside rose up on the eastern side of the lake, and flat ground on the western side, which the northern and southern sides mirrored. All the surrounding country was thick green forest. It was the middle of the day on June 10th2028, and Owen was sitting in his green, two seated Crawdad boat about three hundred feet from shore, and looking at the scenery, taking it all in. Demon Lake seemed to stretch on forever, as if he were in the ocean, stranded, alone and far from any human interactions, which he loved. He was a hard worker and was savoring this moment.

Casting his line and reeling in Northern Pike and black bass, throwing back the big fat ones and keeping the medium males to eat for next time he and his friends got together for a fish fry, putting the bass in an iced cooler at his feet in his boat. He felt a bite and began to reel it in, it fought hard and was really deep down, he pulled and reeled,  feeling the fish thrashing and fighting. He groaned with effort, it was a massive animal and he was getting tired. Finally, he got it up to the side of the boat—a huge large mouth bass, he saw—and grabbed it by its lower jaw. He pulled out a pair of thin nosed pliers and removed the hook, which was barley hooked to the white flesh of it's lower side jaw. The fish was so heavy, it tilted the boat sideways when he pulled it from the water. He measured it at four feet and eight inches long before letting out an impressed whistle.

Here, the fish grew unusually massive, this was the only place in the world a black bass could grow to such a size. The Pike and the catfish here were also no exception. Owen wanted to keep this one, but he didn't have the time for that now. Not with work and everything else. He was the sheriff of Red Leaf, the town nine miles east of Demon Lake and the community surrounding. "Demon Lake," he would occasionally scoff sarcastically.

He hated the name, but that was what they called it years ago after a phenomenon that impacted this place.

Ten years ago, in 2018, there was a meteor shower that resulted in the alteration of the lake. The meteors demolished everything close to, and in the former lake. The strangest thing, was that not just the meteors damaged and drained most of the body of water, but after they hit they turned the water a fiery red. Samples were taken to labs and tested. The substance proved nontoxic. It was a type of mineral from the meteors. An undiscovered, exotic material. It still remained as part of the lake. Even after it was rebuilt and dug deeper, the mineral still didn't subside from the surface until august 5th  2025, and to this day, pockets of blood red sand remained, dotting all over the bottom. They were deadly sink holes that had formed during the settling, and would swallow anything they made physical contact with.

Despite his enthusiasm for being out here among nature and its beauty, Owen was sometimes cautious about going near the lake, he always felt that there was something wrong. Everything about this place was strange—yet not in ways that were unadaptable for the people who made their living here, who rented out vacation cabins and sold hunting licenses. Owen felt like there was another presence out here with him, one haunting, always dwelling in the back of his mind, though he could not speak for the majority of those who lived out here. Eventually he did become used to it. Yet, he always had his suspicions. Ever since the meteor shower, he had to work odd and horrific cases involving murder, torture and rape.