A knock. The door opens.
They enter, one by one, penetrating the tiny wooden house with their black boots and black armors. Black helmets and black rifles. Paramilitary personnel.
They wear an insignia on their right shoulder. "C.I.A.", it says.
Igor doesn't notice. He's too lost in his own thoughts to care about who or what enters his house. As far as he's concerned, the whole world can burn with him now. His wife is dead, his daughter's dead as well. What's the point in living then ?
- Mr. Akensen, says one of the men outfitted in black.
The whalehunter doesn't respond. His eyes are fixated on the living room floor.
The individual who asked him the question doesn't have any head cover. He has blonde hair and pale blue eyes. Not as strongly built as Igor, but his armor makes him seem like so.
He sits down on a chair opposite to Akensen.
- Mr. Akensen, repeats the man. We have some questions we'd like to ask you.
The hunter groans, but doesn't lift his eyes.
- Mr. Akensen, if you do not cooperate, we shall have to detain you for as long as needed until you speak. And the C.I.A. is, as I'm sure you reckon, well versed in the art of torture. None of us two wish to make this simple conversation into a long and painful process, I'm certain of it. So why not speak back to me ? You would be evading a world of hurt, I tell you.
Something in Igor seems to click. He stands up. He's taller than most of the guards. All of the armed men in the room raise their weapons in the blink of an eye.
- You sit down !! Failure to comply will result in your termination !! We will not repeat ourselves !!
The blonde man raises one of his hands, the soldiers dressed in black lower their firearms.
- Look at you, says Igor, speaking to the one sitting at the table. Blue eyes, vanilla hair, well-built, and you talk about torture as you smirk like a rat. Truly unfortunate that you're american. You'd have made such a good pet dog for Hitler in his dream world.
One of the guards looses his composure. In the face of such an insult, he fires a round of bullets at Akensen. The man gets shot in his right shoulder but doesn't move.
- Enough ! - shouts the blonde man. This wat strictly NOT professional, he shouts at his colleague.
And he takes a gun out the pocket of his coat and fires a single shell at the soldier who hurt Igor. The projectile makes contact with the guard's leg. The man falls down to his knees.
- Now... - proceeds to say the blonde-haired commander, I understand, Mr. Akensen, that you do not desire cooperation... But we need you here, so if you could please do as I do and sit in front of me... That would be doing me a favor...
His mouth starts convulsing a bit strangely.
The armed men standing behind their boss step back a bit.
- You look like an enraged puppy, says Akensen then. Tons of bark I am sure... But no bite. Not in the slightest.
The blonde man lowers his gaze, looks at his feet. He starts laughing. A cruel laugh. Maniacal.
Igot, however, yet stands still, unphazed by this disgraceful display, which appears to the hunter as an attempt by the american to assert dominance.
- I have lived side-by-side with monsters thirty times your size and for decades, I have come out on top, speaks Akensen, calmly. You can't be serious about hoping to impress me with your fancy semi-automated toys and your shiny military apparatus, can you now ?
The blonde man stops giggling. He looks at Igor and smiles all he can. The hunter's shoulder bleeds profusely still, yet Igor stays up, his frame strong and imposing.
- My name is Ray Brankerfeld, says the blue-eyed man. I am very much pleased to meet you.
Akensen looks at the officer, slightly perplexed. Such a rapide change in demeanor can only mean one of two things : Either the man is changing tactics, or he's completely mentally ill.
Either way however, this abrupt turn of events leads to Igor's brain suddenly getting to work, his neurons firing on all cylinders to try and decrypt what it is this Brankerfeld in the end wants out of him. And as much as he's used to his body being fatigued, he's never liked it when his brain was out of gas. And so, he sits down, to concentrate, to ponder over how to react to what the creature sitting in front of him, that Aryan-looking psychopath from what appears to be a branch of America's Central Intelligence Agency, might say next.
His host finally seated in front of him, Brankerfeld resumes speaking.
- Rumors of alien phenomena occuring in your part of the globe has reached the ears of our government one month ago, Mr. Akensen, hence why we're present here : To investigate the case.
- What does America have to do with greenlandic happenings ? Leave the search for explanations up to our government. We can handle ourselves.
- No, says Brankerfeld. If cosmic forces or entities have indeed made contact with planet Earth, then jurisdiction between countries and international laws don't apply any longer, for legislation has never been put in place regarding the particular case of the manifestation of otherworldly creatures in our world. As such, it is our right to investigate this particular situation.
And besides, Mr. Akensen, no one on this planet is in the position to pressure the C.I.A., and we obey no one but our own government.
Igor scoffs.
- So won't you tell us, Mr. Akensen, what kind of hell has happened here in the past few weeks, and where it all originates from ?
- ... You truly wish to know then.
- We do, Mr Akensen. We do.
- Understand that what you are about to hear is a warning, not an encouragement. A warning to stay away as much as you can from what I'm about to describe.
- I get that. Now go on, Mr. Akensen.
- Very well.
Brankerfeld and his men all took on a serious facial expression. Igor spoke thus :
- One month ago, as you said yourself, something unnatural happened on a gravel beach not far away from here. I was gone hunting at sea that day, and when I got back to the shore after a long and tiring day of struggling against sperm whales and an orca, I saw it fall from the sky.
It was surreal. Unlike anything I'd ever seen in my life. Piercing the clouds, it crashed onto the ground. A gigantic cadaver. A skeleton the size of a tower. A god indeed.
