E. Hunter's Journal

What I have to say now is hard enough to think about, let alone write about.

When it started, none of us knew what had really just happened. With the Elitist movements the way they were and the current relocation and spread of the Infection, none of us could really see it for its true colours; the true danger that had been set off against us. Even now, I'm disappointed at my lack of foresight. But, they say hindsight is 20/20.

It was an unknown, and unclassified. Those were never really dangerous. The unknown ones were always something that was rare, that rarely crawled out of the woodworks. Like an oddly coloured tiger, or some other creature with rare colouring. Nothing dangerous, just a little bit different. We spoke about it at first with years apon decades of experience behind us. Our past missions had lulled us into a sense of ease, that we had nothing to worry about. I remember sitting around that table the first day with photos and reports. I remember.

I was the first to call it "Nothing".

We knew what we were doing, that was probably the problem. We knew the movements, the slide of the Infection so well that we could point them out even if we were blind and deaf. And that must be the problem, what we did wrong. Because nothing else seemed out of place, nothing else we could have done differently. The past, if even a feat was possible, couldn't have been changed. Our every step was right, damnnit.

It had to be us, though.

With Black's power rising, none of us even could think of it in any great means. Black had just taken the Second Placing, bringing in the new wave tightly behind her. Many of us doubt her humanity, and are sure that within her party, there are Infected ones. But no one has been able to prove it. Every investigation turning up nothing more then a cold, every surveillance turning up not even a twitch in their facial muscles. And we who Ranked were worried.

That was our problem, maybe.

We watched the new Elitests closely. They were dangerous, and far too powerful. There were stories going around about Ranking members dissappearing. These weren't being told by Novices either. These stories were being told to me by my comrads and friends. People that I trusted beside me when I went out on missions. These people were some of the smartest there were in the world, and they believed the tales of others just like us dissappearing around us. And I wouldn't have believe it, if I hadn't noticed myself how few our building was starting to house.

So, granted, when this new case came up, none of us spared it much thought. An odd occance. Happens all over the world. Nothing that any of us felt we needed to lose any more sleep over. We all figured it was something silly like a Ghost that just couldn't take form. Something that was easy for the Novices to misunderstand, something that we would be able to take care of between breakfast and brunch.

A shadow, nothing more.

Even I thought that, and I think myself to be pretty paranoid.

It had been flicking somewhere's in an Infected area for a while. We only noticed it when the Infection started to move away from it. In the space of a city block, there was a building sized area in which no one treaded. We noticed the Vamps that lived near the area looking at unease, like they hadn't slept in a week. They looked... paranoid. Maybe I should have taken this more seriously, maybe I shouldn't have brushed it off as something that just frightened the lowest form on the Infected food chain. Maybe then this all wouldn't have happened. Maybe then...

I don't know what else could have happened.

The Infected area was one of those that the Elitests were suppose to get around to cleaning, but hadn't. Many of the Ranks took this to mean that there was a tie between the Infection and the Elitest. Which could just very well be true for all I know. It still hasn't been cleaned, after all the attention it just received. There is something wrong with that, in my mind, something that say something. What it says, I don't really care about. Now, I have too much on my mind.

Like Nothing.

The area was filled with Infection of all sorts. Even a good number of Ravers milled about day to day. A Haunting in such an area could only be expected, really. Some poor soul getting caught up in a "game", just trying to get home to their family. Just trying to get some peace now, but trapped in the grim of the Infection. It was always a kind of duty I took joy in, helping these ones. It was like I had my family back again.

We sat, I remember, the first day around a table with freshing gotten coffee and photos. Just blurry pictures of something that Novices didn't know anything about (and, of course, since they didn't know anything, it was thrown at us to solve so that they could learn, which has always been the worst logic in my opinion). Reports that were full of broken sentances and poor writing. The kids didn't know yet to write reports, I guess, so we had to suffer with the outcomes.

Sometimes I wonder what they teach those kids.

So, we sat, laughing about something or other. I think it may have been about someone, some we later found out had disappeared. Oh well, whatever we were laughing about seemed funny at the time. We ignored the case file sitting on the table between us, even though it had just been thrown at us for the most part. A Ghost, we thought. Nothing more. "Nothing" was kind of right though. I named it, there over the table, laughing. "Nothing," I said, "until this soul tells us otherwise." Ghosts were rarely insulted by names, since all die in horrible ways. Its hard to be insulted when you have seen the worst the world has to offer in front of your eyes and in your last moments of breath and true thought.

"Nothing."

Worst mistake of my life, possibly.

We didn't discuss about how we were going to go about it, that day. We just talked, chattered, pretending tobe working. We pretended to care. I remember listening to the complaints about how Novices should really get to handling the Ghost cases, since there was no better way to get experience. And I agreed that the time. Novices really should have been sent out on Ghost cases. They were the easiest things possible to assign them. That way, they would get use to writing reports and doing work, instead of crying back to the Mommy Order whenever there was something that they just could not deal with (and, for the most part, that was almost everything).

When we went out, it was the same. We went out, observed the Infection and how they reacted to the area. And, whatever we saw, we wrote it off as just odd behaviour on their parts. The Infection had a history of being odd. We had always figured it was just the way they were wired.

Then, other members disappeared, one that were on our case.

Of course, we drew back a little from the investigation. Something about about the disappearances made us nervous. We had all heard of the stories, and we could help thinking that it was just something to do with this case. From all the evidence we found, it seemed like it had been happening for quite a while, just like the diappearances. And the Elitests were gaining for power over our Ranks. We all knew what the Blacks' had been doing to the Elites for years. We knew they were weeding down the weaknesses. It was just so possible that the current Black could be doing the same for us.

And that was what we were scared off.

Maybe it was the wrong thing to be afraid of. Maybe we had it all wrong. Maybe the Elitests were still on our side, and they were still protecting us from the true harshness of the Infection. Maybe we were being like trapped wolves, just gnawing off the trapped limb to be free, even though the act may be worse then the entrapment. That is probably it, I'm not feeling lucky enough for it not to be.

I don't know though.

Nothing was probably what we should have putting all that paranoid energy into. It was our mission. It was what we had been assigned to to fix. And we looked away just long enough for it to be dangerous. First time ever.

The shadow got us. It took us in, and now it is all wrong. I don't know how much longer we all shall continue on.

We are fools.