Protagonists#

• Short, Lance - Foreign Service Officer (Γιάννης)
• Miller, Liam (Agent Dave / Jocko) - Naval Special Warfare Group One (SEALs) (Παναγιώτης)
• Lensing, Emma - Professor of Philology (Τάσος)
• Bennet, Wendy - Criminal Intelligence Analyst / Assistant Professor of Criminology (Κωνσταντίνα)

Cleaning up the Empty House#

The agents dispose of the corpses Jennifer Wills and Philly Phil by setting them on fire inside the Empty House.

Agent Locke drives Agent Nikita to the hospital to treat the wounds inflicted upon her by Wills, before going back to the motel to rest.

Thursday, September 15th, 2016#

Nightly Activities#

Despite his military experience in Afghanistan, Agent Jocko fails to understand the meaning of the star formations and the moon behind the dead tree, drawn on the walls of the Empty House.

Agent Nikita manages to overcome the barrier of her sleeping disorder.

Agent Locke writes a letter to her sister, just in case something bad happens to her and doesn’t make it out alive from this ordeal. Using a fake account, she then posts in Reddit the image of the star formations and the moon. Not long after she finds out that they will be visible towards the southern horizon on the 15th of September 2016, just after sunset, in the latitude of Miami.

Agent Myra stays awake the whole night and manages to find the dead tree in Google Maps Street view.

Dead Tree in a Dead World#

At 10:00am Agents Locke and Myra share their findings with the rest of the groups. They spend the morning grabbing gear and equipment for the trip to the swamps (first aid kits, a dingy, underwater breather mask, waterproof bags, military gear, food, water, flares, etc).

Destiny sends them down Interstate 75: Alligator Alley. Past the giant faux-bronze alligators. Past the sad, dingy yellow of the truck stop. Slow-flowing canals run on either side, most of the way, each as wide as the interstate.

A withered dead tree, all too distinctive, stands alone between the southern lanes and the tall fence that holds back the wilds, as if it came forward to grow bravely on its own and then died. The fence, meant to keep alligators and panthers back from the highway, has been hacked wide open. Signs warn of danger.

At 3:30pm the agents follow a faint trail leading from the breach in the fence into the swamp, a slow slog through trees and undergrowth. It meanders along stretches of muddy but solid earth. Mosquitoes are everywhere. Clicks, buzzes, and clacks seem to follow them. Occasionally, belching growls, deep and menacing, are unmistakably alligators.

The Camp#

After hours of wading in the swamps, Agent Jocko notices the faint light of a campfire to the east and lead the agents to it.

Six young men and women standing huddled together around a fire. They sway back and forth, wailing together in a wordless, breathy keening. Some look like average customers at Wal-Mart. A couple are gaunt, covered in sores and wearing filthy rags. None have yet reached their mid-twenties, though hard lives have added years behind their eyes. They clutch each other, moaning.

Hearing or seeing the Agents approach, the group separates. Most warily begin to back away toward the swamp. The teen in the middle of the hug approaches Agent Locke and Myra. They recognize him as Thomas Perez. His left hand shows what looks like the angry scar of a deep cut still healing. Tears well in his eyes.

Perez signs:

“I know you serve her. Her teeth. Thank you. We’ve missed you. He is coming. He is coming. But she must not starve. We will feed her. Now you take us to her.”

The sign for “we” in “we will feed her” encompassed the Agents and Perez together. He then angrily slices his hand with a knife, as if rejecting the hand’s words.

Power of the Teeth#

Agents Jocko and Myra, hidden around in the swamp, see alligators rise, each nearly four meters long, as if they have been waiting patiently for this moment. The reptiles rend the flesh and crack the bones of the ecstatic men and women and fuse with them. Abominations of flesh and scales, bony scutes and jagged fangs, sprawling and stumbling. Human fingers grasp and mad human eyes stare from random reptilian distensions.

Agents Locke and Nikita manage to slip away in the swamp.

Agent Myra fought tooth and nails against Perez, but it was eventually Jocko who crushed the boy’s head under his boot.

A Probabilistic Chimera disemboweled Agent Jocko, but the hidden god didn’t let him die. Despite what his injuries suggested, he suffers homicidal rage, attacking the Chimeras, and eventually prevailing, only to fall unconscious when the Scent had left every creature around him.

Agent Myra radioed for help. Agents Locke and Nikita rushed back to the clearing in the swamp, barely managing to save Jocko’s life.

In his madness, Jocko realized he had been marked as a Tooth, chosen to hunt, kill, and chew in service of the Unnamed God who devours other gods, and those tainted by their unnatural essence.