If Special Agent Eleonora Pauline knew she was going to be investigating the murder of her former boss, she'd believe she had taken too much cough medicine the other night. Only when she saw his body, head fully submerged into the clogged toilet filled with shit, piss, and vomit, did she know that this wasn't a sick twisted joke or hallucination.
"Did he, um, suffer at all?" she asked. Her partner was examining the body with interest. It was as if Special Agent Derren Keaton had never seen a murder of this type before.
"Yes, he did." Agent Derren stepped over the Director's body, staring into the dark, brownish-red toilet bowl. "Although, I can't tell if it's cause of the drowning or the broken bones. Probably both, although we'll have to wait for the coronary report for that."
"How'd his bones break?"
Agent Derren pointed toward the wall. Behind it, a cramped series of stairs lead up in a straight line.
"Fell, broke both of his legs," he said matter of factly, tapping the director's legs with his foot.
"Pushed?"
"I don't know, probably. We cannot determine anything definitive."
"Definitive my ass," Agent Eleonora grunted, turning away from the body and towards the stairs. "Foul play is written all over this."
"We can't know anything for sure."
"And what? He, mister 'former boxer', suddenly loses hand-eye coordination and falls down the steps, and, here's the real kicker here, he decides to get himself a clean drink of shit water instead of getting help, and then decides to take a little nap?"
Agent Derren sighed and followed Eleonora towards the stairs.
"I'm not saying he drowned himself intentionally. It's possible he couldn't get up, decided to use the toilet as support, and collapsed into the bowl and drowned himself by accident. Stranger things have happened, Eleonora."
Agent Eleonora continues up the stairs, looking across the walls. No sign of damage.
"Tapes."
"What?" Agent Derren replies, a bit confused.
"Did he have any tapes? Recorders, cameras, sensors, anything?"
Derren shook his head. "I did a sweep of the area, I couldn't find any normal sized camera—"
"Do you really think the director — the director mind you, the most paranoid man in existence — is just gonna let a bunch of cameras lay out in the open like that? Or recorders? or anything, really?"
Derren thought about it for a moment, remembering the stories he heard about the director. Small little man, chubby pot belly hidden by a sleek gray and black suit, an American flag lapel pin on the outside. Gray hairs grew out of his formerly brown hair, what little was left of his hair, at any rate. Shy voice, Derren recalled. Was surprised to know that he was the director of the UIU when he first got transferred over — worst mistake of his life, he thought — and was sent there for the orientation. He talked and talked and talked and talked but he never said anything. A sock puppet speaking gibberish would have said more than the director ever could. He remembered how he had guards surrounding every exit to the building, covered in full riot gear and machine guns in their hands, locked and loaded. Derren could have sworn they had the safety off.
"I suppose it wouldn't be…too, out of the question."
"Exactly, exactly! Now, you wanna start busting down some walls?"
"No, we can't do that."
She looked at him, annoyed.
"We can't disturb the house beyond what we need. Besides, we should probably just look in certain hiding spot — wait, does he have a computer?"
Agent Eleonora looked from side to side, then rushed downstairs and rushed back up just as fast, carrying a personal laptop owned and operated by the director. She opened it up and tapped the words "PASSWORDS" into the section. It did not surprise Derren. The director was director long before the internet existed, that strange, mysterious time when things were typed up on typewriters.
She began looking for any folder or file or anything whatsoever that could have been a security system related thing. Nothing. She tried audio. Nothing. She would have thrown the laptop across the room if it weren't for the investigation.
They decided to just search the house instead.

"Find anything yet?"
"No, not yet, still looking through stupid shit."
Agent Derren looked around the mantel in the living room, various dead animals hung up on the walls and stuffed animals lay everywhere. They looked like they were staring at him, like some messed up Mona Lisa.
He walked across the living room to search through the movies section one more time to see if there was a camera hiding in his blue-ray copy of "All 9 inches!!!!!!!!!" until he saw a glisten in his eye. He stopped, looking at the mantel one more time. He moved back to where he was and then moved side to side to replicate the glisten. Sure enough, he could tell where it was coming from.
On the top of the mantel there was a red fox. If the director was still alive, he probably would have bragged about killing the fox himself in the dead of night in the summer of '94. Of course, in reality, he never hunted in the summer of '94. He hadn't even gotten a hunters license or even had a hunting rifle.
Inside the red fox's mouth he could see a tiny, but seeable, video camera. Of course, one had to angle their head just the right way in order to even see its outline — and even then it was barely existent — but he could tell it was there. He moved towards the mantel, grabbed the fox and shoved his fist into the throat.
"I didn't know you had a thing for getting eaten."
He ignored her and continued looking through the mouth — which was surprisingly bigger on the inside than out — and finally, with one strong pull, took the thing out.
The camera was surprisingly large — much larger than what Derren or Eleonora had expected — and had a VHS slot.
Eleonora snorted.
"Leader of the largest organization on the planet, doesn't know how to use an iPhone."

The Director walks through the doors, carrying a bag filled with various groceries. Chips, sodas, etc. fill the bag. He walks towards the cabinets and places them inside. He moves out of frame, and, based on the various other VHS tapes, upstairs. 10 minutes pass and nothing happens.
The camera vibrates slightly, showing the director fall flat on his face, his legs bent and twisted into unnatural directions. Coming down are a pair of men dressed in all black, covering every possible part of their body.
They scream — at least, so far as the two Agent could tell, the cameras didn't record audio — and grab hold of the director's throat, dragging him across the wooden floor as he struggles and grasps and attempts to resist, all of it useless as the men enter into the bathroom.
On other tape, the camera — this time hidden inside a monkey-shaped trash can — catches a better view of both men. They're taller than the door frame, and have to duck their heads in order to enter the bathroom. Pistols are seen hidden in their pockets as the fatter of the two dunk the director's head inside the toilet bowl.
Later, when reviewing the footage, Agent Derren would attempt to not gag — torture always made him squeamish. He always saw himself there, and feeling the same dread and fear wash over his body as the person on camera. Agent Eleonora would watch passively.
They removed his head from the bowl, yelled at him. Despite the camera's generally horrible quality, it was able to catch every single centimeter of the director's face. It was doused in water, what little hair left drenched in shit-water and him gasping for breath. He was probably praying for a shower, Agent Eleonora would say after it was all said and done. They captured his eyes opening, and they were filled with something she had not expected: relief, the same type of relief that a child experiences after finding out that getting their shots weren't as bad as they thought it was. For him, maybe it was the same as death — maybe it didn't seem so bad when it actually happened to you.
Or, maybe it was just piss-soaking fear. One couldn't really tell.
The men yelled at the director, who screamed back. One could not tell what they were saying, but whatever it was, was not pleasant.
This continued for five minutes before the men decide to just kill the director. The director must have realized he was down for far longer than they had before and began pushing and attempting to pull himself out. Every second he came close to the top of the bowl he was pushed back down, splashes of disgusting, vomit and shit filled water.
Finally, he goes limp.
One of them pisses on his corpse.
They leave the bathroom.
Later, on the other tapes, it's found that they destroyed all the audio recorders in the house. Took them with after leaving the house. There was no camera footage upstairs, so the two could not determine how the two entered.
When the two were done, they stood in the middle of the living room. They opened up their pockets, revealing long, thick syringes. Syringes the size of dimes, maybe pennies. Agent Derren would later close his eyes to avoid seeing what happened next.
The men shoved the needles into their bodies, one after the other. Nothing happened for a moment, and then the transformations began. Their clothes begin to morph and shift and weave into their skin, sinking and losing any all all structure that they once had. They shrink, their once humanoid bodies now looked more similar to blobs of flesh than actual human beings. Goop drips from their bodies. It trails across the floor and back into their flesh rolls.
They shifted through the ground and began their journey back to the bathroom. The bathroom camera revealed nothing.

They turned the TV off and looked at one another.
Sarkics.
Or at the very least drugs made by them.
That was the only explanation.
But….why would they kill the director?
"What should we do?" Agent Derren asked, his voice ever so slightly quivering.
"We get some guys down here to do a sweep of the plumbing of this house — we aren't leaving until we get some DNA from these cunts."

Along the corridors of the sewer, a large man stumbles and fumbles across the long darkness. He grabs his arm, dozens of dime sized holes line from his wrist all the way to his shoulder blade. They bleed, but he doesn't feel them. He hasn't felt anything in a long long time, and the drugs —
He screams, his head feeling like it was split open with a rock and lemonade spilled into it. It hurts — it hurts to think about them. He doesn't even remember how the hell he got down here—
He stops, seeing a light down one of the tunnels. Rescue! He jots into a limping jog, his breathing increases. The holes start to hurt more now, but that's okay, he'll get to a hospital. They'll patch him up. A rescue team will help him. It is a rescue team right?
He rounds the corner, coming face to face with the light and —
He sees a woman, her brown hair put into a small bun on her head and a younger man with a short military buzz cut. They have pistols, and he sees a small eagle across an emblem on them bot—
Oh. Oh God.
Every single cell in his body tells him to move, tells him to run away and hide. Or maybe even jump into the water, possibly even drown yourself. Do anything to stay away from these two.
A voice tells him they want to hurt him. They want to hurt him in the worst way imaginable.
They both notice the dime sized hole in the man's arm, their eyes widening. The man attempts to tackle him, but he dodges, his body slamming into the side of the wall. It hits his arm, a large sting goes across his entire body. He feels blood squeeze out of his body, like water being squeezed out of a sponge.
The woman kicks him and he falls over. He coughs up some blood, and starts seeing stars. He thinks he'll die down here.
He would not.

Agent Eleonora and Agent Derren look through the one way glass window, staring at the heavily bandaged man they found in the sewers. Based off DNA tests, he was exactly like the one they found in the house. Bartender of a local Alabama bar, The Typhoon, as it was called. Three kids, divorced, descendant of Swedish immigrants, member of the United States Pirate Party, and addict of the Sarkic made drug Snakepeel, which makes the user's physical structure weak, allowing for the user to take any form that they wish. Of course, it destroyed the pre-frontal cortex over time, along with your veins, but something that felt that good couldn't be bad for you, right?
Agent Eleonora pressed a button and spoke into the microphone.
"Mister Kennedy?"
The man jumped at the sound of the voice, nearly tipping the table over in surprise.
"Mister Kennedy, don't panic. We are not here to hurt you, we are here you help you."
"PLEASE DON'T HURT ME! I'LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT, JUST PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!" Kennedy screamed, attempting to claw through the handcuffs attached to the table.
"Please stop attempting to resist, we only want to ask questions and get you hel—"
"OH GOD! I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, JUST DON'T HURT ME," he screamed, his yelling turning into sobbing.
"We will hurt you if you don't stop yelling."
Kennedy stopped yelling, his cries becoming mere sniffles.
"Alright, what do you know about a man named Carl Taylor?"
"I — I've never heard of the man," he said softly, attempting to not burst into tears. He heard of these people — these fuckers, these 'G-men' his father used to tell him. They would take children away from their parents and put them in these places called 'foster homes', where the 'fake mom' and 'fake dad' would hurt them — lock them in closest, punch them, beat them, kill them. Every day he was told this, he never questioned it. It wasn't okay for other people to hit their kids — but his parents were different, right?
"We have evidence to suggest that you, Kennedy, have killed Mr. Taylor."
Kennedy's internal temperature plummeted to below freezing when he heard those words. Like hot water being poured over him — water so hot that it felt cold.
"But we also have evidence to suggest that you were under the influence of certain drugs — drugs manufactured by a religious group for their own benefits. We are willing to limit any potential legal consequences this may cause as long as you tell us everything."
"E-Everything?"
"Everything."
Kennedy licked his lips. He had some vague knowledge of what these people were — if they could even still be called 'people' in any sense of the word — but never told anyone about them. They wanted privacy, and Kennedy was okay with that — as long as they kept giving him his drug. But he also heard that they weren't too kind to those who snitched on them. He remembered what happened the last time someone tried ratting them out. He felt his stomach churn as he remembered the reports of his friend — the snitch — being found in the woods, his body torn apart. Cops said it was wolves, but everyone knew wolves couldn't rip someone in half like that. Wolves didn't remove multiple organs. Wolves didn't rip someone's jaw in half.
"And if I don't?"
"Well, I think it'd be best if you don't think about 'if' right now."

"You don't remember?"
Kennedy nodded his head up and down furiously, his eyes pleading for some form of trust or approval behind that one way window.
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"Well," he said, thinking hard of the last thing that happened. He had been out partying with his friends at a bar. He had gotten drunk, and blacked out. He then woke up in the dark place. He remembered fumbling around, realizing that he was in a sewer. He had holes all along his arms — similar to the ones that were made after he plunged the syringes into his skin. He walked and tried finding a way out before bumping into the G-men. He told them all of these things, and, by the tone of their voice, they believed him.
"Have you ever heard of a group called "The Sarkics"?"
He tensed up.
"N-No, I don't think I haven't."
"Alright. What was the name of this bar you went to?"
"The Big Clams. Yeah, that's the name. Stupid double entendre, you know."
"Alright. We'll leave you for the moment."

They came back two minutes later.
"Mr. Kennedy, we have evidence to suggest that you have been using the Class Z type drug конструкция, also known as "Snakepeel" regularly for an unknown amount of time. How do you respond?"
Kennedy once again felt all the heat drain out of him. He did the only thing he could think of doing.
He smashed himself against the wall repeatedly, screaming at the top of his lungs as he slammed into the wall with one large thud, his head bleeding out and him falling to the floor.

While Kennedy was receiving medical attention, Agent Eleonora began her research into recent Sarkic activity with the UIU. Aside from continuing the anomalous War On Drugs, they had wire tapped dozens of suspected Sarkic politicians, CEOs, public figures, and celebrities. Additionally, they requested information on all of the director's activities before his death.
After a dozen hours, five Red Bulls, and an occasional Facebook break, Agent Eleonora was able to track down a Person of Interest: Jeremiad Toizer. Suspected leader of Occult Criminal Organization #1213, AKA "The Red Dawn", Toizer had been accused of money laundering, drug manufacturing and selling, illegal religious practice, and general fuckery in over 21 states. He had been captured by UIU agent three weeks ago.
He had blown his brains out two hours before the director died, and three hours after their initial meeting.
Somehow, Toizer had been able to sneak a pistol into his cell. The cameras were all cut before the suicide occurred. Most likely explanation was that of a rogue UIU agent feeling bad for bastard, or possibly a Sarkic sympathizer.
But the two incidents were too close to one another.
She stepped outside and took out her pack of cigarettes, and began to smoke.

Agent Derren arrived at The Big Clams while Agent Eleonora did her research. He stood at the bar and drank some non-alcoholic orange juice, and attempted to strike up a conversation with the bartender.
"You ever heard of a man named Mr. Kennedy?"
The bartender looked at Derren, his large brow furrowing into a dozen little lines across his face. His mustache twitched, and his mouth seemed to downcast into a permanent frown.
"Was he a Pirate?"
"Yes, he was."
"Yeah, I know him. I think he only joined that stupid fucking party cause he wanted to call himself a pirate."
"Heh, yeah, he doesn't seem like the political type."
"Fucker voted for Harambe in the general election so he could get five likes on Facebook."
"Good to know."
"So, watcha need to know?"
"Well," Derren said, taking out his normal FBI badge with no reference to the UIU, "He disappeared awhile ago, and I need to know where he was last seen. Witnesses last said he was at your bar, and that he was taken by some," he continued, pretending to look through a notepad, "quote-on-quote strange people. Do you know these 'strange people'?"
Again the bartender's brow furrowed his brow further.
"I remember seeing some unusual people around here when I saw him last — yesterday. These guys had tattoos all over their bodies — I think it may have been some religious thing. They were drunk, but generally intelligent. They were around my bar for the entire day, just drinking and shit. I would have kicked them out, but they kept flashing their checks and I kept 'em coming. Best to not ask questions, ya know. Best not to get involved. Now Kennedy, the thing about him is, is that he doesn't trust many people. So when I sees them leaving with Kennedy in the same car, I knows they must have been pretty damn convincing — or maybe they had something he really really wanted."
"I see. Tell me, mister…?"
"Herman. Herman Schmidt."
"Well, Mr. Schmidt, have you ever heard of a group called "The Red Dawn"?"
"Yeah, I've heard of them. Aren't they a bunch of stoned edgelord trolls L.A.R.P.ing in the woods or something?"
"Edgelord?"
"People doing things for attention, mostly. At any rate, what do they have to do with this?"
"Well, I think those men you had in your bar were members of the Dawn."
"That's fucking stupid."
"I know it is, but it's the only lead I have at the moment. Do you have any idea where they might have gone?"
"Well, they were going west if I recall correctly, outside town. But other than that, I have no idea where they might be."
"Hmm, I see. Thank you for your time Mr. Schmidt, I will talk to you later. Be warned, you might be called in for a federal interview. Don't worry about anything, it's just normal protocol."
"If you find Kennedy, do me a favor and punch him in the balls. Repeatedly."
"I make no promises."

Agent Eleonora and Derren drove outside town, on the same highway where Kennedy was meant to go. Kennedy was in the back, half asleep and drugged up on morphine.
"You think we'll find anything out here?" Eleonora asked, lighting a cigarette.
"I don't know, but it's our only lead at the moment. Also, could you roll down a window or some—"
Agent Eleonora hit the large metal gate separating the front seats and the back with the back of her knuckles hard.
"Hey Kennedy, wake up!"
Kennedy bolted up, looking around. He had the eyes of a man who had been having a really really great wet dream.
"W-What?"
"We need your help. We think the people who took you last night are out here. Try think of anything that looks familiar to you, anything at all."
"Y-Yes ma'am."
They drove for what felt like hours as Kennedy was forced to recall anything resembling the place they were. They drove past dozens of tiny little farms, filled with vast acres of corn, watermelons, and god knew what else. Kennedy's mouth watered at the thought of eating something beyond mashed potatoes and water. Whatever the prison he was in fucking sucked, even by prison standards.
Eventually, things began to shift together. Like pieces in a jig-saw puzzle, the mountains and roads and houses and farms and even the signs began to come back to him. Not all at once, but just enough for him to realize that things were starting to become familiar. They were coming up a hill — yes, yes, he was beginning to remember things. And — if memory served him correctly — they shou —
"Turn right! Turn right!" Kennedy screamed, scaring Agent Derren into curving right into a tiny corner on the hill, barely visible behind the dozens and dozens of tiny little branches and overgrown bushes.
Derren was able to avoid tipping the entire car over, and saved them from murder by stupidity. The car moved down the hidden path, which was covered in dozens of tiny vines and bushes and other shrubs. Agent Eleonora took her pistol out and began loading it, her eyes analyzing every single part of the road.
Kennedy felt his heart drop below freezing — again. He couldn't remember what happened beyond this road — only that it involved something really really horrible. The dru —
He screamed, grabbing hold of forehead. He expected to feel blood leaking out of a large crack around the top of his skull but felt nothing. It hurt — it BLED — and every time he thought about the drug his brain rejected it — as if it didn't want to remember —
His heart skipped a beat as those words flashed across his mind. The implications of something like that — is it possible? What if — what if this was their plan? What if it was their plan to leave him in the sewer, to leave him with these G-men, to lead them here and kill them and — more importantly — him.
As he thought about these implications, the car buckled upwards — far above any pothole in the ground. It was only after he felt himself fly through the hair, feeling the world move upside down outside his window and the sound of a loud explosion that he knew something was wrong.
He never even felt the large branch of a tree enter through his head as the car collapsed onto the tree. It felt too vague — too dreamlike — to be real. He felt like he was dreaming, like things were slowly fading away from him. He looked down at himself — a larger branch entered his stomach and calf of his left leg. He laughed. He felt extremely high right now, like things weren't even real.
Kennedy tried to giggle but only blood came out.

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