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Angel struggled with her mane of curly dark hair as her toothbrush hung out of the side of her mouth. She didn't have work today, but considering what was on the news this morning she was going to have a busy day ahead of her. She had to go near the other side of the city, but it was a nice day for the bike ride at least.

"Again, reporting out top story," the newscaster on the TV echoed through the bathroom door, "a huge five-alarm fire has ripped through a portion of the San Maria docks, destroying multiple warehouses and giving firefighters a real problem. While the blaze is currently under control, the men who were believed to have started the fire, all members of the gang known as The Bayside Bandits, claim they had no choice in the matter."

The scene cut from the studio to the outside of the blaze, where the apparent gangsters were being put into squad cars. One of them, as he was being put into the car yelled out, "I wasn't us, man! It wasn't us! We had to do it to kill the monsters! They were everywhere."

Back in the studio, the anchor smiled, "Monsters in San Maria? Could our city now be joining the countless others across the globe dealing with the superhuman situation? Or a convenient scapegoat to try and get out of some jail time? Only time will tell!"

Of course, Angel knew that monsters very much were here in the city. She had seen them with her own eyes the other night. She had talked to them. She had touched them. Now all she had to do was prove they existed to everyone else.

She threw on an old t-shirt and shorts before walking over the the map in her room. She took a line of string and ran it from the IDRG Pyramid in the middle of the city over to where the warehouse district was located. It was only one more data point, but a data point none the less. Good science and deductive reasoning never came quickly, and she was nothing if not a scientists. A scientist in the employ of crazy mad scientists, but a scientist none the less.

"Angel Aquila, monster hunter," she said to herself as she turned away from the map and headed out the front door.

[hr]
"We have movement," the young one said to the older one as they sat in the old Cadillac across the street from the apartment building. They had been spending most of their time here, watching the girl. Not that there was really all that much to watch. All she did was go to work, return, go to class, return, and sleep. Not that they necessarily needed something more entertaining to watch, but the girl desperately needed a social live. When she turned a different way than her normal bike route, he sat up in his chair, "Whoa we gotta rogue turn on our hands, sir."

The older man took a long sip of his coffee cup, with some dribbling into his dark beard which was streaked with grey. He had grown weary of sitting around doing nothing. His superiors, well superior, had told him not to do anything but make sure the girl was under surveillance. He was to make no contact, and was to not bring her in under any circumstances. It was quite the different level of action as he was used to. But the girl was important, and he understood the reason. Still, he'd be lying if he said he enjoyed this.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" the old one asked. "Get to following her. We have a job to do."

The Cadillac roared to life and slowly followed.
[hr]
Mozart sat on his bed, his legs crossed over one another and his eyes firmly shut. Around him the dull sounds of the bunker rolled around him. He heard the rumble of the air circulator, the drip of condensation from the pipes, and even the snoring of Bach from a room over. His siblings were still asleep. They probably would be for quite some time. He had fallen asleep as soon as they got home, while the others had decided to celebrate a little. Even Clara joined in, and she was rarely one for frivolity.

But he wasn't in the mood for whatever reason. He hit his pillow and was immediately asleep, and had the first dreamless sleep in a while. That disappointed him, as odd as it was to admit that. While they were certainly surprising initially, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't relieved to have a purpose in life. The dreams were a lifeline, a way forward from here, and that's all he wanted.

So he was going to try and break through using meditation. He had no idea if it was even possible, but he figured it was worth a shot. The white noise helped clear his mind of all thought. The sounds started to mesh together, becoming a low hum in the back of his mind. Before long it seemed to get further and further away before it disappeared into the nothingness.

His eyes opened, revealing the darkness his mind had traveled to. None of the noises that had come to him in the bunker were now gone. All that greeted him was silence and darkness. It was not unlike the environment he often had found in the prophetic dreams. But something felt off. Instead of the warm embrace that had came with the appearance of the frog god, he now felt a pulsing malice hiding in the dark.

Art took tentative steps through the dark. He didn't really know how he got to this place, nor did he know how to get out of it either. For all he knew, he was stuck here in the impenetrable darkness. Each time his foot fell in this vast place, it made no sound. Even his breath seemed to be silenced by the dark.

Yet Art could see himself. Nothing else, but merely himself. Everything else around him was blanketed by inky dark.

"Hello!?" he called out. He expected the sound to echo in the vast empty space, but instead the sound seemed to struggle. It was as if after a few feet in front of him was a wall of water. The sound morphed and died, but then seemed to revive and travel through the nothingness. He took a few more steps and put out his hand, expecting to feel whatever the barrier was. But it never came.

He continued to walk and yell for what felt like miles, each step bringing him no closer to the barrier, and each yell making it clearer and clearer that it's still there. It was the definition of maddening.

"Hello!?" he called to no one yet again.

But this time there was a response.

It wasn't a language he understood, but he was familiar with it. He had heard it in the dreams, when the dark creature had spoken to him. The droning, alien tongue sent shivers of fear through him. As it continued to talk, it seemed to be coming from more and more places around him. It soon turned into a stampede of voices calling and chanting at him. 

Around him the darkness seemed to move. It folded in on itself. Once where it had been only black, ripples of violet and navy appeared. It seemed to be swimming, showing the barrier he had knew was there all along. It frightened him. The barrier had been there the whole time, it was just moving with him like a living bubble. It began to fold out, revealing the mess of tentacles that made it up. 

Behind it, in the distance, Mozart could see other swirling being of indiscriminate sizes. They were all looking at him. They didn't have eyes, just black, gaping holes of malice that were pointed towards him. He knew they were staring at him, an intruder in their dark dwelling.

He looked back to the mass of writhing tentacles, their oily black skin seemed to undulate with pain. He followed them up towards their source, which was hard to do considering how many of them there were and their erratic movement. As he traced along their malevolent path, a eye opened in the mass. It was a bright, radiant red, and while it was lidless and expressionless, Art could feel the hate and hunger radiating off of it. It locked in on Art. Its gaze froze him in place. He felt like it was going to kill him. Not with the humongous mass of its body, but merely by looking at him. It would kill him with its malice.

But as some of the other tentacles moved, a bright light began to filter through them. As it reached the Frog, he found himself unfrozen, but also pulled to look at the light. He moved to gain a better vantage point. When he did so, he saw a tall, gleaming tower floating among the darkness. The island it sat on seemed to be made of some swirling nebula of pure creation. From the sides of the tower to the nebula protruded six support beams. At least there once had been six. Merely two remained now, and the final two were wrapped in the clutches of the large creature's tentacles. It had been trying to bring the tower down, and it was close to doing so.

Suddenly, the Eye moved back in front of him, bombarding him with hatred.

Mozart woke with a start, back in the bunker, and frightened to the core.