9/3/2025 - Monitoring Emotional Outbursts
It’s been over three years since Grandfather’s passing. I’ve found more journals, logs, and scribbled notes tucked away in corners of the house. Most do not interest me. His knowledge of the demonic is what did him in, I do not plan to venture back to such exploration without good reason. However, a particular page struck my interest.
10/4/—--
I was headed back from the lake when I spotted a young woman kneeling on the shoreline. I planned to just continue along, but the way she moved caught my eye. Her body lurched back and forth like a sick animal I reacted in kind, running to her aid. I asked if she was alright, extending a hand down to her shoulder, to which she careened back to look up at me. I froze before I dared touch her.
A large split ran down between her eyes, akin to a crack in an egg. A pale, viscous substance seeped out from it. The same liquid came out of every orifice in her face. I continued to split down her chin, then her neck. I took a few paces back but chose to stay, to watch. It stopped short in the center of her chest. I opened my mouth to speak, but was cut off by an echoing bang from inside of her. More fractures radiated out from her body. Another bang. And again. Again. Again.
Silence… then birth. An ashen hand sprang forth from the body, holding her shriveled, but dripping heart in its claws. A low groan emanated from inside. The reverberation of the noise seemed to help it shuck more flesh. Each broken fragment peeled from it with glistening viscera. The organ fell from its grip, rolling into the lake. I watched it sink before I looked back at whatever this thing was. I saw a glimpse of a sad, wide eye peeking out of its former prison. It whined and reached towards me.
I ran.
I have no idea if it followed me, I suppose I won’t know for a while. I’ve written all of this down as quickly as I can to assure it’s documented, just in case.
This is the first and only entry I’ve ever found from Grandfather that documents something like this. He was a coward, so I can’t say I’m shocked. However, thanks to his panicked description I may know what he saw.
When enough of a feeling builds up inside someone, there is a chance it will try to escape. The entity’s structure manifests differently depending on the individual, but there are consistent traits:
They are all gray, nearly entirely unsaturated.
It will emerge from inside the host. It may keep parts of its shell, even fuse with them, but it will come from inside and work its way out.
If the gestation completes, there is nothing human left. It takes on something entirely new. A rebirth.
There have been more cases like it cropping up, though I’m unsure if the uptick is genuine or if there are just more well-documented reports. I’ve seen clips circulating online, chalked up to the usual amount of internet deceit. None are taken seriously. I’m not complaining, it makes tracking easier. If there is a cure, I have no interest in finding it. My task is to hunt and preserve, nothing more. Nothing less, either.
Knowing the Foolish Oddity Shop Owner would be back on my case for new masks (as per our annual arrangement), I wanted to capture these creatures as they emerged in that vulnerable, shaking, wet, newborn stage. I knew he’d love them, and I do adore a challenge.
The first step was locating vulnerable individuals. I went to a trustworthy source: online forums. I made a few profiles, set my feeds to local, and began scouring the lowest of the low. I set a few boundaries going in. Mainly, no intervention. I had no plans of interacting with anyone at all. I simply observed and would go about finding them when I had made my selections.
My first choice was a young man. He began posting as a teenager, and said posts became increasingly more depressing as he aged. The communities he joined reinforced this mindset. I found him chatting amongst a group supposedly formed to support those with mood disorders. It began with good intentions, but devolved into a vortex designed to validate self-destructive behaviors.
I monitored this entire group, but he was the only one who complained of a dark substance starting to secrete from his skin. One of his cohorts encouraged him to seek medical assistance. The rest told him to let it get worse. “You’re lucky your body’s doing the hard part for you.” was the exact wording. Deplorable.
I traced his location with an uncomfortable amount of ease and shacked up in a motel before my first walk to his apartment. I knew this set of hunts would be significantly different than the last. This required a gentle hand. Learning the routine of the subject, monitoring if their condition worsened. If it did not, my little work trip may have been nothing more than a waste of gas. I chose him carefully, though, and he did yield results.
He was especially easy to watch. Working from home, going from one screen to the next. In the three weeks I observed him, he only left his apartment twice. Once to pick up food (which he usually had delivered), and once to check his mailbox. It was after the latter that I was able to see him properly.
He had grown a second skin, gray and scaly. I had been keeping an eye on his posts alongside my physical observation. He complained of itching, emptiness, and splitting headaches. He included photos of small spikes beginning to poke through his forehead, seeping gray ooze. He assumed it to be a rare skin condition, but continued to praise it for bringing him closer to the end.
After a distinct lack of movement in his home for two days, I decided it was time to enter. Upon breaking in, I realized I was nearly too late. On the floor lay my subject, contorted, nearly entirely consumed. His body was wrapped in a cocoon made of his own secondary flesh. That extra layer of skin was eating him alive, coming to a head around his face. He was no longer recognizable as a human being. What he chalked up to a skin disease had become large, pointed teeth and a gaping maw that framed his face. He stared up at me through sunken eyes, silently begging for death. Something cruel in me didn’t want to give it to him, but I had a job to do.
I slaughtered the beast, leaving myself and the floor covered in that wretched ooze Grandfather had written about. Given that this was once a human being, I had to be more careful with disposal than I had been with the Cryptids. It took an extra day before I could skip town. It was a bit of a nightmare, but I was successful, which meant I could turn my attention to my second hunt.
While staking out the first subject, I had been passively eyeing up the next. I joined a few private communication servers as well as the forums, allowing me a more intimate look at many people with intense emotions.
Many of these servers had a subsection dedicated to ‘venting’, which was a treasure trove of options. One member in particular though frequently complained of stomach issues that coincided with her anger. Getting so worked up she would eventually double over and vomit until it ran black. Unlike the last group, this one actively encouraged her to seek medical help. To my shock and awe, she actually did.
She was told it would probably clear up on its own in a few weeks. ‘She was being hysterical; was there any way she was pregnant?’ This only enraged her further, thus aggravating the initial problem.
She was harder to find, but I managed.
I found myself in a city, which meant I had to be significantly more careful. I found another motel, and dedicated another month to learning another routine. She was more complicated, had multiple jobs with changing schedules. However, the descent was clear-cut this time around. Her symptoms aggravated every time she came home from work, exhausted, and went to social media. She would work herself up each time, winding up in the bathroom on her knees.
The people in the server suggested that she not go directly online at the end of a hard day. She took great offense to this, going as far as to tell others they weren’t doing their part, weren’t doing enough to be aware of the world around them. In her eyes, it was irresponsible to ignore any information that could be absorbed. It was around then that she started complaining of pressure behind her eyes and in her throat.
She did eventually take a day off work, but that only increased her scrolling through articles of tragedy. Her only breaks from this were to repeat the information to others. Multiple arguments broke out. She wasn’t taking a break, and no one around her was allowed to either.
I watched from the open window as she entered the bathroom, grateful she left the door open a crack. When she didn’t immediately descend to her knees, I knew it was time. I slipped inside, stepping closer as I heard her start cursing under her breath, holding one hand over her eye and the other near her mouth. She started to gag, hunched over her sink.
Her neck began to swell. A wet, gray hand sprang forth from her mouth, intertwining fingers with hers. A muffled scream came from around the wrist in her throat, spit and bile seeping out around it. I stepped into the doorway, leaned against it with my arms folded. I believed there was no way she could harm me at this point.
She watched me step into frame, reddened eyes flicking up to my face. She reached a shaking hand up towards me, and I shook my head. Being this close at this stage was already on the border of interference. There was nothing I could do for her even if I wanted to.
Her brows knitted together, and she screamed around the gray hand. She launched upwards, attacking me with dull nails and all the force she could muster. I was taken aback, but fought her without a word. I didn’t expect this to be a part of this year’s hunt, but I couldn’t bring myself to complain either.
She pinned me to the floor as I tried to reach down for my blade. I don’t know if I would have made it if it weren’t for the internal beast’s intervention. The thumb of the second hand pushed her eyeball out from the inside, gripping around her eyesocket as if it were a handle. She fell backwards, writhing in agony.
I stared in fascination as the fingers attached to the thumb pushed out of her skull, but I chose to step in. I didn’t want to risk another attack against myself or the loss of the specimen in this middling state. I slaughtered her quickly, as painlessly as I could manage.
Removing her body without being observed was difficult. I was glad this subject was the furthest from where I reside. It was my sloppiest work of this bunch.
I was deciding if I was still in search of capturing one of these creatures’ transitional stage from internal to external at exactly the right moment. The first was later than I would’ve liked, the second a bit too soon. Both were still during. I began to wonder what happens to these beings over time. The in-between is fascinating, but perhaps having one that was fully formed would be a good way to complete the set. I found myself thinking about Grandfather’s note.
I took a brief break at home before committing to my idea for the third. I prefer not to source locally, but I was also getting a bit tired of the legal risk of killing something on the border of human and monster. It was unlikely to produce results, but I took a walk to where I believed he had spotted that first hatchling: the lake where The Angler used to reside.
I geared up in one of Grandfather’s old jackets, my usual gloves, and my weapon of choice. Upon my arrival, I followed the shoreline slowly, looking into the water, peeking between tall patches of grass. Anywhere something could hide, I explored. I spent most of the day searching before sitting down on the beach dejectedly. I knew the chances were slim to none. I had no idea how long ago Grandfather wrote that journal entry, but I remained disappointed nonetheless.
Until a pair of eyes emerged from the water.
An entirely gray, skeletal figure slowly walked out of the water and towards where I sat on the sand. I had never seen something so rotten, yet still alive. It stopped in front of me, standing with its shoulders slouched. Its head had a distinct lack of a bottom jaw, the flesh actively falling apart and splatting back into the water around its bony ankles.
I stayed still as it started to sniff towards me. It had a hole where its nose should be, but could still use the sense attached to it. It reached a hand out and pointed at me with a single decaying finger before emitting a soft, pitiful, excited whine.
I stood up, facing the creature eye to sunken eye. I intervened for the first time in this endeavor.
“I’m not him, I’m afraid.” I touched her dripping hand delicately as I unsheathed the tool on my hip. “I am sorry he left you alone for so long. His mercy was cowardice.” I reached upwards and gripped onto what was left of her jaw. “I am no coward.”
It took almost nothing to run my blade through her throat. I took her head home with me first, and came back to gather the rest of her remains later that evening.
She was the most difficult to preserve, but I did manage. I do hope the preservation honors the subjects, this year more than ever. I do not wish for them to have empty deaths.
Upon handing all three over to the Foolish Oddities Shop Owner, he asked if I was alright. He said I looked tired. I told him this batch was special and to be careful with them. He assured me he would be, but stopped me before I left.
“You can reach out to me if something’s on your mind, we don’t just have to talk once a year, y’know.”
I told him I would consider it.
As strange as it is, I actually might.
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