June 19th, 1983
Nicholas reacted instantly, snapping his gun upward and firing at the ceiling.
The gunshots rang through the hallway in rapid succession.
But the monster was faster.
Far faster.
It moved with horrifying speed and unnatural precision, shifting across the ceiling in jerking, liquid motions as though it already knew where each bullet would land before he pulled the trigger. Every shot missed. Every shot struck metal and sparks instead of flesh.
It slid along the ceiling like a living smear of rot, twisting just out of reach.
"Get back!" Nicholas shouted.
He grabbed Eliza and yanked her out of the way just as the creature dropped from above.
It crashed down exactly where she had been standing a second earlier.
The impact splattered water-like slime across the floor.
Nicholas immediately shoved Eliza behind him and raised his gun again, putting himself between her and the thing without a second thought.
"It's not much," he said, quickly pressing the taser into her hand, "but this should protect you."
Eliza gripped it tightly, her eyes never leaving the monster.
"Let's cry beautifully together," the Sorrowful Saint said.
Its voice was unbearable—jagged, wet, and broken, like something trying to sing through a drowned throat. Water continued to pour from its body in thin streams, dripping onto the floor with soft, endless taps.
"Cry… cry… cry…"
It kept repeating the words as its body began to change.
The tentacles lashed wildly at first, writhing in every direction like a nest of exposed nerves. Then, slowly, they began to draw together.
Twisting.
Contorting.
Binding themselves into shape.
Nicholas watched in disgust as the mass of tendrils pulled itself upright, taking on the form of something almost human. Its body was made entirely from those writhing appendages, woven tightly into the shape of a tall, unnatural saint. Its "arms" bent inward, its malformed hands clasped together in a mockery of prayer.
And where its head should have been—
there was only that massive eye.
Bloodshot.
Weeping.
Unblinking.
The mouth in its pupil stretched open, exposing row after row of jagged teeth as the creature tilted its head in reverence toward them.
"Worship this beauty," it rasped.
Its clasped hands trembled.
"Cry for this beauty."
Its eye widened.
"Die for this beauty."
"Good news," Nicholas said with a strained, obviously fake smile. "I won't have to shoot you in the future. At this rate, we might just die here together. Kind of romantic, right?"
Eliza shot him a look of pure disgust even as she kept moving.
"I still hate your jokes," she snapped. "Go die by yourself. Leave me out of it."
Nicholas gave her hand a quick tug as he started running.
"You're no fun," he said. "At least pretend to be romantic for once."
"We are broken up, idiot," Eliza shot back, sprinting beside him.
Even then, she was slightly faster than he was.
Behind them, the Sorrowful Saint came skittering down the hall.
Its writhing body had shifted again, the tangled tentacles beneath it giving the impression of six long, crab-like legs scraping across the floor in jagged, uneven bursts. Water and slime trailed behind it as it moved, and each step came with the wet dragging sound of flesh being pulled where it did not belong.
Nicholas rounded a corner sharply and dragged Eliza with him.
The second they were out of sight, he clamped a hand over her mouth.
Her eyes widened.
He said nothing.
Just waited.
One second.
Two.
Then the Sorrowful Saint turned the corner.
Eliza moved instantly.
She lunged forward and jammed the taser into the creature's body.
The current crackled—
but did almost nothing.
Its tentacles had a thick, rubbery texture that dulled the shock, and before she could pull away, one of the appendages snapped out and wrapped around her arm.
Eliza gasped.
The thing yanked her forward.
Its massive eye widened, and the mouth in its pupil split open impossibly wide—far wider than the eye itself should have allowed, stretching into a grotesque maw large enough to swallow her whole.
Nicholas reacted without thinking.
He ripped the taser from Eliza's hand, jumped forward, and slammed it directly into the creature's eyeball.
This time, it worked.
Electricity surged across the wet surface, amplified by the water constantly leaking from its body. The Saint convulsed violently, its limbs spasming as a warped, shrieking cry burst from its mouth.
Its grip released.
Eliza stumbled free just as Nicholas caught her by the wrist.
"Move!"
The two of them bolted down the hall and threw themselves into a nearby bathroom.
Nicholas slammed the door shut behind them.
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Then Eliza doubled over slightly, one hand pressed to her stomach, her breathing unsteady.
"I almost just died," she said.
Her voice sounded thin.
Like she might vomit at any second.
"Hey," Nicholas said, keeping his voice low, "how good is your aim?"
Eliza steadied her breathing, though her hands were still trembling.
"A little rusty," she admitted. "But I still remember those trips you dragged me to at the shooting range."
Outside the bathroom door, they could hear the Sorrowful Saint approaching.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Each wet scrape of its body against the floor sent another spike of dread through the room.
Nicholas nodded once.
"Good. The gun's yours." He held out the weapon as he adjusted his grip on the taser. "I'll fry its eye. You're too short to hit it reliably otherwise." Even now, he found time for a stupid joke. "Once I stun it, shoot. The electricity should make it harder for the thing to dodge."
They switched weapons.
The second Eliza wrapped her fingers around the gun, the voice came again from the other side of the door.
"Nicholas…" the Saint rasped.
Its voice was even rougher now, wet and splintered, like drowned lungs trying to form words.
"You're supposed to protect us… so why are you hurting me?"
A burnt, charred smell drifted in from the hallway.
Nicholas's expression darkened.
Arlo had done the same thing.
After taking damage, the monsters started to sound more human. More wounded. More real.
But beneath that imitation, the violence never changed.
Its killing intent never weakened.
The bathroom door shuddered violently.
Then the tentacles appeared.
They slithered around every edge of the frame, wrapping over the wood and metal like veins crawling across flesh. With a horrible tearing sound, the Sorrowful Saint ripped the door clean off its hinges and hurled it aside.
It filled the entrance.
Its eye was blackened now, the outer flesh charred from the taser strike. The mouth in its pupil twitched and stretched, moving frantically as if it could not decide whether to scream or smile.
"Nicholas…" it said.
Its voice dropped into something almost thoughtful.
"You are not very beautiful."
The eye narrowed.
"You are a sick human."
Its tentacles twitched.
"How many people have you killed?"
Before Nicholas could answer, one of the tendrils shot across the room toward Eliza.
"So not beautiful."
Eliza ducked just in time.
The appendage sliced through the air a second above her throat, fast enough that she felt the wind of it graze her skin.
Nicholas moved instantly.
He lunged straight at the creature and drove the taser directly into its burned eye.
The contact was immediate.
Electricity exploded across the wet surface, crackling through the monster in bright, violent arcs. The current spread through the water coating its body—and through Nicholas as well.
He clenched his teeth as the shock ripped through both of them.
"Now!" he shouted.
Eliza didn't hesitate.
She raised the gun and fired.
The bullet tore straight through the center of the eye.
Black goo burst outward in a wet spray.
The Sorrowful Saint let out a warped shriek that made the bathroom walls vibrate.
"It hurts—" it cried. "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts—!"
Eliza fired again.
The second shot struck deep.
The monster convulsed, its limbs spasming wildly as it collapsed onto the bathroom floor in a writhing heap of tentacles and black fluid.
As it died, its voice cracked into one final, desperate scream.
"August—save me!"
Then it went still.
Only the sound of dripping remained.
Nicholas staggered backward and dropped hard to the floor, every muscle in his body trembling from the shock.
For a few horrible seconds, the monster continued to convulse.
Its limbs twitched violently.
Its body jerked and spasmed across the bathroom floor.
The thick black substance pouring from its ruined eye bubbled and hissed, while dark steam rose from the corpse in curling strands, as if something foul inside it was being burned away.
Then, slowly—
the distortion began to recede.
The tentacles shrank.
The warped limbs drew back into human proportions.
Its twisted, saintlike frame collapsed inward as though the monstrosity had only ever been a grotesque shell wrapped around something much smaller.
And then the eye burst.
It popped like an overripe fruit, collapsing in on itself with a wet, sickening sound.
Eliza flinched.
Beneath the ruin of the creature, a human body remained.
A mechanic.
His body was soaked in black residue, his face pale and slack in death, but still recognizable enough.
Eliza's eyes widened.
"This guy…" she whispered. "I know him."
She took an uneasy step forward, staring down at the corpse in disbelief.
"He was there. With August. At that cult gathering."
Nicholas looked up from the floor, breathing hard.
His expression darkened.
"August…" he muttered, his voice low and dangerous.
Then his eyes narrowed toward nothing, as if already picturing the old man standing at the center of it all.
"What the hell are you planning?"
June 19th, 1983
Confirmed Incident Report
Second successful termination of an Azathoth-created organism recorded.
Agents Responsible: Nicholas Graves, Eliza Miller
Agent Fatalities: Douglas Forester
Hostile Designation: Codename — The Sorrowful Saint.