Statement Begins

Let me start by saying I have no idea why I’m writing any of this down, it’s not like anyone will care to look for anything left of mine once I’m… once I’m gone. I don’t want to believe that will be the case, I don’t want to think about that, but there’s something… gnawing inside of me, something hungry and starved that just wan—

It feels… awful to put this on paper, my hands are shaking and I keep gagging with each sentence because that— that damn buzzing! It hates that I’m doing this, it hates that I’m here, not home but they burned it! Doesn’t it kno— 

It won’t even let me tell my dad, and it hates that I’m writing about it and… maybe that’s a good thing.

Maybe I can write it away, maybe if I explain it enough, the hold it has will weaken and— I don’t even know if I want that. But maybe I do? Maybe I can—

I suppose I should start at the beginning, my name is Taylor Anne Hebert, I’m fifteen years old, I’ve lived in Brockton Bay, New Hampshire the whole of my life and well… while I wouldn't exactly say that I hate the city, I certainly hate the people in it.

It wasn’t always like that, I used to love the city, used to love the people, and the schools and the walks to Emma’s house and— not anymore, not for a long time I think.

I think she’s the one who did it, I think but I can’t say for sure.

I mean, who else could’ve put that there? I thought she was getting better, at least, I thought she was starting to ignore me anyway

You can’t see it anymore of course, they got rid of it, got rid of that wonder— that awful, rotten, sweet and lovely—

It’s gone.

They, the PRT, they got rid of it and—

I don’t know why they had to burn it away, it wasn’t— it wasn’t real, not like I’m real, it’s an everywhere, it’s a feeling like— do you know when you see the inside of cork? All those… little holes that feel like they’re inside your brain, rotten and hollow, and even if you can’t see it, you can feel that something is squirming and wriggling inside?

It’s like that, that thing, that bloody—-

I’m sorry, I know I need to write about why I’m writing but it’s so much easier not to, to let my pen scratch into the paper all the things around what I need to write because that thing hates—

I had a wasp nest in my locker.

It was all over the insides, all the iron and steel was layered thick with those skittering honeycombs and it thrummed with a life that… I know it’s crazy but I could tell it hated. It didn’t hate me of course, no it could never hate me.

It sang to me.

I think that’s what got me to turn around.

I had just gotten home, winter break had just started but the second I dropped my backpack off I just… turned around.

The door had closed behind me and I stepped over the rotten step and I… just made my way back to Winslow. Winter had just barely started but it was bitterly cold as I marched back to that place, the place that Emma and her friends had made into a literal hell but for some reason I just kept going, even with the chill urging me to go back.

I didn’t even take the bus, I just… kept walking.

To be honest, I don’t know how I got inside again, I don’t know how to pick locks and even a school as shitty as Winslow should’ve locked the doors with everyone gone for the week but regardless, I made it back inside.

The lights didn’t work, obviously, but I still found my way well enough with the twilight coming through the big windows. And once I was back there, back in front of my locker, I just had to open it.

I could’ve sat there for hours, watching the swirls of wax and paper on the surface. In fact, that’s how I spent so much of my break. It wasn’t the actual pattern itself of course, maybe someone else could’ve appreciated that but no.

I sat there because of the things singing underneath.

It sang that I am beautiful, it sang that I was home, that I could be consumed by what loves me.

It… I don’t really know how it got there. I have my theories of course, that Emma put it there, that a Tinker might have let it gestate in a relatively private location but I don’t really care.

I used to be so scared of that place you know, I remember, before the dreams, that I was terrified of Winslow. I spent so many hours, so many days and weeks and months just worried about homework and grades and that little bully that thought herself a hunter.

She doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

How many hours have I been like this?

Was there a time before? There must’ve been, I remember that I wasn’t always like this, I remember enjoying school, enjoying the city, and the people and all of who I used to be and even after that, I remember finding some small comfort in cataloging my woes in a journal just like this.

Deep inside, underneath my itching bones, I wish I still had those comforts. I wish I still had all that suffering, but I have touched something now.

And all those spitballs and shoves and dribbling ink, couldn’t have prepared me for it.

It is not a god or if it is, it is a dead god, not in that it died but that it has never not been decaying.

When did I first hear it?

I would like to say it was the locker but that couldn’t have been right, I had just used it the day Winslow let out and I know there wasn’t anything there then. I couldn’t have heard it when I got home, even if someone had placed billions of buzzing wasps inside I shouldn’t have been able to hear it then.

Why did I go back?

There weren’t any wasps in my house, there weren’t any wasps under my porch, there certainly weren't any wasps on the walk back to Winslo— there weren’t even any in the damn locker so why did I—

I don’t know why I went back, I don’t know when I first heard that… that singing but I know it drew me there, night after night, day by day, I would return home long enough that my dad didn’t worry but almost all of that week I just… sat there, in front of my locker.

I don’t know why I even heard the singing, there aren’t— I know it doesn’t make any sense, I know, I know, and I know that if anyone reads this it won’t make any fucking sense but there weren’t any wasps or roaches or anything inside the locker, I didn’t see any but they were there!

It was like the nest was just a face.

Not the whole face, I know that, the actual face is… infinite, it just stretches out, a whole world, a whole galaxy, a whole universe of honeycomb flesh and swarming parasites and little maggoty things and rot and disease and things we have just barely tasted.

There are some people that have dived deeper, some of the capes that people don’t bring up when food is present, people like Bonesaw and Pestilence but they aren’t even a millionth of a millionth into the actual potential of my god.

Of a god.

Of that thing, that rotten, putrid, wonderful, divine—

The hive calls to me, even with the locker gone, even without the face, I can still feel them, wriggling and itching in my bones and this little sterile room isn’t enough to keep them away. The hospital is a lie, a place that pretends to cure but only serves as a small comfort to the blinded, to the people that pretend we’re anything more than a warm, wet habitat for the billion things that writhe in need of a home.

I know I need to think, I know I need to clear my head but what’s the point?

There wasn’t a me before this, not one that mattered, the girl I used to be was so lonely. I never had friends, none that stayed when Emma left me out to dry and no one would get near because of my claimed ‘toxicity.’

Was that the reason it called out to me?

Because it knew it could sway me with such a simple prospect, that I would do anything just to be genuinely loved?

It’s not love like I’ve read about, it isn’t about flowers and chocolates, it’s as much a need as it is a feeling, like the need to swim up when you’re out of breath.

The PRT can’t help me, I know that now or maybe I always knew it. The troopers and their foam and the heroes and their powers, all of that means nothing to the song. It is loud and beautiful and I don’t why it chose me but it did and I… all I know is that there was a wasps nest in my locker.

And that it took almost all of the local Protectorate to rip me out of it.

They screamed so loud when they came for me this morning.

I had spent the night inside the little shrine, wrapped myself in the honeycomb paper and let my thoughts drown with the swarm. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, I hadn’t meant for the door to close behind me, I hadn’t meant to be discovered the day school let back in but the faculty couldn’t bear the sweet aroma of my coffin.

Mr. Gladly screamed when he finally pulled the door open, his jaw open wide in horror at the beautiful thing I became. Or rather, at the beautiful thing I’m becoming.

I can feel them all, the million million crawling and biting things all over this city, the true citizens of the bay, they are as much me as I am them and… I have to go now, maybe I’ll find something out there to soothe my itching soul.

January 3rd, 2011

“Dreadful,” I mumble to myself, turning the journal over in my hands and trying to ignore the oily residue stuck to either cover. “Absolutely dreadful.”

The smell of the room hits me full force again and I try to tell myself that the gagging is just a result of teleportation sickness, that I’m still not quite acclimated from Strider’s transatlantic steps.

When I’d gotten the call a few hours ago, I hadn’t expected to actually be in the states for at least a few days but the local Director, a woman by the name of Piggot, had insisted I get here as soon as possible.

My back pops as I stand up straight, the eyes of Brockton’s speedster staring at me warily as I survey the room.

This morning, or well, last night for me, a student at Winslow highschool, one Taylor Anne Hebert was found in her locker, apparently having triggered with… well, I’ll be polite and say they aren’t the most photogenic powers.

Upon discovery, she killed thirty three students, four teachers, and I believe she outed a Squire or a Ward, as I think they’re called here. The details as to how are… well, they’re a bit murky.

The Director might’ve used her own funds to acquire my services but that does not mean she’s given me free access to her information, if she were to do that, I can see some of her colleagues immediately crowing about a misuse of government resources.

Not all that different from London I suppose, bureaucracy demanding answers but fighting itself to get those answers.

I reach into my long coat and pull out a large ziploc bag, big enough that I can easily stuff the journal inside as I turn back to the red clad Mover.

“How’d she escape?” I ask him.

Velocity looks at me with naked confusion in his posture, his shoulders lifting up in the smallest shrug before he realizes that the gesture isn’t suited for what happened today. I know that look, it’s the same one the Kingsman will flash me when I ask an ‘obvious question.’

“I don’t have any more information than what I can glean from the news and PHO and that’s far sparser than it should be given the notoriety of this case.”

I’m not just blowing smoke either, usually there’s a mountain of videos and pictures for me to comb over but somehow, despite having happened in the middle of a crowded highschool, with literally everyone holding a camera, there’s… nothing.

“We’re still a little fuzzy on that ourselves,” Velocity answers, rubbing at the back of his neck. “She’s got some kind of Stranger effect, cameras won’t capture her, even the tinkertech one Armsmaster has.”

"But you were there, weren't you?" I ask, "Director Piggot was rather unnerved having to send all of you and you must remember something."

Velocity bites his lip as his head turns down, the gears of his mind slowly rotating as he debates telling me his statement.

"Off the record?" He asks and with a nod, I resettle the journal in my coat and discreetly press down the start button of the recorder in that same pocket.

“Of course.”

And with the lie, Velocity leans against the wall, the weight of today finally hitting him.

“I was the first one there, I suppose that’s not surprising, that’s usually the case but… I really wish I hadn’t been.”

He shakes his head and crosses his arms, the skin tight red spandex barely even bunching up.

“Stalker had called it in, said she’s been outed by a new villain, some kind of bug Master. Her radio cut off almost as soon as she called it in and I was going to go in blind.”

“Is that typical for your line of work?” I ask, trying my best to sound empathetic.

“Not usually, no. Most of the time, if a Ward or official hero is on site to begin with, you’ve got plenty to work with. It’s only really the fresh triggers that make you go in like that. Stalker was a lot more honest after it was all said and done of course.”

I give an agreeable hum to his statement, even though I don’t know Shadow Stalker personally, I can tell by Velocity’s tone that she’s something of a rebellious actor.

“I went in, by that point, most of the students there had evacuated and the few that hadn’t had barricaded themselves in the furthest classrooms.” His throat bobs and he locks up at me. “Calling it a ‘bug Master’ makes it sound like it couldn’t be that bad.”

“I take it it was far worse than what you were expecting.”

“Yeah, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, there were just… millions of the things, all of them skittering and crawling over each other and— if it were just that, I would’ve been fine, y’know? I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my career that most wouldn’t be able to take, I saw it in the army and I saw it again when they transferred me back home to Eagleton.”

Okay, that name actually does ring a bell, the town lost to some kind of mechanical army.

“But it wasn’t just the bugs, it was the… I don’t know the official designation we’ve given them but in the field we just called them hives.”

“And what exactly were these hives?”

My simple question gets the veteran hero to shudder and though it happens in the blink of an eye, I would swear I catch the faintest blur of his hands rising up to scratch at his neck.

“They were these… the brass doesn’t like us using terms like this but they were zombies. Just, dead girls, all of them shuffling around and full to bursting with bugs.”

“Bugs?”

“Yes— no— maybe— look, I don’t know what the fuck to call them okay? Armsmaster wanted to keep some of them around, maybe to study them but Piggot wasn’t having it, she demanded that we burn every last one of those things.”

“I see… can you describe these things?” Again, my question causes Velocity to blur all over again, the brief full body scratching buffeting a small wind before he calms down.

“The bugs inside them… they weren’t normal, the ones on the floor and the walls and everything, they were just roaches and wasps and the usual kind of things you find in any big city. But the things inside them…”

Velocity vanishes with a snap and it isn’t until I take a step towards the door that he returns, his hands and face now dripping with a thin sheen of water and suds.

“They weren’t normal, wasps the size of tongues, these weird, silvery worms with black faces, centipedes as long as my arm, they just… they were swimming inside them.”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, “You said they were swimming?”

“Yes!” he shouts, the stress of it all coming back like he’s still at Winslow. “There were so many of them, so fucking many, just burrowing in and out, like the body wasn’t even there and… there were so many. Enough that at first, I didn’t think they were people, not until they moved.”

“These bugs… they somehow reanimated the students?”

“No…” Velocity answers grimly, shaking his head. “I’m sure that’ll be what the press conference will run with but that… that’s not the truth. I swear, when they turned to look at me, maggots in their pupils and flies pouring out of their mouths, their skin bursting with legs— I could tell they were still alive, still… in pain.”

“You tried to help them?”

“Of course I did. I tried to talk to them, tried to approach them but they weren’t themselves anymore. They just snarled and hissed and they… I don’t know if it was them really or if it was…her but they seemed to have some kind of control of the bugs inside of them. The worms in them would jump at me, the wasps stingers would stick out of their nails when they tried slashing at me and I had to run, regroup I mean.”

“Of course,” I nod, sure that while many others would find Velocity’s actions cowardly, he and I both know it was the only real choice he could’ve made. “What happened then?”

“I called it in as an emergency priority, the kind of protocol that we usually save for the Nine or— oh, sorry, forgot you probably don’t—”

“I know who the Nine are,” I interrupt him, gesturing for him to stop. “Shatterbird and Mannequin both stayed in London for a week or so before they left for the states.”

“Oh… yeah, sorry, shit like that slips the mind y’know? I didn’t mean to offe—”

“None taken,” I interrupt, “Your own neighborhood gets so crazy you tend to forget there’s even more crazy out there.”

“Yeah,” Velocity chuckles, the slightest bit of color returning to his complexion. “But um… I’m sorry, where was I?”

“You had just regrouped.”

“Yeah, that uh… that went well I think. The second I left Winslow— I mean the moment my foot stepped off the property, the bugs just… they let me go. I checked the perimeter of course, y’know, made sure that we weren’t dealing with a Nilbog type situation, thank god we weren’t, but still.”

The speedster takes a deep breath and though I expect him to start scratching again, instead he just sags, his legs giving out but not quite letting him hit the floor yet.

“The others all showed up at once, Dauntless, Armsmaster, Assault and Battery, and Miss Militia. Armsmaster wanted us to split up but one of the first things they drilled out of me when I traded the camo for this stupid spandex is to speak up when your CO gives a bad plan.”

“So you stuck together?”

“Of course, honestly, without Dauntless using his lance like a bug zapper, I bet we would’ve been overrun in minutes. But we advanced as surely as we could. Miss Militia was gassing the place pretty hard, she found that one of her grenade launchers shot out pure co2, the stuff found in fire extinguishers. I wouldn’t think that would do much but I’m not exactly an entomologist.”

“I can’t say I’ve much claim to that title myself either.”

“It killed the shit out of them,” Velocity continues, utterly ignoring my comment when I notice something.

He’s surprisingly forthcoming. I mean, that isn’t terribly off considering my own abilities but there’s a difference between being a bit looser with information and the openness he’s showing right now. When I came in, he was all business and decorum but now… well, he’s cursing like a sailor.

Maybe that’s nothing, maybe that’s just how he gets after a few sentences, or maybe if he took off that helmet of his I’d see bags that stretch from his eyes to the tip of his nose.

“We went further in but I could’ve sworn… the swarm was getting smarter with each second, they started running from us, started to use the normal ones to cover the deadlier ones, so that those fucking things would still have enough life in them to lunge at us. The zombies got cleverer too, started to hide in lockers and in the ceiling tiles above and they were thick enough it would take a few shots from Dauntless to put them down.”

At his words, his legs give out for a final time, his rear slowly colliding with the floor as he puts his head in his hands.

“We made do I guess, eventually got to the center and… the last few zombies were a bit tougher, more bug than man I think, I would swear one of them had scorpion stingers for teeth. We took them down too and… I know this is bad of me, I know I’m supposed to be a hero but… that thing, that fucking thing in the locker… we should’ve killed it.”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, putting a hand up in the air. “Are you referring to Miss Heber—”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I don’t— I know it has all the trademarks for a bad trigger, I sat in on Shadow Stalker’s interrogation and… look, that thing we pulled out of Winslow, that thing we put in cuffs… it’s not human.”

“Not human—” I shake my own head as I try to level him with my best look of incredulity. “Don’t you think that’s a bit much? What happened today, it was by all means a tragedy but—”

“No, it isn’t ‘a bit much.’” Velocity answers, the black of his visor staring back at me over his forearms. “I know what I saw, I know a parahuman when I see one and that… that fucking thing wasn’t a parahuman, wasn’t even human. It might’ve gotten weaker when we pulled it out of the thing but— It was… it was something worse than… worse than— look, do you know why Piggot called you in?”

“To track Miss Hebert down along with some other… well, she called them ‘freakshows’ but I’m sure that was just the stress—,” I’m interrupted when Velocity snorts mirthlessly.

“You’re here to track her down alright, track her and… the other ones but the second you call in a location she’ll—” he stops just as his head jolts up, a sudden awareness entering his posture. I gulp and put both of my hands up slowly, ready to give him the spiel that my Stranger effect is completely out of my control when Velocity walks out of the room, his steps deliberate and his hands clenched into fists.

With his steps retreating down the hall, I sigh and reach for the ancient tape recorder in my pocket, my thumb hitting the stop button in a practiced movement.

I’ve already gotten as much as I can here and unless I want to look over the seven Miss Hebert killed on her way out, I need to start doing some genuine legwork.

Brockton Bay… what an odd city. Yes, odd is definitely a good description, three gangs trying to tear apart and the heroes just barely able to keep up but that’s rather run of the mill for most cities post Scion.

The real oddities are the stories.

Not the ones about Lung fighting off Leviathan or how Armsmaster has Dragon on speed dial, I mean the ghost stories, the ones whispered about beneath the glamor of cape life.

I walk down the hall and when the disheveled healer steps forth, I nod before her hand can pause over my palm. She grips my hand in hers and her tongue pokes out of her lips in concentration as her eyes closed.

Panacea has already given all the survivors of the ‘Winslow Accident’ as it’s been called a clean bill of health but… like I’ve said, my resources aren’t nearly as extensive here as they would be in London so I can’t vouch for the authenticity of this but I’ve been told that the miracle worker didn’t cure the heroes as easily as she erases cancer.

There was something about Miss Hebert’s abilities, some kind of Trump effect, that made Panacea falter. She still got everyone fixed at the end of the day but apparently a miracle taking a half second longer than usual is bizarre around here.

Panacea lets me go almost as soon as she touches me and I would swear I catch the faintest glimmer of disappointment in her eyes before she walks off.

I leave the hospital quickly and my hand itches to hold a cigarette as the wind rushes over me.

So many stories here, so many that make my brain itch with the need to know but only five I’m allowed to investigate myself. I say investigate but they’re mostly just whispers on the wind, the barest scraps of detail that sound more like ghost stories than actual fact, the kind of thing you dismiss as just a friend trying to spook you.

First, a simple story of moving shadows, the darkness of alleyways somehow suffocating light so completely that they look like portals to another world. According to some, they’re just that, gateways into an endless black that ‘few have escaped,’ nevermind that there’s never been an official disappearance linked with it.

Of course, all it took for this story to become about a parahuman is the sworn belief that there’s… someone inside of the dark, someone controlling it but… it’s probably nothing but one poster swore that he wasn’t as completely in control of his powers as other parahumans. According to a… his name escapes me but I’m almost certain it was a Void something, the man in the dark is controlled by his powers, not the other way around.

The next story’s just as vague but there’s too many people claiming to have been afflicted for me to dismiss it outright. There’s been nearly a hundred reports that swear they’re being watched, a heavy presence over their shoulders and on their backs, the kind that makes you jump at every noise.

Again, basically nothing but the few that have actually gone to the PRT with it are… notable. Assumed capes, cape family members, certain known gang members, a CEO, even the Director herself I believe. And like the man in the dark, all it took was one man swearing he saw green eyes staring at him through his dreams for it to become a rogue and powerful Thinker.

The next two stories have a bit more meat to them, enough so that both have actual wikipedia pages attributed to them, granted they’re a bit sparse.

One’s about a string of… sleepwalking incidents I suppose, people waking up and finding their feet caked in mud and dirt and their limbs sore. The rudimentary investigations carried out weren’t even done by the PRT, instead they were spearheaded by a ‘TheWebisReal’ on PHO. Most of their evidence was laughed off until they managed to post a single polaroid.

It’s blurry, enough so that I can’t make it out much myself but it almost looks like a boy. A thin teenager, maybe sixteen or so, with curly black hair and eight blue eyes. If that weren’t unsettling enough, it looks like his white shirt is made out of spider web.

And finally, there’s The Hunt.

Grandiose name aside, she’s the one capes actually agree is real, granted that’s because she’s forced them to.

Her MO is simple, she tends to isolate her quarry and then chases them with deadly intent either until they rendezvous with someone or the sun rises. Actual descriptions of her vary, some claim she’s a woman that can summon scores of wild hounds, others say she is a wild hound herself, a dog the size of a firetruck, with too many teeth of course.

Whether she’s ever killed or not is up for debate, if she’s ever actually won her little chases… she doesn’t leave enough of the victim to find to tell.

And lastly is this new one, Miss Hebert doesn’t have a cape name but something tells me she’ll be getting something similar to the other ghost stories. Maybe something like The Crawling Rot but whatever they give her… I don’t think she’ll have it for long.

Velocity didn’t finish his tirade but he didn’t need to. There’s something about these five that… it doesn’t really matter. I’m sure when I find them, EIdolon himself will wipe them away.

There was a time my name meant something more, I chose the title because it’s truly all I wanted to do, to archive, to study and label all the oddities of the world but that changed. Now I’m just a scope.