Something's not quite right.

Today has been a bad day. I killed... a man? I'm not sure what it was. I was walking the new nurse, Jenny, home from the base after our shift. I like working with her, we share the same sense of humor and truth be told, seeing her can cause me to skip a few heart-beats. Anyway she only lives a few streets over from me so it wasn't a big deal. We got about half a block from Ferguson street and one of the street lights had blown. I didn't think anything of it at the time. With an army base at our doorstep, it's not like this is a high crime area. Hell, most everyone here works on the base so there are MP's everywhere. We got right under the busted light and I just stopped. Something just felt wrong. Jenny must have felt it too because she stopped dead at the exact same time as I did.

I could have sworn I heard Jen say 'Bear thier wounds'. Confused the hell out of me. Before I could say anything about it though, someone (or something) dropped from the sky and landed on Jen. Knocked her clean out. Now as I said, I've come to like Jen and when I got a look at the guy that hit her, I kinda lost it. He was big, probably weighed close to 300lbs. All muscle. As soon as I looked him in the eye, I got these flashes of him tearing people appart. I'm a surgeon, so I'm not really all that squeemish, but these flashes (a less cynical person may say 'visions'), he was drinking the blood straight from the stumps of the appendages he tore off of those people. Felt like I'd been standing there for ages, but when it all cleared, he was still just getting back to his feet and I could just see that even though he looked human, somehow he didn't feel human. I didn't really stop to think after that. The only thing that went through my head was that if I didn't do something, Jen was going to be next on the menu and I just wasn't going to let that happen, not while I was still breathing. So I hit him. Hard. It was like something out of one of the X-men movies and if it wasn't for Jenny still laying unconsious on my couch right now, I wouldn't believe any of it. When I hit him, there was something that looked like one of those sonic ripples they use to convince you just how supernaturally powerful a hero's punch is. The guy went straight through the lamp post and I could see the place where I hit him in the chest glowing red like my fist had been made out of lava or something. I was more than a little stunned and when this thing got up again, well, I just stood there with my mouth open and stared.

In hind-sight, that was stupid of me, but tell me that you wouldn't have done the same, hell, tell me that you're not doing it now just reading all this! Either way, I paid for my lapse. He hit me with the lamp post, he actually managed to pick the damn thing up and swing it at me! If he hadn't buckled half way through the swing (I'm guessing his chest was in a bit of pain), it would have done more than just crack 3 of my ribs. It was certainly enough to throw me over the picket fence at the front of the yard there. As if being as strong as an ox wasn't enough of a worry, this thing was fast too. I hadn't even finished hitting the ground when the guy was standing right on top of me. He kicked me in the other side (2 more cracked ribs and 2 broken ones) and sent me back through the fence (I think I still have a chunk of wood in my right thigh, but I can't get to that myself) and onto Jenny. That really pissed me off. This time, he seemed happy enough to walk over to take his next shot. I was pretty beat up and it must have shown. He must have been pretty sure of himself again by now because he reached straight past me to grab Jen. She had started to wake up and I guess me landing on her had brought her most of the way around again. I could see he was going to hit her so I lurched up and hit her out of the way with my shoulder. He caught me just under my left eye and knocked me down. Turns out the thing had claws. I look like a tiger took a swipe at me.

Next thing I know, he's standing over me again with one of the fence pickets. I thought for sure that I was dead but then Jen grabbed his arm. She struggled with him for a second but then he back-handed her and knocked her cold again. She's going to have one hell of a headache when she comes around again. It gave me time to grab my own picket though and as soon as he turned back around, I rammed the thing straight through his black heart. I'd had enough of this thing slapping us around like rag-dolls. The look of fear on his face was almost worth all the splinters, gashes and broken bones. Almost. He didn't fall down though, just stood there staring at me. I backed away and waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened. After all I'd seen him do, I was only half supprised really. About a minute passed like that, felt like an hour though. I didn't quite know what to do, so I checked his pulse and couldn't find one. I thought about pulling the picket out, but then I caught sight of Jen and that was enough to snap me out of it. I saw all those images flash past me again. I thought of what might have happened if I hadn't walk home with Jen. This thing shouldn't be, plain and simple. I grabbed the picket, twisted it free and swung it at his neck like a fire axe, took his head clean off and the picket just exploded. Before the guy's head even hit the pavement, it started disintergrating. Pretty soon, he was just so much dust in the wind.

Somehow I managed to pick Jen up off the ground and carry her back here. Since my home and office are all in the one building, it made things easier. I've treated as many of my own injuries as I can, but someone else is going to have to look at the rest. I'm going to have to leave it there, I think I just heard Jen get up and I want to make sure she's ok.

-J.C.