"This is the first sighting in years." A man in a gray suit circles a table full of old newspapers and notebooks containing locations and dates. Two other men dressed as soldiers stand on each end of the table, listening to the man in the suit.
"And this is a trustable source? People claim they see cryptids all the damn time."
One of the soldiers, clean shaven with black hair, asks with suspicion, but no ill intent.
The man in the suit nods confidently before answering. "It is, for once we have actual locations where it was spotted. We can narrow it down by focusing on the center of these locations."
"You don't wanna catch the world's most famous cryptid, Tom?" The other soldier speaks out. A large man with a redneck accent named Marnie Barnes turns his attention to his commander.
Commander Tom Mcallan of unit 13 scoffs, but a small smile creeps onto his face due to Marnie's cockiness.
"The Mothman is said to be an omen. An omen that appears, for whatever reason, before disaster happens." The suited man continues. "I believe that several Mothman sightings were just before the person had been attacked by a cryptid."
"The recent sightings were all reported right here in West Virginia. The reports came from the counties of Lewis, Braxton, Richie and Calhoun."
The three men's eyes are glued to a map of West Virginia on the table as the man in the suit moves his finger from each location to the other.
"Right in the middle of these locations is Glenville, a town with a large forest mass. Coincidentally, one of our other units had been sent there to investigate a cryptid lead only a week ago! They reported hearing strange noises in the woods, but found no actual anomaly."
Once the man in the suit finished pitching the mission to hunt the Mothman, Tom speaks up.
"So you've got a seriously solid theory here then, huh?"
"I'm sure of it." The man answers with certainty. "There will be a cryptid in Genville and the Mothman will show up right before we engage it. Whether it shows up as an omen or if it simply comes to observe interactions between people and cryptids, it'll be there. The most famous cryptid of all time, known and loved widely by the public, but never caught by the facility - if you pulled this off it could be huge for your unit."
Wrapping up the meeting, unit 13 waits patiently for two days until soon, a report of a strange noise in the woods of Glenville is picked up by the facility as expected. Right away, unit 13 prepares all their gear and rides in the back of the facility's transport vehicles to their destination.
The ride there is anything but quiet. The vehicles are filled with chatter and laughter from soldiers who are thrilled to be hunting the world's most infamous cryptid. Their leaders made no effort to calm them down, as, unlike in the military, Facility:Null's soldiers knew that any mission could be their last. No false sense of hope, but a triumphant euphoria that they felt when a cryptid had been slain by their unit. Though not every soldier in the facility behaved like this, a prominent example being Sawyer Ambrose, a young man who'd be described by the less serious soldiers as having a stick up his ass.
But one person sits in silence. An older man by the name of Micheal Roth that accompanies unit 13 - a veteran still serving. Seeing Roth lost in thought, Marnie speaks out to him.
"What's the matter, Roth?"
Breaking his silence, Roth replies, "Oh, nothing."
Marnie nods, only in acknowledgment of Roth answering him, and not in the agreement sense. "You sure you're up for this?" A seemingly caring statement, rather said in a teasing tone.
Roth turns his head to the man next to him, a serious expression clouding his face, "Believe me. Worry about yourself, Barnes."
The vehicles come to a halt.
The door of the vehicle that Roth and Barnes were sitting in is opened by Tom Mcallan.
"We're here."
Marnie Barnes is the first to exit. "Let's get this son of a bitch!"
The soldiers of unit 13 are given instructions by commander McAllan, and soon spread out into the forest in wait.
The almost dozen armed men linger in the woods in anticipation. Then, as if on cue, an inhuman deep noise is heard in the distance.
Commander McAllan almost immediately responds to the awaited occurrence. "Group 3, move out. Everybody else, wait here."
A small group of men in the unit break off and make their way towards the source of the noise. Everybody else waits for affirmation from group 3. A few moments pass before several gunshots echo through the forest, alerting the rest of the remaining unit.
"Group 3, do you copy?" McAllan calls out to his men on the radio mics, but is met with no response.
"God dammit…"
Now being forced to make a mission-altering decision, McAllan sinks deep into thought before delivering a command to his unit. Something was certainly out there, they all knew that - but they anticipated to catch the Mothman by surprise by predicting his appearance through past patterns. Now, it may be possible that they were simply late and the Mothman had already left after observing whatever events had occurred, leaving behind the cryptid that had been inhabiting the woods.
"Groups 1 and 2, advance forward!" McAllan orders. The men charged forward through the maze of trees. Among their ranks was Micheal Roth, who hadn't an ounce of hesitation to find - potentially - the illusive Mothman.
However, first they needed to deal with whatever had made group 3 go silent. The rest of unit 13 arrive at approximately the area where they heard one of their own yell out.
Several questions are thrown at the commander by his soldiers, with no reply given to them other than to continue the mission as planned. They all look around for the men of group 3. Nothing. It's like the men had disappeared. The forest was dead silent, the only sound was the footsteps of the baffled soldiers.
A tranquil moment passes, when suddenly one of the soldiers yells out and breaks the silence - his voice like a gunshot.
"Here! The body's up in the tree!" He shouts out to gain everybody's attention and to bring them over to see the unmoving body laying high up, held up by tree branches.
They all turn their heads in unison to the man who had found the corpse, only for their gaze to completely be halted before seeing the body in the tree.
The man, who had shouted out just now, was now bleeding profusely from his chest. His face locked in an expression of utter disbelief - his death so unbelievably sudden.
A few had caught a glimpse of a black hand impaling the man, causing the life-ending wound.
Whatever had impaled him scattered into the darkness before his body even dropped down to the floor.
The moment his body fell, the atmosphere completely changed. This one occurrence witnessed by everyone who had come to hunt the Mothman clouded their collective consciousness with a thick sense of tension and urgency.
"What the fuck was that?!"
"Take cover!" Tom's command reaches his unit, and with immediacy they do as told, sprinting behind the trees as to not have their backs exposed to the attacker.
Their eyes scan around the battlefield for the attacker.
"M9, target at 6 o'clock." One of the soldiers sees the creature flashing past and alerts the squadmate closest to him.
The man who has received the alert steps out behind the tree and fires his gun several times. The bullets fly through the air towards the dark silhouette zooming past, each missing their target. Now being able to track the entity, a few other soldiers rush out from behind their hiding spots and raise their guns in an attempt to knock the enemy out of the air.
"M9, M2, target going 9 o'clock."
The entity flies past their gunfire, seemingly attempting to fly as the soldiers have gotten into formation to blow it to bits with their weapons.
Just then, the soldier who was at present being referred to as M9, felt a hand pressed upon his back for a split second. Without even a miniscule fraction of time to react, M9 is rammed by the hand into a tree at such high speeds that nobody around him notices until it's too late.
On impact, his neck snaps and his bones shatter. Everybody's eyes flick towards the scene, yet, the man who was right by M9 wastes no time being distracted and turns around. Expecting to see the hostile entity flying past them, instead he sees it standing right in front of him for a brief moment. He feels a sense of bad luck for having the privilege to finally get a visual of their attacker.
A humanoid being standing at over 6 feet tall, a completely black body and two large wings coming out of its back.
The man gazing upon this creature instantly knew what it was.
"The Mothman! It's the Mothman!"
He tries to turn back to alert the others, but before another sound can come out of his mouth - something starts gushing out of his neck. His throat had been slit, and the severity of it caused him to fall to the ground without a moment's notice.
"Barnes, where are you? Get over to me, right now!"
Tom's voice rings through the ears of Marnie Barnes as he hears him through the radio receiver. Micheal Roth, who had just been crouching down behind a pile of logs, carefully makes his way to Barnes.
"Do you know where it is? The Mothman?"
Marnie shakes his head as Micheal frantically questions him, the both of them making their way to regroup with their leader. They rush past their compatriots who shoot madly at the unlocated flyer in the sky, only to be slain as it dives down using the cover of the night's darkness to swiftly kill the unsuspecting soldiers.
Tom's voice is heard through the radio chips again.
"We'll lure it to our group and blow the motherfucker to bits."
As he aims his gun and focuses his fire on anything in the sky that moves, it whizzes past his ear, slashing off a chunk before he can reply. Barnes grits his teeth through the pain, not allowing it to cause him to stumble - he was lucky it missed his face. He pushes past the trees, only to stop in realisation as his eyes widen.
Tom and two others hold down their position in a small clearing. The second Tom sees Barnes and Roth starting to emerge from behind the trees, he yells at them, "Get your asses over here, hurry!"
But Barnes doesn't. Instead he grips a tree and cries out to them to leave the clearing. His message was simple, yet shattered Tom McAllan's sense of leadership and sent a jolt down the remaining men's spines.
"IT CAN FUCKING UNDERSTAND US!!! It's been catching us 'coz it hears our fucking comms! Get out of there!"
But it was too late. In a flash the Mothman swooped down onto their position. Tom, who had no intention of abandoning his plan to use a grenade to blow the Mothman up. Now that the clearing allowed them to have a slightly better view of the cryptid's oncoming attacks, Tom sets his sights on the Mothman. He pulls out a grenade from his satchel, pulls the pin with teeth as his other hand is holding his rifle, and throws it at the cryptid.
The grenade catapults through the air before soon exploding. Causing everyone to turn their attention to it, the bright flash from the sky-high detonation illuminates the small clearing in the woods where the five men stand in anticipation of seeing the Mothman fall to the ground once the sparks have settled. The shrapnel from the explosive falls down around them, luckily not hitting anyone.
The first to realise the explosive had not hit the target was Micheal, who sought to plunge himself back into the deep woods to take cover from the soaring cryptid.
Behind him, his remaining associates get massacred.
Once their bullets cease, even through his desperate attempt to escape he understands that he's in fact next on the chopping board. It flies through the woods, now locked onto him.
The Mothman reaches forward. Looking back, Micheal Roth's quick glance meets the large blood-shot eyes of the Mothman - and as it reaches forward, Roth feels a sense of desire from the monster. As the Mothman flies towards Roth at such a high velocity, when its hand makes contact with him Micheal is forcefully knocked to the ground.
His body drops, and everything goes dark for him.