Exitus: At Large

The doctor briskly walked down the creaking, greyscale bridge and tried to ignore the hellspawn that was slithering down with him. The hellspawn that killed his son and God knows what else he did.

But he couldn't. He needed the atrocity. He needed him to get his son back.

As a father, the doctor had everything but time. He never had a chance to play with his energetic and restless son, never read a book to him or took the whole family to an amusement park or listened to his stories of what went on at school. The doctor was far too busy - the Compound work left no time for recreation.

So it struck the doctor hardest when he was told by his tearful wife that his only son, James, was killed, a bizarre accident where he had strolled too close to a construction site on his way to school out of innocuous curiousity, only to be crushed under by a steamroller.

Crushed under by a steamroller. Driven by this... this asshole.

Dr. Kondri looked the asshole, who was none other than Anomaly XJ-9041, confidently leading the way to the depths of the dark forest. They were crossing a long, hidden bridge, shrowded away buy ominous-looking trees and vegetations.

"How much longer?" he half-spat when he asked.

"We still have a good deal left.  Patience, Friend, patience."

"You try being a father trying to get his son back and see if you're patient or not."

XJ laughed at this, a sadistic giggle that chilled the doctor's spine. He shook out the malaise and proceeded on.

"We'll get there soon..." XJ crooned.

Jerry and Joe stood rigid as their squadron leader pinpointed the general locations of the anomalies with his blue touch screen, a private device every employee's cubicle had in the immense, chamber-like database.

"Okay, so we have recently gotten report from our sleeper agents of DF-6103's estimated whereabouts.  Subject was seen last in Israeli Coal Mine #37, under indirect control by the Compound.  We fund it and all.  Why subject chooses to stay there is an enigma to us.  We're trying to find out.

"Anomaly DF-6103... let's see, welp - he's a giant bird seemingly made of fire and sand.  'Course, that's just unscientific bullshit.  Likes reciting the Book of Iyov to communicate, although he is fluent in English - must be some Jewish fanatic.  Maybe he picked Coal Mine #37 just out the fact that it's in Israel?"

"Sure," Joe replied, swallowing hard and praying the leader wasn't going to say the inevitable.

"You two are to act as decoys - pinpoint DF's direct location, and distract him while the rest of the squadron takes him down.  Just don't try to get killed," the leader said slightly halfheartedly.