Item #: Pending

Object Class: Keter. God help you.

Special Containment Procedures: You're going to die, you poor dumb fuck.

This isn't a threat. I'm Agent Barclay. I'm in the middle of this goddamned thing, and I'm telling you, if you're here? You're going to die. I'm probably already dead.

So that's out of the way. Let's get to the containment procedures. There's really only one. Close the goddamned door. You aren't going to get back through there. You've probably already tried. But we know they can get out, if they try hard enough. That's how we found this fucking place. Hopefully, you've already done that. I know we did, once we gave up on getting out through there. If you didn't, then you go straight back and get that door closed. That is your only priority right now. You're going to die anyway. Might as well do some good before you're gone.

Description: So, here's a story, tell me if you've heard it before. The Foundation gets reports of trouble in Bumfuck, USA. Cattle and wildlife are dying mysteriously. Some people turn up missing. When a body shows up, autopsy finds the heart missing. Not cut out, not torn out, just gone. Empty space in the middle of the chest.

They find some sort of pitch-black things floating around. Some brain at the Foundation has seen something like them before, figures out how to kill them. Silver bullets, and pray to God as you fire. Literally. For some reason, that makes it work. Doesn't matter which God, but you damn well better mean it.

I can't, anymore. Not after seeing the nest.

Anyway, Foundation figures out where it's all coming from. Some house in the middle of Bumfuck. No one's lived there in years, not since yadda yadda, murder, cult, rituals, bullshit. The main thing is, these things keep appearing out of the front door. A team goes in, and they never come back out. But then again, neither do the monsters. A sane person would say, Good enough, keep an eye on it, kill anything that moves. But this is the Foundation.

You're a tough agent from MTF-Whatever-the-fuck. Maybe Sequere Nos, maybe Choir Boys, like me. You go bust down the door and run inside, and that's it. You're fucked.

The living room was bad enough. That's where they got O'Brien. They reached in, and suddenly he keeled over, and one of them took off with his heart in its… claws, I guess?

They're less distinct here. You probably noticed that. They're like shadows. Stay away from the light. I know that sounds stupid, but think about it. In the light, shadows are stronger. They have edges. When it's dark, they're indistinct. They can hardly touch you, and they don't see very well. I think they see by your shadow. I don't know. I'm just pulling at straws here, I'll be honest.

You've probably tried going back out the door, but if you haven't, don't. It leads to some place even worse. There aren't any monsters, but… Jones went too far from the house, and I swear to God, he started to melt. Things started popping out of him, and… All you need to know is he didn't make it back. That's when we closed the door.

So, we started moving through the house. We kept to the light at first, before we wised up. Three of us gone that way. But we got a pretty good picture of our surroundings.

This place? It's big. It's not just the farmhouse. It's like… It's like they stole bits and pieces of a lot of places, and stuck them all together. There's some bits that look like an apartment, some that look like a shopping mall, and even what I swear is a closet from my old high school. Same patterns on the tiles and everything.

There's also bits that are made out of… stuff. It's black, like the shadow-things, and it's mostly in the well-lit places. If the lights go out, you can stick your hand through. I don't recommend it. That's how we lost Torres. Something grabbed him, pulled him through. The hole wasn't big enough for his head, but he still went through, eventually.

So, stay away from the light places, but watch your step when it's dark.

Of course, there's no way out. We figured that out too. Any door you find, it either just leads to another room in this nuthouse, or it leads out there, and it's pretty obvious we can't live there. So it's wait until you starve to death or one of those things gets you. Great bunch of choices, huh?

There's one thing you can do. I couldn't go through with it, but maybe you can. It won't help you live, I don't think, but it's… I think it's important. I'm pretty sure someone's going to have to, or these things are going to get out eventually.

This place is stolen from lots of places. So I'm thinking there have to be other doors. We've closed all the ones we've found, but what if they get opened again? And the Foundation doesn't find them in time? Hell, they don't even know about closing the doors. I'm just hoping they figure out that if someone goes in, the things might stop getting out. And that's assuming everyone's smart enough to close the door after they come in.

So, I think I figured out a way to stop these things. It's the nest.

I only saw it once, for a few minutes. We followed one of the bastards after they got Denning's heart. It took it into a room that I guess is in the middle of this whole place. It's all black stuff, and they've dragged in every kind of light they could find, I guess. Lamps, flashlights, candles, you name it. Some of them were carrying more in as we watched. Anyway, at the middle, there's a big pile of hearts. Just tossed in a heap, and torn open, every one. They threw Denning's heart on the pile, and it started to beat, and then pulse, and then thrash around. Then it tore open, and one of those things pulled itself out. It shook itself, started to grow and then went right to work. The gross thing is that, torn apart as they were, the hearts kept beating. I swear I felt a twinge in my own chest.

There were shadows in the place. I don't mean the monsters, I mean real shadows, of people. Only there was no one there to cast them. They were coming from the hearts. A new one appeared at the same time as the hatching monster, and started trying to pull away, but it couldn't.

That was when I ran. I couldn't take it, you understand? I wasn't trained for this kind of shit. I heard the others behind me. I don't know if they were trying to stop me, or if the bastards had spotted us, but we got separated. I found a nice, dark closet, and I've been hiding in here since. I've been writing by penlight. I turn it off whenever I hear one of them getting close. It's worked, so far.

I can't go any further. I've got a few shots left in my gun, but I can't pray anymore, not and mean it. Not after I saw the nest. But you, if you've found this, you've got to be an agent too. Maybe you're stronger than I was. If you can, go in and destroy the nest. Destroy every last heart. If you do, maybe it'll kill them. It's the only thing I can think of. You'll probably die doing it, but you're dead anyway. So what's it matter to you how it happens?

Me, I'm going to try and get this report back to the living room, which I hope is where you found it. Then I'm going to make sure they can't use my heart to make another one of those things.

Good luck. Morituri te salutant.