Special Needs Forces

9. Schizophrenia signal

The team was looking for the monster every day after they returned from their default missions for 3 days, but the search didn’t bring any results because the monster was hiding well. At the same time, Tawny was starting to hear some noises in his head, and it intensified over the last few days and was beginning to sound more like some voices instead of just noise and he thought he was going crazy. Frezja didn't know what to do about it because she specialized in stuff like putting spilled guts back where they should be and stitching, not psychiatry and schizophrenia, so she just said that if the voices wouldn’t stop she might try to contact some psychiatrist. Tawny didn’t like the idea of a psychiatrist and he thought that maybe he was going crazy from sitting in the same room for so long and asked for permission to go out for a walk. Crow surprisingly volunteered to keep an eye on him when he was out, and it was strange because Crow seemed to dislike Tawny, especially since Tawny bit her friend. For a long time Tawny tried not to start any conversations because he knew Crow liked to yell at people a lot but after some time curiosity won and he asked a question.

"Actually, why did you volunteer to look after me, I thought you didn't like me"

"Because I'm just probably the only person in here who is capable of knocking you out instead of getting their throat bitten off if you start acting weird again "

"Oh"

"Biel was trained during my stay here but even he lets his guard down sometimes and it will probably kill him one day, just like you killed my people back then in the field"

"Wait- how... it wasn't me." Tawny was confused

"Stop lying, it may seem convincing enough to others, griffin here, hyenas there... but it's obvious to me." Crow said it with such skill in her speech that even if Tawny hadn’t killed them he would admit it.

"How can you tell?" he said without looking her in the eyes.

"Griffins don't kill that way. They kidnap the victim, fly to a safe place and spill guts all over the place. Those hyena things don't hunt the way Brown died, they hunt in groups and there’s no way they could’ve done it stealthily. Either that or they eat rotting corpses they find.” It was getting very personal and sounded like Crow was about to blackmail Tawny or do something just as scary.

"Are you going to report it?"

"Reports have been filled the way they were filled. I just want to tell you that if you try to do something like that again, no matter what team - I'll rip your spine out and turn it into a clothes hanger.” Crow said it with such confidence it sounded like it wasn’t the first time she threatened to do that and Tawny almost shit himself and decided to watch himself as much as he could (although he did his best every day) because he himself didn’t when something would get into him again.

"It won’t happen again," Tawny replied frightened.

“I hope so,” Crow glared at him, and Tawny became sick of walking and preferred to go back to the med bay. As Crow escorted him to base, they walked past Frezja and Ex-Captain who were apparently talking to each other. Tawny stopped by them and asked if he could be released from the escort and Crow left.

"What’s up, Tawny, did the walk help?" Frezja asked him

"No... still the same"

“Oh, what's going on?" Ex-Captain asked out of curiosity

"Well .. Tawny said he was hearing voices and I don't know what to do about it." Frezja replied for him.

"What voices are you hearing?"

"They’re not distinct. Sometimes they disappear and then appear again. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Hmm..." said Ex-Captain, "I think there’s no signal, we can fly elsewhere with the ship and see if it gets better" he added. And everyone was speechless.

"I think schizophrenia doesn't work with signal as far as I know," said Frezja, disappointed.

"Well, you yourself say you don't know what to do with it, so what's the harm in doing my plan?” Biel asked

"It doesn't make sense." said Tawny

"Oh shut up, let’s take Rigel and Lukier and see what happens. If nothing happens, we can go to the store while we're out "

”But what about captain Crow? And the potential that Melisanda will call?" Tawny asked because to him it looked kind of like skipping class at school but with worse consequences if something went wrong.

"Jeez, I’m saying it's like going to the store, two minutes and we’re back, she won't even notice."

So they took the ship and flew to look for signal. Tawny didn’t pilot this time because it would be dangerous and Frezja wouldn't let him, but he was telling the others when the voices in his head were getting stronger or weaker. Ex-Captain was flying back and forth in different areas and kept asking "what about now?" and it didn't seem to make sense because all the time the noise was the same until suddenly it started to become clearer and Tawny was surprised.

“Uh wait, it was clearer for a while" he said and everyone was surprised now too, including Captain,  even though it was his idea.

"Haha, I didn't think it would work" commented Captain Biel. And then they found the source of schizophrenia and it was some dark cave in a rock.

"It's here" said Tawny

"What does the voice say?" Frezja asked

“I'm not sure, it's like watching a movie in a language I don't know. You don't hear anything?"

"No" Frezja said and took out some handheld soundwave detector and put it to the cave "but I see there is some slight rumble there so if you want to go in then be careful"

"Actually, now I can hear something too," said Rigel. "At this distance you can tell it’s there"

"Okay, I’ll go to the cave and you wait here because I can’t die any more than when the monster killed me"

"No, we won't let you go alone" Frezja said

"Okay, then Tawny goes first and we'll cover the rear" said the Captain and that's what they did. Tawny was walking more swiftly in the narrow cave because he had better eyesight and the rest of the team couldn't keep up. Rigel also began to see in the dark like Tawny had before, and he didn't know if it was good or bad. It was good in this situation but he didn't know if something bad would happen to him later. Anyway, Tawny reached the source of the voices first and was surprised by what he saw because it was the monster that infected him in all its glory. It was curled up like a cat and seemed to be sleeping. Tawny stopped and watched because he couldn't take his eyes off it and then the team caught up with him, shone their flashlights at the monster and the monster woke up and everyone panicked. When the monster woke up, the voice in Tawny's head told him not to attack the monster, so Tawny silenced the team.

"Is... is that what infected you?" Frezja asked

"Looks like it..." Tawny said and walked over to the monster, who wasn't attacking him or the rest of them.

"Hello my child, so you are the one who received my gift in the fight against the Garlic Monster" Said the voice in Tawny's head, it was weird and Rigel heard it too.

"Um... uh… are you saying that telepathically? Why... wait, a gift?" Tawny had so many questions he didn't know where to start.

"Indeed. Telepathy is what my species used, we were the most intelligent species here on this planet, before you micro lizards began to colonize and conquer it. My species has been plagued by bigger and stronger monsters for years, so we have the same enemy. " The monster continued talking, and Tawny wanted to ask another question, but he didn't know what to say at all, and was speechless because the situation reminded him of something that would happen in a Star Trek episode or something. Fortunately, he didn't have to ask the question because the monster continued.

“That's why I gave you strength and eyes and regeneration and epic tentacles so that you could defeat our enemies more easily and then you can join the rest of the halfblood family"

"Uh...You killed me back there in that cave. Is that why I bite my colleagues at work?" Tawny said reproachfully, and others besides Rigel were surprised that he was talking to himself because they couldn’t hear the monster's dialogue. Rigel felt that they couldn't hear and began explaining to them that the monster was giving him history lessons.

"Your 'life' has been restored. This, as well as killing comrades, was necessary for the transformation to be successful. "

"You mean what I look like now?"

"Yes. If you can hear what I'm saying, you are now a complete halfblood and you can join the rest "

“What... What rest? Do you just infect people and turn them into whatever you turned me into? Why?"

“Several hundred years ago my species suffered  from the numerous monsters roaming this planet. They condemned us to live in hard-to-reach places and the only sanctuary in which we were allowed to live in peace was the underground forest which until today remains an oasis of peace, but now not for ones like me but for ones like you"

“Okay, so from what I understand you infect people and send them to some unknown place. Why?"

“Because I'm the last of my kind. Due to the fact that I have no way to leave a mark in any other way, I decided to combine our species into one to create a new better civilization."

"But... people already have their civilization here and it works"

"It works, but it might work better. You humans are almost as intelligent as we were, but while you got opposable thumbs, my race charged further into intellect and unlocked telepathy. And that was a mistake. And your mistake is that you care about sick and weak individuals instead of focusing on the strong ones." At the same time Rigel kept explaining from mute to human that the monster had a plan to make an army of creatures like Tawny, and panicked a bit because it didn't sound good.

“Okay, how do you find this family in the hidden forest you mentioned?" Tawny tried to sound like he was interested in joining them but he didn't really want to go”

"Where you can see a circular waterfall from the highest peak, you will find what you are looking for"

"Wow that sounded a bit anti-climatic with that circular waterfall"

“Be silent child, the circular waterfall looks more majestic than it sounds" Said the monster and then Captain’s radio rang but Captain didn’t answer. The monster then remembered that it had more listeners than Tawny and noticed that Rigel could understand too.

"I can see you can understand what I say as well, long haired man. I don't recall granting you the gift that the red one was given.” Rigel then walked over to the monster and he was feeling a bit stupid to admit it now, especially since Frezja, Captain and Lukier were gathered in the cave and could hear him. Actually, Lukier, Captain, and Frezja were now starting to wonder why Rigel understood the monster in the first place.

"Uhm... this is awkward to talk about but like, Tawny infected me" Rigel confessed and the team yelled "What?!"

"Tawny, why did you do that?" asked Frezja disgusted "and why him, exactly?"

"He wouldn’t leave me alone, don't blame me!" Tawny said and everyone was disgusted, even the monster.

"You're somewhat like halfbloods but... underdeveloped." commented the monster looking at Rigel, "Maybe because you got infected by a halfblood and now it makes you a quarterblood. That won't fit the collection... unless I fix it." The monster sprang to attack and Rigel shit his pants. Then the rest of the team intervened and started shooting at the monster and shot it to death and Tawny and Rigel stopped hearing voices in their heads because there was no source of voices anymore.

Frezja could take samples from the monster's body and take pictures of it to add it to the monster catalog later as a discovery in region 13 that will probably lift them up them in the ranking. Anyway, a lot of weird shit happened in this cave and they all had enough and wanted to go home and take some time off. They couldn't take a day off though because more shit had come out and they would probably have to investigate further in the near future and look for this civilization of infected people in the circular waterfall. Anyway, for now they were going home and Biel finally picked up the radio and it was Crow and she was very furious that he took the guy who was supposed to be locked up and the only flying vehicle they had available and went on an unofficial mission risking his teammates’ lives for no reason. But when they got home and told her that they had found the beast that infected Tawny and learned other interesting things connected to it, Crow was positively surprised that Biel did something like this and no one died. She told Biel to report it to Melisanda himself, and she sent someone to bring the body of the newly found monster to the carrier's laboratory. When making the report, Biel omitted a few details, partially as a precaution, and partially to save them for later, so that their success wouldn’t end so soon. Melisanda didn't believe it at first, but then she got confirmation and was shocked. Everyone was shocked.