User:GreenBlobThing/OldInsolitam1

The First Day of the Rest of My Life is the first episode of the first series of Insolitam, written by Scoobydooman90001. Like with the first episode of The New Adventures of Oh Pi, the main purpose of this story is to act as a standalone story that sets up the premise of the series and introduces the main characters with no reference to the story arc.

Synopsis
Louisa Wells is as ordinary and as average as they come. She works a dead-end job and makes just enough money to live a good life. All of that is about to change when she is attacked by a savage beast and learns of the existence of supernatural beings. Welcome to Insolitam.

Text Format
It was a dark and rainy night, as was normal for an Autumn night in the UK. Two campers were attempting to get some much needed sleep. That was quite difficult with the increasingly heavy rain pouring down on top of their tent. The wind was sweeping leaves up from the ground and bashing them against the tent. One of the campers sat up. “Hey” he said. “Hey, John” he repeated, urging his friend to wake up. “Yeah, what is it?” he answered, slowly lifting his head. His friend peeked outside of the tent. “I think I heard something outside.” “No you didn’t, Jack.” John put his head back down onto his pillow. “You’re just imagining things again. Get some sleep.” “I swear” said Jack. “I heard something.” He grabbed a torch, turned it on and crawled outside of the tent. He slowly stood up and wiped the mud off of his knees. He shined his torch through the trees and squinted his eyes, attempting to make something out of the shapes in the dark. He heard a twig crack behind him and spun around, falling over and dropping his torch. Unfortunately for him, it had landed in a small pile of mud, hiding the torchlight. Surrounded by darkness and lying on his stomach, Jack reached out in front of him and tried to find his torch. All he could feel was the mud and the leaves as the rain streamed down his face. Suddenly, the whole forest was illuminated as thunder came crashing down. Now that he could see, Jack looked in front of him and briefly saw two feet in front of him before being thrown into darkness yet again. The lightning flickered a second time and Jack looked above him. In front of him was a dark silhouette, illuminated by the crashing thunder. He couldn’t make out much of its features, though it was humanoid in shape and was wearing what seemed to be a straight jacket. Water ran down its dead face as it blankly stared at him. Its mouth was large and dry, having been cracked wide open to an unnatural size. Spiders crawled out of its mouth and jumped onto Jack’s face. He let out a deafening scream, though it went unheard as the thunder continued to come crashing down around them…

The next day, a young woman was working late hours at one of the many individual branches of the Tesco supermarkets. She was roughly around 22 years old, had dark brown hair and had a somewhat oval-shaped face. Her eyes had bags under them from the dreariness of having to constantly stay up so late. It was the same thing every night. It was like a loop that would never end. Every single night, she’d stay up late and put items onto the shelves, ready to be sold the following day. She was tired of it. She had spent the last thirty minutes doing this and already she felt like she was going to fall asleep. It didn’t help that the bright lights obscured her vision as she had to squint her eyes to properly focus on what she was doing. She was busy lining up multiple bottles of different brands of soda on the shelves when she realized that she had left the rest of the products on a separate trolley inside the large area where everything was stored. She briefly looked down at the ground in contempt, sighed and headed over to the storage at the back of the store.

“Fantastic” she sarcastically whispered to herself, pushing past the blue doors and entering the large back area of the store. Strangely, her trolley that she had been using to cart around the products that needed shelving was against the wall and had been emptied. “Really?” she asked herself. “Sue!” she shouted. “Did you take everything out of the trolley, again?” She waited for an answer but didn’t receive one. She called Sue’s name out a second time and still got no answer. This was strange as Sue hadn’t left this part of the store and there was only one way in or out. She slowly moved through the multiple aisles of products stacked up in boxes and cautiously looked around. She could hear a few crunching sounds, as if a raccoon was eating something. She made her way through the boxes and went around multiple corners, getting closer and closer to the sounds. The sound was now just around the corner. She passed the boxes and saw the most horrifying sight! Sue was lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood and a lot of her flesh had been torn apart. Crouched down feasting on her flesh was a large, hairy creature with brown wiry fur. It was human in shape but had three claws on each hand and its head looked vaguely similar to an anteater except it had a yellow eye at the end of its snout. She let out a quiet gasp and startled the creature, causing it to unnaturally pounce backwards. It stood up and looked at her. She could see that it was completely covered in hair and that it was twitching. It moved closer to her and clicked its claws together. It observed her movements and tilted its head like a curious puppy. It took a good look at name tag and read the letters. “Louisa” it grunted, sounding like a cross between a child and a wild boar. She backed away slowly and it began to twitch more than it did before. Its eye suddenly expanded in size and split into four diagonal strips, revealing a long tentacle-like tongue and four sharp rows of teeth. It made a loud hissing and jumped towards her! She dodged out of the way and pushed some boxes over in an attempt to slow it down as she made her escape. She ran as quickly as she could towards the blue doors, not daring to look back. The creature screamed like a banshee as it got closer and closer, hunched over and running after her. Just as she ran through the doors, two men with guns rushed past her and shot the creature. It stopped in its tracks and clutched its chest in pain. It looked up at the two men and carefully backed away. It quickly turned around and began to ran as the two men fired their guns again. It disappeared around a corner and one of the men ran after it. The shorter, older one turned to Louisa and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You didn’t see any of this” he said. He looked at her name tag. “Now then, Louisa, head home and do whatever it is you would usually do. I know it’s hard, but forget about what you saw. Nobody will believe you if you tell them anyways.” Without displaying any emotions, he turned around and followed his colleague around the corner. Louisa held one door open and looked through, trying to see them. She heard two loud gunshots ring out and ran towards the entrance of the store, leaving the building and running home.

It was 2AM and Louisa was having difficulty sleeping. There was so much for her to process. Sue is dead. What was that animal thing? Who were those two guys that drove it away? Those two guys… She couldn’t stop thinking about them. She had barely seen then, but she could vividly remember what they looked like. One was tall and had messy, black hair. He had a round face and was seemingly growing a stubble. He wore dark trousers, a charcoal-coloured duffle coat that hadn’t been buttoned up and had stunning blue eyes. His shorter, older friend, the one who had spoke to her, had been wearing more formal attire. He had been wearing dark blue denim jeans, a grey buttoned up shirt and a green summer jacket. He had short brown hair and an oval-shaped face. His eyes were brown and very intense. At least, that’s the impression he had given her. And that horrible monster… Just what was that thing? She had assumed it was some type of animal but now she wasn’t so sure. She knew she had to stop thinking about the events that happened that night. She needed to get some sleep. She could put her mind to finding out what happened the next morning. For now, sleeping was the best she could do.

Her alarm went off at 7AM and she begrudgingly got out of her bed. Rubbing her eyes, she let out a long yawn and put her hand against her forehead. She looked around her small room and tried to focus on what was in her room. She was in that state where she was still half asleep and half awake. After gathering her bearings, she grabbed her uniform and got out of her pyjamas. She looked at herself in the mirror and noticed she had a bruise on her hip. It must have been a result of what had happened last night… Twenty minutes later, she had gotten dressed, had breakfast and had brushed her teeth. Her hair was rather messy but she couldn’t care less. If she ignored it, she didn’t have to think about it. She grabbed her phone, slipped it into her pocket and then grabbed her keys. She left her apartment, hurried down the flight of grey stairs and got into her Vauxhall car.

After making her way through heavy traffic, Louisa had finally arrived at Tesco and had parked her car close to the entrance of the building. Unsurprisingly, a lot of police officers were inside the builder making sure that nobody tried to enter the back area of the store. After all, they couldn’t just let someone potentially contaminate a crime scene. Louisa entered the store and headed to the back of the store, interested in getting a good look at the police investigation. She got as close as she could, looking through the window to see what was happening in there. She could see a body (presumably Sue’s body) under a cloth on a stretcher and three guys in brown and black trenchcoats were analysing samples they had found on the floor. Like with many other crime scenes, a chalk outline had been drawn on the floor where Sue’s body had previously been. Most of the blood had been cleaned up and a crime photographer was checking his camera. She backed away and pretended to be putting some cans of food on a shelf as two men in expensive-looking coats came out. She made sure to listen in on their conversation. “Is it…?” asked the first guy. “Insolitam?” asked the other. “Yeah, it is” he confirmed. “The CCTV footage also shows another girl, but we can’t get a good luck at her face.” The two guys briefly glanced back into the storage facility, not taking any notice of Louisa and then headed to the front of the store. “Insolitam…” Louisa whispered to herself, immediately putting two and two together and realising they must have been talking about the two men who had rescued her yesterday.

When she got home just a couple of hours later, she put some noodles in the microwave and quickly opened up her laptop, clicking on Google Chrome and searched ‘insolitam’. She tried to get a good look at the search results but the page quickly blanked itself before she could get a good look. The search results were suddenly replaced with a bunch of YouTube videos of annoying Vine compilations. She added ‘young man bald man’ to the end of her results and searched again. However, the exact same thing happened, only this time the search results were replaced with something dirty that she definitely did not want to look at. “What the…?” she asked herself, this time searching ‘insolitam monsters’. For a third time, the results blanked themselves and this time came up with results for the song ‘Monster’ by Skillet. She sat in the darkness and thought to herself, before she suddenly got a Skype notification. Someone had sent her a message… She opened it up and looked at it. It was from an unknown contact. ‘STOP’ it read, in big bold letters. Slightly scared, she closed it down but searched ‘insolitam’ in the web browser yet again. She tried to move her mouse, but the cursor on the screen wouldn’t move! She looked at the mouse and saw the LED light was on, so it clearly hadn’t ran out of battery power. Suddenly, her cursor on the screen began moving by itself and searched ‘gay black orgy pornhub’. It then moved down to the URL link of the first result and copied it. Louisa was speechless. The cursor opened a second tab and went on Facebook. By looking at her personal information, it found the name of her mother and began writing a message to her, including the link as part of the message. She read it closely and saw that it said ‘wish this were me’ with a small winking emoji. The Skype window opened again and the chat window with the unknown contact opened her. There was now a second message. ‘WANT YOUR PARENTS TO CONSIDER IT?’ it asked. ‘YOU BEST STOP NOW’ said a third message, appearing underneath it. She grabbed the mouse and saw that she could move it again. She began typing in the chat box.

LOUISA - Who are you? CONTACT - Take a wild guess. LOUISA - You’re Insolitam? CONTACT - No, that’s the name of our organization. LOUISA - But who are you? CONTACT - We can’t tell you that. LOUISA - But I need to know. You saved me. CONTACT - If a man saved you from tripping over and cracking your skull on the pavement, would you need their personal details? LOUISA - That’s not the point. CONTACT - How did your find our name? Actually, scratch that. It’s not important. LOUISA - What is important then? CONTACT - What we’re going to do with you, if you keep on persisting with this annoying hunt for us. LOUISA - Send porn to my parents? CONTACT - If you want. LOUISA - Yeah, no thanks. What was that dog thing? Why was it in the storage room? CONTACT - You don’t need to know. LOUISA - I want to know. CONTACT - I want doesn’t get. LOUISA - And neither does sending porn to my parents, so tell me. CONTACT - Imagine someone sighing, cause that’s what I just did. You really aren’t gonna give up? LOUISA - No. CONTACT - Well… We can’t kill you as that’d be an unethical and mean thing to do. You definitely sure? LOUISA - Yes. CONTACT - You really don’t know what you’re getting yourself into… We meet at 22:00 tonight. You get the personal satisfaction of meeting us and we get the satisfaction of never seeing you again. LOUISA - Where do I meet you? CONTACT - Behind your local library. Nobody goes there because nobody goes to libraries anymore.

Before she could reply, her laptop went into sleep mode. She assumed that the mysterious contact had manually done it. She had thirty minutes to prepare and get to the library. She grabbed a can of pepper spray to defend herself and wrote a note saying where she had gone to in case anything were to happen to her and she was never to be seen again. She grabbed her coat and ran down the stairs, exiting the front door and began heading for the library.

According to her phone, which read 21:58, she had arrived there two minutes earlier than expected. She cautiously made her way to the alleyway behind the library and saw two people facing away from each other. She could get them talking to each other. “You seriously told her to come here?” asked one voice. “Yeah, I thought it was a good idea at the same” said a younger voice. “You thought it was a good idea to tell someone who we are?” the older voice demanded, clearly agitated. “No, I was just gonna let her meet us and get closure. Then we won’t have to deal with her ever again” replied the young voice. “We should have just let her find the stupid conspiracy sites” replied the older voice back at him. “Let her become a conspiracy nut nobody talks to.” “No thanks” said the young voice. “We’ve already got enough of those. Isn’t that right, Louisa?” She gasped as he shined a flashlight on the corner of the building, exposing her arm. She emerged from around the corner and gave a little wave. She got closer and looked at them. The younger one was still wearing his duffle coat but the older one with less hair had changed into a ragged brown coat and black denim jeans. “Uh… Hey” she said, looking up at the tall one. “I assume you remember us?” asked the one in the duffle coat. “Yeah… Yes” she said, clearly nervous. “Lighten up” he said, patting her head and walked past her so that he could inspect a puddle on the ground. Confused, she looked at him and then at the shorter one. “Uh… He does this sometimes” said the shorter one. “Who… Who are you guys?” Louisa asked. The duffle coat guy immediately jumped up and spun around. “James Taylor!” he exclaimed, trying to straighten up his duffle coat and then giving up. “You said you wouldn’t reveal your name!” shouted the other guy. “Stop getting so agitated, Bill Moore” joked James, patting Bill’s back and then going in for a kiss with Louisa before recoiling. “Is he drunk?” she asked as James scooped some water from the puddle in a small plastic cup and drank it. “Not drunk!” he shouted. “Can’t get drunk, the immortality thing, it’s all very, very complicated.” “The immor-what?” she asked. “What do you-” “-So many thoughts going through my head” he explained. “Does taking drugs count as being drunk? Does drunk count as drugs? Does drugs… drugs?” He fell to his knees and got back up. “You took drugs?” she asked. “Says it helps stimulate the mind and concentrate” explained Bill, frowning at both her and James. “Sorry, it’ll cool down soon” said James, very sternly all of a sudden. “That’s the thing with drugs, they can help you concentrate but they’re also just a really fun time. Still, we’ll find it” he said. “Find it… Find him… Her… 2017… Can’t assume genders. That’s bad.” “Find what…?” asked Louisa. “Another one of those dog things?” “Something worse” said Bill, stepping close to her and trying to keep James away from the puddle. “Thought you were being all secretive?” she asked him. “No point when our drugged-up friend here wants the whole world to know” he complained. “We’re hunting something worse than the Doteog.” “The Doteog?” she asked. “That’s the ‘dog thing’ that attacked you. We’re looking for a creature that consumes phobias.” “James found him wandering around the woods” said James, imitating Bill’s heavy accent. “It killed some people and I tried to capture it, but it got away… We’ve named it Phobios and we’ve been looking for it for quite some time now. The Doteog thing was only a coincidence. There’s quite a couple of them.” He held his head, resisting the headaches. It seemed like his mind was finally clearing. “You explain” he gestured to Bill, wheezing in pain as the headache got worse. “Right… Well basically, we’ve been hunting it down on CCTV footage, and it was last seen somewhere around here. We were gonna hunt for it, but he thought it’d be a swell idea to rope you into it. You should probably leave while you still can. We aren’t safe people to hang around.” AAAAAAAAAH! Everyone jumped back in surprise as a deathly scream rang through the air. “That way!” shouted Bill, running at a wall and jumping over it. Confused and unsure how to react, Louisa watched James get up, hit his head against a wall and follow Bill. “What am I getting myself into?” she asked herself. She followed them and attempted to climb over the wall, attempting to push her right leg over the top of it.

Meanwhile, Bill and James ran through alleyways with their guns ready to fire, searching for where the scream came from. “I think it came from that way” said Bill, pointing to an alleyway on his left and running down it. The two of them came across a dead body with a shark bite on it. “Looks like she needed bigger legs” said James. “You know… For running… It’s a Jaws joke. Forget it.” “That joke wasn’t funny and doesn’t even work in context” said Bill, crouching down and examining the woman’s wounds. “Come up with something better” moaned James. “Just trying to lighten the mood.” “I would if I wasn’t sensible and high on drugs” stated Bill. “Clearly she had a phobia of sharks.” “Or maybe she saw that there were four Jaws movies and got scared of all these sequels” said James, taking a photo of her body. “Are you gonna take this seriously?” asked Bill, standing up and looking him in the face. They heard Louisa, who had only just climbed over the wall, screaming and began running back to her. She had come face to face with a giant human sized cobra. It hissed at her and revealed large over-sized fangs. “Stay back!” shouted Bill, emerging from around the corner and firing a bullet into the air. The cobra hissed in anger, whipped its tail at the air and jumped over a fence, transforming into a tabby cat midway through the air. “Great” said Bill. “Lost it again…” “What was that?!” shouted Louisa, shocked at what she had just seen. “First, a dog monster and now a cobra! Tell me what the hell’s going on.” “She’s seen too much” said Bill, looking at James for advice. “Guess it’s best for you to come with us then”, said James.

After an hour-long car ride, they pulled up to a shed contained in a fenced area out somewhere in the woods, where nobody would dare to look. They got out of the car and ushered her towards the shed. “What? In there?” she asked. “Yes, it isn’t as small as you think” explained Bill, opening the door and walking through it. She and James joined him and they stood on what appeared to be an elevator that Bill had opened with a key. “Key is a bit basic, isn’t it?” she asked. “There’s this perception thingy around the keyhole” said James. “Makes people think there’s a keypad there. I’ve spent hours watching people attempting to press non-existent buttons. It’s hilarious.” “Oh” said Louisa. She could accept anything by this point. The elevator descended and Louisa gasped in amazement as they arrived in a giant underground room. It was massive! There were staircases and corridors all leading to multiple different areas, there was a large TV, there were some desks with lots of documents on it and a bunch of phones, all for people to contact them. The walls were a dark and metallic, shaded blue in colour. “This place is amazing!” she exclaimed. “Yeah, I guess it is” said James, looking around the room and pretending to be just as amazed as she was. “Where is everyone.” “Uh…” droned Bill. “Just us” said James, stepping out of the elevator as it touched the ground. “Just you two? Really?” she asked, following him at and walking by his side. “Just us” he repeated. Bill took off his coat and hanged it up on a hanger. “Let me guess” she said. “This is Insolitam.” “Correct” he said, slumping down on a sofa and looking at a piece of paper on the table in front of him. She looked at it as well. There were some pencil sketches on it, the most prominent one featuring what appeared to be an orange squid with a glass bowl on its head. “This is crazy” she said, trying to process everything. “You’ve got a giant underground base and nobody knows about it.” “It’s privately funded” stated James. “Who by?” she asked. “Dunno” said James. “Probably the government. Founded the place in 2011. Spoke to some guys wearing suits. Yeah, probably the government.” “Some police guy mentioned the word Insolitam” she said. “There you go then.” He smiled and flipped through every page of a long hardback book in just a few seconds. “Well that was boring” he said, throwing the book away. “Twist ending sucked” he said. “What twist ending?” she asked. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” he asked. “What questions” she asked, attempting to stop words rushing out of her mouth. She put her hands over it and tried to calm down. “Now” he said, looking up at her. “What do you want to know?” “What do I need to know?” she asked. “Ah, I like that” he said, chuckling to himself. “Well, a lot of things really.” “I’m not going anywhere” she reminded him. “Do you believe in reincarnation?” he asked her. “No… Why?” she answered back, tagging a question to the end of her reply. “Because I’m immortal, and that’s basically the same thing” he told her. “Pfft, what?” she asked. “No way. Get out of here.” “Yes way” he said. “So what you’re saying is that you live forever?” she asked. “If that’s how you want to view immortality, then yes” he said. “How do you view it?” she asked, perking up. “How I view it is… Immortality… It isn’t about living forever. It's… It’s about watching everyone else dying. It isn’t about cheating death and transcending life. It’s being trapped in it” explained James. “Ouch…” she replied, unsure how to respond to that explanation. “Ask me something else” requested James. “What was that snake thing?” she asked. “We already explained that to you” James told her. “Well…” she started. “What is it doing here?” she asked. “Eating phobias. Consuming them whole. It’s imperative that we hunt him down as soon as possible” said James. “We nearly had him earlier.” “It’s a him?” she asked. “Yes, it’s 2017, got a problem with that?” quickly asked James, almost urgent to make that clear for some reason. “Just asking…” said Louisa.

'''RING! RING! RING!'''

James jumped out of his seat and dashed over to a phone on his desk as it began ringing. He picked it up and held it to his left ear, before swapping it over to his right ear. “Hello!” he ecstatically said. “You returned my call.” “Is it the lady from the hospital?” asked Bill, approaching him. “Yes, yes” said James. “Hush, hush.” Bill and Louisa watched as James listened to the woman on the other end of the phone. James then hung up and put the phone back down. “Well?” asked Bill. “You know that psychic kid that got caught in that accident and ended up in a coma?” asked James. “Yes, I do” said Bill. “He’s awake” said James. “He’s no longer comatose, so let’s coma-go.”

They soon pulled up outside of the hospital in their car and looked upon the hospital. James got out of the car and very slowly slid across the bonnet of the car. Bill and Louisa simply stood out and joined him. “Right” said James. “Psychic kid.” “Near the top of the building” said Bill, pulling out a map of the hospital. “Aren’t you gonna chase down the phobia thing?” asked Louisa. “I’ve got plenty of time to go around looking for him” said James. “Talking to this kid is a rare opportunity.” “But the phobia thing… is killing people…” she weakly said. “And so are a bunch of other creatures all around the world. It’s best not to think about it” explained Bill, leading the way into the hospital. Just as they entered the building, a weak and frail human-like creature emerged from the bushes, staring at the hospital. It's cracked smile widened, forming tiny new cracks around it as it did so. It had found it's new hunting ground…

The three were soon in the ward for coma patients, near the very top of the building. They could overlook the whole of the town from here. “Is this him?” asked Louisa as they approached a young boy lying on his hospital bed. He was playing Donkey Kong Country on a Gameboy. “Yes” said Bill calmly, sitting down on a chair next to the bed. “Hey there, Timothy” he said, holding out his hand so that Timothy could shake it. “You’re doing it wrong” said James, snatching the Gameboy out of his hands and handing him a 3DS. “Play this one.” “That’s my Gameboy!” shouted Timothy, trying to grab it back. “And that’s my game, boy” said James, taking the cartridge out. “Do you not remember that I lended it to you all those months ago?” he asked. “Been wanting to complete this game. Hope you haven’t deleted my save file.” “What do you want…” asked Timothy sheepishly, now more subservient. “I’m sure you know why” replied James, sitting down next to him. “You’re psychic. You tell me what I want to know and I give you my bootleg copy of Diddy’s Kong Quest. Sounds fair enough, right?” “No---” “---Great, knew you’d agree” he interrupted. Louisa watched on, somewhat stunned at the apathy currently on display. James looked into Timothy’s eyes as the young boy read his mind. They weren’t like normal eyes. They were a dull grey colour. Human, but not quite human. “What’s happening?” whispered Louisa. “He’s reading” said Bill. “They’re communicating telepathically.” “Why?” she asked. “Privacy, I think.” Timothy’s eyes suddenly widened and he gasped, blinking and shaking his head back and forth. He let out a loud cry and buried his head in his hands. “Timothy?!” shouted James. “The man!” cried the child. “The man…? What man?” asked James. “He’s here for me!” shouted Timothy. “We’re the only four people in this room…” said James, looking around to make sure that nobody was hidden anywhere. He rushed over to the window and looked down at the bottom of the hospital. Phobios stared up at him, tilting his head just like a walking dead corpse. “We need to evacuate the hospital” said James. “What?” asked Louisa. “We need to evacuate the hospital! He’s here!” he shouted.

Patients, doctors and nurses alike screamed in terror as Phobios suddenly burst through the hospital doors. They ran into different corridors, each looking for different ways to escape the building. One woman backed up against a wall in fear as Phobios approached her. She stared into his dead, blank face and he stared into hers. His bones began to make a cracking sound as his body began to twist and contort, taking on the shape of claustrophobia and becoming three walls, closing her in against the other wall and cornering her into the tightest space possible. She tried to scream, but found that she couldn’t breathe as Phobios stole her life and fear from her, draining her into a dead husk. He slowly staggered down the corridor, searching for more victims. One child, who had hidden under a table, tried to make a run towards the main door of the hospital. He grabbed the handle and tried pulling it open, only to find it was locked… Phobios turned around, hanging his head downwards. His smile widened and he walked over to the young boy. He took on the form of monophobia and autophobia, creating an illusion world around the boy. He was alone in a train station by himself, abandoned. No parents. No sister. Just himself. He heard the floorboards creak as the silhouette of Phobios slowly staggered past the window behind him.

“How did he get here and why?” asked Louisa, only just keeping up with James and Bill as they ran down the corridors of the hospital in a mad bid to evacuate everyone. “I imagine he must have tracked me down after our first encounter” said James, pulling a door open and guiding people through it. “But how?” she asked. “Why the hospital?” “Why not?” countered Bill. “We’re in a hospital, the perfect place for a creature that feeds off of our phobias. Plenty of people to harvest. Maybe he could have been attracted to Timothy’s psychic abilities?” he asked. “Possibly” said James, closing the door as the last patient in that area left the hospital through a back entrance. “As I say, he tracked us down. He must be after one of us, and it’s probably me.” “Why you?” asked Louisa. “The lifestyle I lead” he said. “One would imagine that a hunter of the supernatural would have some pretty horrific fears.”

Phobios was still consuming fear. Having just exploited someone’s trypophobia, he morphed back into his default form and continued to stagger down the corridor. Still smiling, he advanced through the hospital. “Mr. Taylor!” shouted Timothy in the distance. “It’s the man! He’s here!” He emerged in the corridor and came face to face with Phobios. At first, the creature continued to look further into the distance before his head dropped down to look at Timothy. He took on the form of globophobia as multiple balloons rose out of the ground, presumably related to some incident of Timothy’s childhood. They each popped very loudly, one after the other, each one causing Timothy a great deal of trauma. “Timothy?” asked James, dashing into the corridor. He was just in time to see Phobios drain all that was left of Timothy. His body dropped to the floor and remained motionless. Phobios looked upwards and directly into James’ eyes, as if he recognized him. “The wicked Phobios…” whispered James to himself. He suddenly ran in the opposite direction in an attempt to lure Phobios to a more deserted area of the hospital. Louisa and Bill emerged from the staircase but quickly backed out of view as Phobios walked past. “It’s going after James!” shouted Louisa as quietly as possible. “It’ll be fine” said Bill. “James is immortal. He can handle it.” “Oh, rubbish, you actually believe that nonsense?” asked Louisa. “He was off his head on drugs not that long ago!” She got up and ran down another corridor in the hopes of cutting off Phobios from James.

After running down what seemed like a hundred different corridors, James found himself at a dead end. He was now in an area of the hospital that he believed had been completely evacuated. “Come on then…” he whispered to himself, waiting for Phobios to appear. The silence stood still around him.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

James stood two steps back when the scream of an elderly woman pierced the silence and rang out through the corridors. Seems not everyone had been evacuated… James didn’t have any time to feel guilty though. He needed to take on Phobios. At the other end of the corridor, a bear suddenly appeared. It stood upright and morphed back into the default corpse-like form. “Guess her phobia was unbearable…” joked James, fully aware that was in bad taste. “I’ll be here from 3 till 7… You don’t seem like the laughing type though, so maybe I’m not reaching for the right demographic here.” “James!” shouted Louisa on the other side of the locked door behind him. She grabbed the handle and desperately tried to yank the door open. “Louisa, stay back!” ordered James. “You’re going to get yourself killed!” she shouted. “That’s the plan” he whispered to himself, ready to confront Phobios as he slowly staggered towards him. As he walked, his body twisted and contorted into different shapes, trying to determine what phobia terrified James so that it could emulate it. “Having difficulty figuring out what scares me?” asked James. “James…” whispered Louisa, accepting that there was nothing she could do. “As I said... Here from 3 till 7” he said. “You won’t be able to scare me so easily. I’m immortal. I don’t stay dead. I have nothing to be scared off. You try and find a phobia rattling around inside this old brain of mine, because I can guarantee you that you’re gonna come up with nothing” he told the creature. Phobios still staggered towards him, twisting his body around. “I’ll tell you something though” said James. “All humans have one fear that they share. They can’t help it. It’s irrational.” The creature was now stood in front of him. “And that fear is death” said James. “I’m human. I have it. I may be immortal, but I still die. Just for a short amount of time.” The creature stared into his face, unable to say anything or respond. “Not going to lie, but dying still hurts” he said. “And I dread it every time I have to face it. So do it then. Strike me down. Make me die again.” He stared into Phobios’ eyes, waiting for it to oblige. The creature twisted it's body back into shape and tried to take on the form of thanatophobia, the fear of dying. James stared into it's face as it twisted into it's new shape. Phobios morphed into a dark grey cloud, touching the ground and remaining in place. And suddenly…

The cloud dropped dead, just like a human would. Phobios reverted back into his default human form and lay motionless on the floor, just like Timothy.

“And that’s why you don’t imitate the fear of dying when you’re able to replicate all of your phobias so perfectly” said James, looking at the dead corpse of the monster in front of him. He turned to look at Louisa through the door and smiled. She breathed a sigh of relief and held her head against the glass window on the door.

James and Louisa later sat outside of the hospital. Multiple ambulances had shown up to take people to other hospitals where they could hopefully be treated and saved. The chances of that happening were very small though. “James” said Louisa. “Yes?” he asked. “You’re really immortal” she said, trying to take it in. “Thought I made that clear back at the base” he said. “I assumed that was the drugs speaking” she said, slightly laughing. “I do say some irrational things” he said, leaning back against a wall. “Phobios then…” she said. “What will happen to him?” she asked. “He’s dead. We’ll likely be taking his body back to our base where nobody else can get their hands on it” he explained. “And you do this kind of stuff every day?” she asked. “You’ll find out soon enough” he said. “Welcome to Insolitam.” “Welcome?” she asked. “That’s what I said. Welcome to Insolitam” he repeated. “Though you may not have been able to assist me that much today, you showed compassion and genuine care.” “I did?” she asked. “Well, you evacuated the hospital with us. You came running for me” he said. “There’s got to be some form of compassion within that tiny brain of yours” he explained. She smiled and took a sip from a cup of tea as Bill handed it to her.

Later that night, Bill and James were back in the Insolitam base. James had prepared a casket for Phobios to be placed in. Bill pushed the dead body along on a stretcher. Fortunately, it was covered up by a towel and he didn’t have to look at it. He walked past the cells of multiple creatures of different shapes and sizes, ignoring them as he continued walking.

HISS!

Bill jumped back as a weird black floating rock-like creature with four faces attached to four purple tendrils tried to get his attention. It's four green eyes on it's body all expanded and retracted one after the other, focusing on Bill. “Stay back from the glass!” shouted Bill as the creature glared at the stretcher he was pushing. “Stupid thing” he whispered to himself as he continued to push the stretcher down the corridor. “Took you long enough” said James as Bill entered the morgue. “Sorry” he apologised. “Visurasu is trying to get out of his cage again.” “When isn’t he?” asked James, reading over a clipboard. He walked over to the stretcher and held up the cloth to look at Phobios one last time. “Alright, let’s get him in there then” he said. He and Bill both lifted Phobios and lowered him into the metal coffin, locking him away forever. “Another crisis prevented” said James, smiling to himself. Just as he was about to leave, Bill tapped his arm. “James?” he asked. “What?” he answered back. “What you said to Louisa earlier… You meant that?” asked Bill. “Yes, I did. Why?” questioned James. “Are you sure you want to bring her in to all this stuff?” asked Bill. “I think she can handle it” said James. “We’ll see if she turns up tomorrow” he said, making his way towards the exit. “Whose benefit are you doing this for?” asked Bill. James looked at him, hesitated and then turned around and left, closing the door behind him.

THE END

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Characters

 * James Taylor
 * Bill Moore
 * Louisa Wells

Monsters

 * Phobios
 * Doteog
 * Visurasu (cameo)

Trivia

 * At 16 pages long, this is the longest opening episode of a series that I have written on this wiki.
 * Though this is the first episode of the series, it is the second to have been written.
 * This is the first story set in Universe 210 that makes any reference to Birth.