The distressed voice echoed between the buildings while the two ran in its direction. Their boots kicked up dust as shadows stretched under the dim glow of the sky. The cries led them to a collapsed avenue, where something massive shifted in the dark.
"What happened!?" They called out before their eyes rested on a rather grotesque image.
A shoggoth.(1)* The thing's black, slimy flesh writhed against the cracked walls, dozens of glistening, yellow eyes blinking into existence only to vanish again in its rolling flesh.
Neither Inase nor Hosen looked surprised. Encounters with shoggoths were all too common in their timeline. And though the creatures were nightmares made out of living, fleshy bulk, the two had fought them enough to know their weak points.
However, what startled them was its target—a wimpy scientist trembling below its reach. One they already knew.
"Q-quick! Get that thing off me!"
Upon noticing someone standing nearby, Bradley screamed with a crack in between his words. He wanted to be home already, but unfortunately, his way back was obscured by this deadly encounter…
And now, he was sprawled on the cracked pavement, swinging a broken length of rebar like a child warding off a rabid dog. Each time he pathehtically jabbed, the shoggoth's hide swallowed the strike as if mocking him, eyes bursting open to stare directly at his terror.
"S-stay back!" he squeaked, his voice breaking.
The creature enjoyed playing with its prey's fear. It rippled in amusement, a dozen mouths peeling open across its surface to echo his words back at him in a cruel mimicry: "Stay back… stay back…" as it approached.
Without hesitation, the two braced themselves.
"Make me an opening!" Hosen barked, preparing his gear.
"Right-o!" Inase quipped, already charging.
Sweat ran down his face as he lunged and twisted, dodging a swinging mass of appendages.
The shoggoth slammed a limb into the cracked pavement, sending up shards of concrete that bit into his arms and legs. Its jagged teeth of the creature scraped his shoulder, tearing through the fabric of his jacket and cutting shallow into muscle.
His blade flashed as it carved across the beast's flank. At least, that was what would happen against any other monster. This one's skin was hard, like it was made out of titanium. Hard to wound, harder to kill. Inase's knife seemed worthless, no matter how many times he jumped and stabbed.
Realizing he couldn't pierce the monster's hide with his knife, Inase remembered the new revolver at his hip. Thrilling like it was a new toy, he finally drew it.
After all, it was their timeline—unchangeable, untouchable. Safe to go wild. No forced handicaps. He could use anything he wanted.
So he ducked under a whipping tendril, rolled across the grit, and came up with his revolver already in hand. He steadied his breath, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
One bullet. Then another. Then another. He fired into the same spot, each round forcing the one before it deeper into the hard and rubbery hide. Sparks danced at the muzzle, smoke rising in the chill air.
A dozen eyes hissed open in unison, spraying a burning mist of bile.
Hosen lunged low, pulling Bradley back by the collar just before the acid hit the ground, hissing through concrete and leaving steaming scars in the pavement.
"Move!" he snapped, hauling the terrified scientist to his feet.
At the same time, Inase emptied the revolver—nine bullets in rapid succession—until the last one cracked through, drilling a hole into the shoggoth's insides. Without hesitation, he jammed both hands into the wound and ripped, widening the gap with sheer grit. Flesh tore wetly.
Hosen was already ahead of the plan, as if he had read the blonde's mind.
When the hole was big enough, he yanked a flask from his belt, plunged it into the opening, and crushed it in his fist. The liquid splashed in the quivering insides, eating its way through the beast. It reacted with organic tissue like an aggressive charge ready to burst.
The effect was immediate—white fire erupted from within, the improvised charge blazing bright. For a heartbeat, the alley lit like day, shadows leaping across the broken buildings.
The creature reeled, shrieking as light flared from the embedded energy. It writhed in agony and then fled, slithering into the ruins with unnatural speed.
The two merely drove the thing back into the ruin. It wasn't dead—shoggoths were nearly impossible to kill—but for now, it was gone.
"I'm saved…" Bradley stumbled backward, clutching his bent rebar, eyes wide at the spectacle.
"That was a freed one, wasn't it? It was all black," Inase exhaled, shaking the smoke from his revolver's barrel.
"Yeah." Hosen grunted, "Rare to find a tamed one nowadays. All of them are wild and aggressive, roaming the Earth as much as they like."
The black ones were hostile. The archives said the friendly ones were fleshy pink, nearly transparent, with veins pulsing beneath their skin. Yet neither of them had seen one in all the two decades they'd lived.
Inase unlocked the cylinder and let the spent shells fall with a clatter. He slid a fresh set of bullets from his belt and reloaded with quick, practiced motions. Then he turned to the cowering scientist.
"You alright?" he asked, extending a hand.
"I'm fi-" Bradley paused, "Not fine, actually. I thought I was dead."
He got nearly gnawed on. How could he possibly be fine after all of this?
But before he could catch his breath, a cousin of the voonith in the form of a frog scuttled past his feet. Its recognizable rows of eyes betrayed its trickery even before it twisted and reshaped back into its lizard origin.
The man shrieked and scrambled back.
"Chill out. It's just a small lizard. Do you even call yourself a scientist?" Inase sighed, snatched it by the tail before tossing it away.
"Bullshit!" Bradley was still panicking. "Any eldritch being is dangerous. No matter how small, it can still kill. One can never be too careful. You should know that. It's in your job description!" He huffed, taking pride in his wise words. "And since you're here, you can escort me home and keep me safe from these dangers!"
Sigh… Seemed like there was no satisfactory outcome for this one.
"Get him home," Hosen said flatly, quite blatantly over Bradley's overreactions to every minor trouble in his path.
"Fine, fine." Inase rolled his eyes but complied, pulling Bradley to his feet—a bit too roughly.
"Ouch!" The meek scientist grimaced when his hand felt sore. "Seriously, be more gentle when you help—"
But as he stood up, only then did he really look at them.
"..."
Their bodies were wrapped in bandages, marked by cuts and bruises. Fresh wounds layered over old scars. Clothes stained through.
Inase had wrappings up to his neck, a bandaid across his cheek and eyebrow—like a living mummy—but the image of him grinning mischievously, revolver smoke still clinging to his hands, was forever burned into Bradley's memory.
So did the way Hosen moved without hesitation, even though one arm hung uselessly, bound tight in cloth, and his hand hid beneath layers of gauze. And with how thoroughly the wound on his head was strapped, he must've lost his balance many times over, yet he never stuttered or fell over.
Even though both of them were battered, they stood tall. Despite the weight of bandages and wounds, they looked like the pain didn't exist. Like they were fine.
They had no other choice, because it was their job. All for the sake of the world. To see a better tomorrow.
His throat tightened when he finally understood his mistake.
"I…"
He swallowed hard, bowing his head.
"I'm sorry." His voice trembled.
All this time, he tried to look past their struggles, trivialize them, keep a blind eye… He never bothered to see, but now that they were so close, he couldn't look away anymore.
"Uh…?" Inase blinked, confused—the sudden change in the mood threw him off.
"About how I treated you before." Bradley clarified, "I shouldn't have said you're just a field guy, or that your job is nothing special. I regret it. Truly."
His voice quivered, but once the words left him, more followed like a dam breaking.
"All this time, I thought I understood what you did out here. I thought it was simple—just swinging weapons, hunting monsters, playing soldier while the rest of us did the 'real' work. I told myself I was smarter, more important. I even… looked down on you."
He bit his lip, shame flickering across his face as he struggled to meet their eyes.
"But when I was lying there, with that thing—" he shuddered at the memory, "—bearing down on me, I couldn't even move. My legs wouldn't work. My brain screamed to run, but my body froze. I would've died, just another stain in the street. I couldn't do anything, and yet you… You didn't hesitate."
At last, he had to face the truth. Bradley's gaze fell on their injuries. Bandages, bruises, scars—every mark told a story of survival, of courage he had never understood.
"You go through this every time. Fighting things no human should ever face. Bleeding, breaking, pushing past fear that would paralyze anyone else. And you do it, again and again, for people who mock you, dismiss you, call you expendable… people like me."
His hands clenched into fists, trembling with guilt. Silence settled over the broken street.
"I thought you were reckless, even lazy. But now I see… I see how wrong I was. You're carrying burdens I can't even imagine, fighting battles I could never survive. And I—" his voice cracked, "—I treated you like dirt."
It all seemed so small now, so cowardly. He had hidden behind his lab coat, behind words and pride, while these two faced nightmares head-on. They risked everything so the rest of the world could stay ignorant and comfortable.
He remembered all the careless things he had said before, all the times he had parroted others' insults, blindly repeating Selena's words, quoting rules, preaching condescension, thinking he knew their job better than they did…
For the first time, Bradley wished he had been braver. Wished he had seen them sooner for what they really were. Not just "field guys." Not expendable tools. But people carrying scars no one else wanted to bear.
Tears that welled in his eyes threatened to pour out.
And I called them useless, he thought bitterly. God, what an ungrateful idiot I was.
"I don't deserve your forgiveness. But still, I'll say it." He bowed low. "I'm sorry. From the bottom of my heart. You deserve more respect than anyone I've ever met."
Indeed. Real, heavy respect that rooted itself deep in his chest.
He would never forget this evening. Not in a million years. Next time, he promised himself, he wouldn't look at them with disdain. He would stand beside them in whatever way he could, even if he could never match their courage.
When all that talk ended, Inase blinked at him, head tilted.
"…Wait, that's it? All that heavy stuff, and you're just apologizing for being a jerk?" He scratched his cheek, clearly unimpressed. "Man, I thought you were gonna confess to killing my entire family or something."
Hosen nodded to his statement, a rare moment when he agreed with whatever came out of his partner's unfiltered mouth.
Bradley's head shot up, stunned. "Wha—no!"
"Relax, relax." The blonde smirked, waving him off. "Look, it's all water under the bridge. If I held grudges every time someone called me useless, the whole damn world would've burned already. We're… used to it."
He reached down, patting Bradley's shoulder, "Tell you what. Bring me some snacks next time, and we'll call it even."
Bradley blinked at him, caught between relief and disbelief. "Snacks?"
"Yeah. Dried jerky, canned delicacies, these chips from before, I'm not picky." Yet all he listed were quite the luxuries.
"You have only one thing in mind, huh?" Hosen chirped in. "Tormenting the rookie. Very thoughtful of you."
"What can I say? This body needs energy to function properly."
Then Inase's eyes widened as he remembered Hosen's comment. "Hey—you're an even bigger rookie than him!"
The grave atmosphere dispersed in an instant until he turned his head with mock seriousness toward the scientist. "Oh, and keep an eye out on your way back. Shoggoths like to stalk their prey."
The color drained from Bradley's face.
"Just kiddin'," Inase chuckled under his breath, clearly messing with him—a little payback for earlier. Bradley's expression was priceless. "Say, what was your name again?"
"Bradley." The man's frown returned, realizing he was being teased. He low-key wanted to retract his apology.
"Ah, I see. Bradley." Inase's smile, however, melted all of that tension away.
For the first time, he took the initiative to remember someone's name. Until now, he hadn't bothered; most people, in his line of work, wouldn't last long enough to matter. Not calling their names was his way of protecting himself from forming bonds. And yet here he was, trying—maybe for the first time—to make a friend.
"Nice to meet ya. Now that we get along, lemme take you home." He hummed softly as they walked back, the weight of the dark evening slowly lifting with each step.
(1)*From: "At the Mountains of Madness" by H.P. Lovecraft, 1932