The Government Hired Me Because Monsters Trust Me. I…
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The Government Hired Me Because Monsters Trust Me. I Should Have Asked Why.
Every morning, I walked into the most dangerous government facility in the world.
And every morning, the first thing that tried to kill me was the coffee machine.
Before you ask, no, I am not joking.
The coffee machine in the employee lounge had been responsible for three injuries, one minor fire, and a formal complaint from a vampire who claimed it "had malicious intent." Personally, I thought that was dramatic. The machine didn't hate vampires. It just hated everyone equally.
That was one of the first things you learned working at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs.
The monsters weren't always the problem;
Sometimes, it was the equipment.
Sometimes, it was the situation.
And sometimes…
It was the people who were supposed to protect you.
I swiped my ID at the first security checkpoint.
**ACCESS GRANTED.**
The second scanner checked my fingerprints.
**IDENTITY CONFIRMED.**
The third scanner paused.
That one always made new employees nervous because the third checkpoint wasn't checking who you were.
It was checking *what* you were.
A small green light swept over my body before a computerized voice spoke.
"Biological Status: Common Human."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Wow. Common? How rude..."
The security officer behind the desk looked up from his paperwork.
"You know the machine isn't insulting you, right?"
"That's exactly what an insulting machine would say."
The officer sighed.
His name was Carl. He'd been working security for eight years. He was also a werewolf, which sounded intimidating until you realized he spent most of his shift arguing with the scanner because it refused to recognize ghosts.
It wasn't really the scanner's fault. Most of its identification systems relied on things like body temperature, fingerprints, retinal scans, and heartbeats…all the little details that came with having a physical body.
Ghosts, unfortunately, had a habit of not possessing any of those.
So every morning, Carl had to manually verify that the ghost floating through the checkpoint was, in fact, the same ghost who had floated through yesterday.
According to him, spectral identification was still "an unsolved pain in my ass," and ghosts should stop wasting everyone's time by using the checkpoint and just pass through walls like they were supposed to.
On the other hand, Margaret, our oldest ghost custodian, called that “species discrimination.” According to her, going through walls felt like “swimming through wet cement.”
I stayed out of that argument. Mostly because I had no idea how to mediate a workplace dispute between a werewolf and a centuries old ghost about proper ghost etiquette.
Once Carl finally waved me through, I headed toward the elevators.
The Bureau was a lot bigger than people imagined.
Actually, scratch that.
People didn't imagine it at all.
Officially, the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs didn't exist. If you asked the government, this building was a geological research center, which was hilarious considering it was built six hundred feet underground.
Apparently, we researched geology by avoiding it.
The Bureau had been around for almost a millennia, long enough that nobody really remembered what it had been called before.
Our job was pretty simple: find the things that shouldn't exist, figure out what they were, and keep them from ending the world.
Contrary to what Hollywood thought, we didn't hunt monsters for sport. Most of the creatures here were never dangerous to begin with. A vampire who just wanted a stable blood supply wasn't exactly plotting world domination. Neither was the ghost who'd spent the last thirty years complaining that people kept walking through her while she was mopping.
Sure, we had the occasional nightmare-fueled entity locked several floors below us, the kind that could level cities or rewrite someone's memories just by making eye contact.
But those weren't the majority.
Most of our work was research, medicine, diplomacy, and containment.
Turns out the best way to stop most supernatural incidents was by talking before shooting.
Who would've guessed?
The Bureau was divided into six divisions.
Containment kept things locked up. Research tried to understand them. Field Operations found new anomalies. Medical kept everyone alive. Administration fought paperwork.
Then there was Behavioral Analysis.
My department.
Whenever an entity refused to cooperate, whenever negotiations broke down, whenever researchers wrote “*Subject displaying unexplained aggression”* in a report...
They called us.
Usually me.
Because more often than not, the subject wasn't aggressive.
It was scared.
Or grieving.
Or lonely.
Those were very different problems.
Unfortunately, most people didn't notice the difference until someone got hurt.
I don’t have the sharp senses of a werewolf. I don’t know ancient magic like the witches, and I certainly don’t have centuries of experience like the vampires.
The only thing I am unusually good at...
Is understanding people.
Even when the "people" in question have stopped being human a very long time ago.
As I rounded the corner, I spotted my supervisor leaning against the observation room window with his arms crossed.
Director Mercer.
Common Human.
Mid-fifties.
Always looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
He glanced up as I approached.
"Morning."
"You only say 'morning' like that when my schedule's about to get ruined."
He handed me a tablet.
"I had plans, you know."
Mercer raised an eyebrow.
"You don't have plans."
"I was ***planning*** on pretending to work until lunch."
He ignored me.
"Containment requested a behavioral assessment."
I skimmed the report.
**SUBJECT:** F-214 H-class
**STATUS:** Non-compliant.
**INCIDENT:** Refusing food for seventy-two hours. Displays escalating aggression toward personnel.
I sighed.
"They already tried tranquilizers, didn't they?"
Mercer didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
"They did?"
"They're scientists."
"They're impatient scientists."
I handed the tablet back.
"Give me five minutes."
The observation room overlooked a containment chamber built to withstand far worse than whatever was inside. About a dozen researchers stood behind the reinforced glass, arguing over graphs and medical readouts.
The subject sat motionless in the corner.
It resembled a deer.
If deer happened to be eight feet tall, covered in black feathers instead of fur, and had antlers that seemed to bend in directions, antlers probably shouldn't.
No one said anything.
They were waiting for my opinion.
I watched the creature.
It never looked at the food.
It never looked at the door.
It watched the people.
And every single time someone moved, its feathers tightened against its body.
One researcher cleared his throat.
"Well?"
I looked at him.
"How many people have gone into that room today?"
He frowned.
"...Six."
I nodded toward the creature.
"That's your problem."
There were confused looks all around.
"It’s an H-class, obviously it thinks you're predators."
One of the researchers frowned.
"It attacked Technician Morales yesterday."
"No."
I shook my head.
"It panicked."
"There's a difference."
The researcher looked ready to argue, but Mercer cut him off.
"Do what he says."
The room emptied until only I remained.
I picked up the food tray, opened the containment door, and walked inside.
Behind the glass, every researcher tensed.
That reaction was normal.
Most people who worked at the Bureau respected the things in containment. They studied them. They documented them. They tried to understand them.
But respect and fear were separated by a very thin line.
The funny thing was...
I wasn't afraid of the creature.
I was afraid of proving everyone right about it.
I sat down.
Not across from it.
Not close enough to intimidate it.
Just close enough that it knew I was there.
The creature watched me.
I watched it.
Five minutes passed.
Nothing.
Ten minutes.
Still nothing.
Then behind the glass, I heard the researchers getting impatient.
"Is he seriously just sitting there?"
"That's the strategy?"
"Apparently."
I ignored them.
People hated silence. They always wanted to fill it with questions, commands, or threats.
The creature didn't need someone trying to control it. It needed someone to stop treating it like a problem.
Slowly, its eyes moved toward me. For a second, I thought it was finally going to approach.
Instead, it lowered its head.
Interesting.
I looked closer, not at its face, but at everything else. The researchers had focused on the obvious: the claws, the teeth, the size, the things that made it look dangerous. They missed the details.
I didn't.
One of its antlers had a crack running along the base. Not broken. Cracked. Like something had hit it hard enough to damage the bone. Its left wing hung lower than the other, and every few seconds it shifted its weight away from one side.
I frowned.
"You're hurt."
The creature froze.
Behind the glass, someone reached toward the alarm. I lifted a hand.
Don't.
Not yet.
Slowly, the creature raised its head.
I pushed the food tray across the floor. Not directly toward it. Just closer.
"Nobody noticed, did they?"
The creature stared.
"You weren't refusing to eat."
A pause.
"You were in too much pain."
For the first time since I entered, the creature moved. Slowly. Carefully. It approached the tray.
And ate.
Behind the glass, the room erupted.
"He's eating."
"Get Research down there."
"How did he know?"
I didn't celebrate.
Because this wasn't a victory.
A victory meant something had gone right. This wasn't that.
This was everyone realizing they had spent three days punishing an injured creature because they were too busy looking for a threat.
I stepped out of containment a few minutes later. Mercer was waiting.
"So?"
I looked at him.
"Call Dr. Lyra."
Dr. Lyra arrived ten minutes later, already looking annoyed.
That was normal for Lyra.
Being a dryad meant she had spent centuries understanding nature. Her healing sap made her an exceptional doctor, far beyond human standards. Ironically, humans were still the one species she struggled to understand.
"What happened?"
I pointed toward the creature.
"Broken antler. Damaged wing."
She looked at me.
"And you figured that out how?"
"Observation."
She stared for a long moment before shaking her head.
Then she looked at Mercer and sighed.
"You're wasting your life here."
I smiled.
"Good morning to you too."
"I'm serious."
That made me stop.
Lyra crossed her arms.
"Mercer is always using you for dangerous operations"
I looked away.
"He needs someone who can do this."
"No." Her voice softened. "He needs someone who feels responsible enough to do something no one else wants to…"
I didn't answer.
Because she wasn't wrong.
And I hated that.
"You think this ability is your purpose."
"It's useful."
"That's not what I said."
I looked through the glass at the creature eating while the researchers rushed around it.
"This is the one thing I'm good at."
The words came out quieter than I intended.
Lyra's expression changed.
There it was.
The thing I always tried to hide.
Not fear.
Not sadness.
Something worse.
The belief that without this ability, I wasn't worth much.
"You were halfway through a psychology degree," she said. "You should be helping people through their problems, not drowning in your own."
"I already dropped out."
Lyra sighed.
"You don't have to keep punishing yourself because of what happened."
"I'm not."
She gave me that look. The one people always gave me. The one where they thought they understood me.
The worst part was...
They didn't.
They just felt sorry for me.
Before I could answer, Mercer stepped back into the room.
"Field Operations needs Behavioral support."
Lyra immediately turned.
"No."
Mercer looked at her.
"Excuse me?"
"He just spent the last hour calming an injured anomaly because your researchers couldn't recognize basic distress signals."
Mercer didn't react.
"Which is exactly why he's needed."
Lyra stepped forward.
"He's a person, Mercer."
"So are the civilians we're protecting."
"And if you keep sending him into situations like this, eventually you're going to push him too far."
Mercer looked at me.
"We aren't asking him to fight." He paused. "We're asking him to do what he does best."
**Understand.**
I hated that he knew exactly what to say.
Because the worst part was...
I wanted to go.
Two hours later, I was sitting on a transport plane heading toward Operation Black Birch.
An abandoned town.
Forty-seven miles from the nearest populated area.
Intelligence suggested a shapeshifting entity had infiltrated a civilian evacuation shelter.
The problem?
Nobody knew which person it was.
Eighty-six civilians.
One monster hiding among them.
The person sitting across from me was an intern named Rachel. She had been staring at me for almost ten minutes before she finally spoke.
"Sorry."
I looked up. "For what?"
"I just... I've heard about you."
I laughed. "That sounds worse than you probably meant it."
"No, I mean your work." She smiled. "No wonder Behavioral Analysis hired you."
I looked away.
"I didn't exactly apply."
She tilted her head. "No?"
I shook my head.
"I was halfway through my degree when they found me."
Before Rachel could ask another question, someone farther down the aircraft looked up from a folder.
Christian, an elf. Pointed ears. Silver hair tied neatly behind his head. Reading glasses balanced on the end of his nose.
He blinked.
"Wait."
The cabin fell quiet.
He looked at Rachel. "You seriously don't recognize him?"
Rachel frowned.
"Should I?"
The elf looked genuinely surprised.
"That's him." He pointed at me. "The sole survivor of the Vesper University massacre."
Silence settled over the cabin.
Then someone near the back muttered, "The boy who lived."
A few awkward laughs echoed through the aircraft.
I didn't join in.
Rachel's smile faded. She looked at me the same way Lyra had.
The same way almost everyone eventually did.
Pity.
I hated pity.
Fear was honest. Pity made people think they understood you.
They never did.
I wasn't brave. I wasn't special. I was just the person who happened to survive.
It was a Thursday night when it happened. An ordinary Thursday. No storms, no power outages, no warning that something terrible was about to happen.
I had spent the evening cramming for a literature exam I wasn't prepared for while my roommates argued over what movie to watch.
Just a normal night.
The kind you never think you'll remember.
Until you can't forget it.
The screaming started sometime after midnight.
At first, I thought my roommates were fighting again. That wasn't unusual. They argued about everything.
Then I heard another scream.
Then another.
I opened my door expecting to find another stupid argument.
Instead, I found him.
A man standing at the end of the hallway.
Not a monster. Not some ancient creature hiding behind a human face.
A man.
He was dressed entirely in black, and a pale mask covered his face. I couldn't see any emotion, any expression, anything that told me who he was.
Only two empty eyeholes staring back at me.
The knife in his hand looked black under the emergency lights. Not because of the blade itself. But because it was covered in blood.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
I was too terrified to do anything. I couldn't run. I couldn't scream. I could only stand there and wait for what I thought was going to happen.
Then he looked at me.
Not past me.
Not at the hallway behind me.
At me.
I still don't know how long we stood there.
A few seconds.
Maybe longer.
Then he lowered the knife, turned around.
And walked away.
He spared me.
Not because I fought him. Not because I escaped. Not because I did anything to deserve it.
He simply chose not to kill me.
By the time the police arrived, all seven of my roommates were dead.
The university called it an isolated tragedy. The media called it one of the worst mass murders in the town's history.
My psychologists called it the beginning of my condition.
Hyper-empathy.
They believed surviving something that traumatic changed the way my brain processed emotions. It wasn't immediate. It didn't happen overnight.
At first, I was just a survivor dealing with trauma.
Then, slowly, I started noticing things other people didn't.
Fear hidden behind anger.
Pain disguised as frustration.
Grief buried beneath silence.
To them, it was a trauma response.
To the Bureau, it was an ability.
To me, it was something I never wanted.
The Bureau quickly classified the massacre as a suspected supernatural incident. They believed whatever happened that night wasn't entirely human.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe they weren't.
I never cared about their theories.
Because I knew what I saw.
I didn't see a monster.
I saw a man.
A man who looked me in the eyes after killing seven people...
And decided I should live.
Rachel's voice pulled me back.
"I'm... I'm sorry."
I forced a smile.
"It's fine."
It wasn't.
It never had been.
The cabin fell silent again.
No one knew what to say after that.
But the silence didn't last long.
The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom.
"Approaching the operation zone. Five minutes."
The transport began its descent.
Mercer stood from his seat at the front of the cabin, and every conversation stopped. He tapped the holographic projector mounted to the wall.
A three-dimensional map of a small town appeared.
Rows of abandoned houses.
A church.
An elementary school.
An evacuation shelter highlighted in red.
"Eighty-six civilians were evacuated here six hours ago," Mercer said. "Field Operations intercepted evidence that a Level 3, C-class shapeshifter entered the shelter before lockdown."
The hologram zoomed in.
"Eighty-six civilians."
One red dot flashed.
"One of them isn't human."
Rachel frowned.
"Can't we screen them individually?"
"We already have," Mercer said without looking at her. "Blood tests. Thermal imaging. Silver exposure. Psychological profiling."
Nothing.
"The entity has defeated every identification method available."
An uncomfortable silence settled over the cabin.
Mercer continued.
"If it escapes the quarantine zone, projected civilian casualties exceed forty thousand within the first seventy-two hours."
Someone quietly swore.
Mercer looked at my side of the plane..
"Behavioral Analysis."
I nodded.
"We'll interview them."
"Good."
The aircraft touched down. The rear ramp lowered, and cold air rushed inside.
Outside, dozens of armored personnel surrounded the shelter. Snipers occupied nearby rooftops. Containment vehicles blocked every road leading out of town.
It looked less like a rescue operation...
And more like the beginning of a war.
The shelter had once been a high school gymnasium, but now it was packed wall to wall with frightened civilians. Children slept on cots while parents whispered to each other, and volunteers moved through the crowd handing out bottled water.
The moment I stepped inside, I felt it.
Fear.
Not one person's fear.
Everyone's.
It pressed against my chest like a weight.
Rachel looked around nervously. "I hate this."
"So do they."
She glanced at me. "What?"
I nodded toward the room. "They're terrified."
"I mean... obviously."
"No." I shook my head. "They're not afraid of the monster."
She frowned.
"They're afraid of us."
Her eyes drifted toward the soldiers lining the walls, rifles raised, faces hidden behind helmets. I couldn't blame the civilians. If armed soldiers burst into my shelter and refused to explain why, I'd be terrified too.
Mercer entered behind us.
"Report."
I looked around the room one more time before turning back to him. "I need time."
"How much?"
"A few hours."
Mercer's expression didn't change.
"You have thirty minutes."
"Thirty isn't enough."
"It's what you have."
He turned and walked away.
Rachel watched him leave.
"Does he always do that?"
"Ignore the people who know what they're talking about?"
She nodded.
"Yeah."
I smiled weakly.
"Pretty much."
Twenty-three minutes later, we still hadn't found anything.
My team had spoken to teachers, children, paramedics, and parents, but there wasn't a single inconsistency, not a single lie, and not a single emotional response that felt wrong.
Everything I sensed was exactly what I expected.
Confusion.
Exhaustion.
Fear.
Grief.
I rubbed my temples.
Something wasn't adding up.
Mercer's radio crackled.
"Director."
"Report."
"Research Division just updated their assessment. The shapeshifter has entered a secondary adaptation phase."
The shelter fell silent.
"Meaning?" Mercer asked.
"Current estimates suggest we have less than ten minutes before it fully adapts to its host. After that, it will remain hidden indefinitely."
Mercer turned to me.
"Behavioral?"
I looked around the shelter.
Eighty-six frightened civilians.
Eighty-six chances to miss one lie.
"I need more time."
"How long?"
"At least an hour."
"You have ten minutes."
"That's not enough."
"It's all we have."
Mercer looked toward the soldiers.
"Field Operations. Prepare Protocol Ash."
My stomach dropped.
"You can't do this." My voice echoed through the shelter. "They're people. They're innocent."
Mercer met my eyes without the slightest hint of anger.
"If the entity escapes," he said quietly, "forty thousand people die in the nearby city"
I stepped toward him.
"Then let me keep looking."
"You have ten minutes."
"That's not enough!"
"No." He held my gaze. "It isn't."
A long silence settled between us.
Then he said the words I'll never forget.
**"People are going to die today."**
Another pause.
**"I'm trying to make sure only eighty-six do."**
Mercer gave a small nod.
The soldiers moved.
I lunged for him.
Hands like iron clamped around my arms before I got two steps.
"No!" I shouted, thrashing against their grip. "Please!"
I threw everything I had into breaking free.
The soldier werewolves barely had to try.
To them, I wasn't a threat. I was just another human to restrain.
I couldn't reach Mercer.
I couldn't reach the eighty-six innocent people staring at us in terror.
And suddenly...
I wasn't standing in a shelter anymore.
I was back in my dorm hallway.
Frozen.
Helpless.
Watching someone else decide who lived...
...and who died.
Then it hit me.
The crying.
The screaming.
The prayers.
Eighty-six terrified people, all convinced they were about to die.
Their fear crashed into me all at once.
My chest tightened.
I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't tell where my emotions ended and theirs began.
"Stop..." My voice cracked. "Please..."
Nobody moved.
Rachel was shouting my name, but she sounded impossibly far away.
My vision blurred.
Tears streamed down my face.
Not because I wanted to.
Because they did.
My stomach lurched.
Then I doubled over and vomited onto the gym floor.
The soldiers immediately let go of me.
"Ethan!"
Rachel caught me before I hit the ground.
I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Every emotion: terror, grief, panic, hopelessness….bled together until I couldn't tell which ones belonged to me anymore.
The last thing I saw was Rachel's face.
She wasn't looking at the soldiers.
She wasn't looking at Mercer.
She was looking at me...
...like she was watching someone come apart.
Then everything went black.
When I woke up, the ceiling wasn't the shelter. It was the medical wing.
Again.
"You're awake."
I turned my head and saw Lyra sitting beside the bed with her arms crossed. She looked exhausted.
"I told you this job is taking a toll on you."
I reached for the water sitting on the table beside me and drank.
"No."
Lyra stared at me.
"No?"
"I'm fine."
A long silence followed before she sighed.
"Ethan."
I froze.
She used my name.
That meant she was actually angry.
"You have already blacked out twice this week."
"It's fine."
Her expression hardened.
"You always say that."
I looked away because she was right. I always said that. But what else was I supposed to say? That sometimes I couldn't tell where my emotions ended and everyone else's began? That every disaster felt like I was experiencing it myself? That every person I failed stayed with me?
I put the cup down.
"I have work."
"Ethan—"
I stood up before she could continue and left.
I didn't get far.
The same elf from the aircraft stepped into my path, his hair now loose over his shoulders.
"I have good news."
I stared at Christian.
"That usually means there's bad news."
He smiled slightly.
"You're learning."
I waited.
"Director Mercer is in deep trouble."
I stopped.
"What?"
"He is being investigated."
I frowned.
"Why?"
The elf looked surprised.
"You haven't heard?"
"No."
He adjusted his glasses.
"The operation report came in."
My stomach tightened.
"The shelter?"
He nodded.
"Mercer ordered Protocol Ash."
"I know."
His expression became serious.
"The eighty-six civilians he killed..."
He paused.
"None of them were the entity."
I felt cold.
"What?"
"The imposter was never inside the shelter."
My mind went blank.
"Then where was it?"
The elf looked at me.
"It had already changed into a guard."
Silence.
"He was standing outside the shelter the entire time."
I couldn't speak.
All those emotions. All those people. All that fear.
Mercer hadn't saved them.
He had killed them.
The elf continued.
"The creature is contained now. Research Division believes it's a rare hybrid."
"Of what?"
He looked at me.
"A wendigo."
A pause.
"And a skinwalker."
The hallway felt colder.
"Highly dangerous."
I looked toward the Director's offices, toward where Mercer would be.
The man who had chosen numbers over names. The man who had looked at eighty-six people and seen a calculation.
And for the first time...
I wished he would have died instead.
The thought stayed with me because it wasn't just anger. It wasn't just grief. It was something darker.
A part of me genuinely wanted him gone.
And that scared me.
Because I had spent my entire life feeling too much. Other people's pain. Other people's fear. Other people's suffering.
Hyper-empathy was supposed to make me understand people.
But in that moment...
All it did was make me understand exactly why I hated him.
I found out later what happened to Mercer.
The Bureau didn't call it “prison”. They called it "removal". But everyone understood what that meant.
You couldn't simply leave this organization after learning the things we knew….the existence of anomalies, the creatures hiding among humanity, the things that lived outside reality itself. Information like that wasn't something you carried into retirement.
Mercer wasn't fired.
Not really.
He was contained.
The same way we contained everything else dangerous.
The irony wasn't lost on anyone. A man who had spent years deciding what was an acceptable loss had finally become one himself.
Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to celebrate because within an hour of Mercer's removal, we had a new problem.
A new Director.
Which was why I was standing inside the Board Room, the place where the highest decisions in the Bureau were made.
Lyra sat across from me, looking more tired than usual. And somehow, after everything I had seen, she was still the person who looked the most human in the room.
The others...
Were not.
Six seats surrounded the table.
Six department heads.
Six people responsible for keeping the Bureau alive.
The head of Containment was a giant.
Literally.
A stone-skinned being that looked like it had been carved from a mountain. The Bureau had discovered him centuries ago.
They were supposed to contain him.
Instead, they hired him.
Research belonged to Dr. Evelyn.
An elf whose knowledge of magical biology and supernatural history was considered unmatched.
Field Operations was led by Commander Voss.
A werewolf.
The kind of person soldiers followed without hesitation. Every combat agent, every extraction team, every person sent into places humans weren't meant to survive answered to him. He was also the reason every soldier in the organization was a werewolf.
Medical was Lyra.
A dryad.
A creature connected to life itself, now responsible for keeping both humans and monsters alive.
Administration was the strangest.
Director Adrian.
Half-human.
Half something the Bureau had never officially classified.
He was proof of what the world had spent centuries ignoring.
Monsters and humans weren't separate anymore.
They had been living together for generations.
Some used magic.
Some used technology.
Some used both.
Elves who didn't want their ears recognized used spells or even human cosmetic procedures to alter their appearance. Vampires changed identities every few decades. Werewolves learned to control their transformations and lived ordinary lives.
The supernatural world hadn't replaced humanity.
It had blended into it.
And after centuries of coexistence, the hardest thing wasn't finding the monsters.
It was knowing who was one.
Then there was Behavioral Analysis.
My department.
The seat Mercer had left behind.
Then the door opened.
Every conversation died instantly as a man walked in.
At first glance, he looked completely ordinary.
Early thirties. Dark hair. Perfectly tailored suit. Calm expression.
Then you looked closer.
And remembered he wasn't human.
The newly appointed….
Director Lucien.
A vampire.
Three hundred years old.
And yes...
The stories were true.
Every vampire was beautiful.
Not because they were trying to be.
Because evolution had made them that way.
Predators weren't supposed to look dangerous.
They were supposed to make you lower your guard.
Lucien had the kind of appearance that made people trust him before they even realized they were doing it. If he wasn't running Behavioral Analysis, he probably would have been on the cover of a luxury watch advertisement, standing in an expensive suit, looking mysterious while millions of people convinced themselves they could look like him.
But Lucien wasn't famous only because of his appearance.
He was also famous because he understood monsters.
Before becoming Director, he was one of the Bureau's greatest researchers. He had negotiated with creatures that had killed entire teams. He had convinced hostile entities to cooperate without a single weapon being drawn.
People joked that Lucien could walk into a room with a monster and leave with both sides signing a peace treaty.
The strange part was how he did it.
He never raised his voice.
Never lost control.
Never looked afraid.
At first, I thought it was confidence.
Then I watched him closer.
Lucien wasn't experiencing emotions.
He was *copying* them.
The slight concern in his eyes when someone spoke.
The small smile at the exact moment someone needed reassurance.
The carefully measured pauses before answering.
Everything was perfect.
Too perfect.
Most people saw empathy.
I saw a performance.
Not a fake one.
A practiced one.
Three hundred years of watching humans had taught Lucien exactly what they expected to see.
Fear.
Compassion.
Concern.
He could imitate all of them flawlessly.
And somehow...
That was more unsettling than if he couldn't understand emotions at all.
Everyone else in this room saw a man who understood them.
I saw someone who understood emotions so well...
he didn't need to feel them.
And for the first time since I joined the Bureau...
I reconsidered Behavioral Analysis.
Not because of Mercer.
Not because of the job.
Because of him.
Mr. Lucien…
Maybe Lyra had been right.
Maybe I should have listened when she told me to think carefully about this department.
Because Mercer had been easy to understand.
He was cold.
He was ruthless.
But Lucien...
Lucien was something else entirely.
After talking to the other directors he started surveilling the room.
Then his eyes landed on me.
And for a moment...
Neither of us spoke.
Then he smiled.
Not warmly.
Not coldly.
Just perfectly.
Precisely.
"Agent Ethan."
I felt something I couldn't explain.
Not fear.
Not discomfort.
Something closer to uncertainty.
Because for the first time in my life...
I was standing across from someone who can look at a person’s fear, sadness and love and understand exactly what they meant without ever feeling them.
Meanwhile I was drowning in everyone else’s emotions, never knowing where they ended and I began.
He was a man who could understand humanity without being human.
I was a man who felt humanity so deeply that I was losing myself.
And somehow….
That was more terrifying than Mercer ever was.
#entertainment
source
Every morning, I walked into the most dangerous government facility in the world.
And every morning, the first thing that tried to kill me was the coffee machine.
Before you ask, no, I am not joking.
The coffee machine in the employee lounge had been responsible for three injuries, one minor fire, and a formal complaint from a vampire who claimed it "had malicious intent." Personally, I thought that was dramatic. The machine didn't hate vampires. It just hated everyone equally.
That was one of the first things you learned working at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs.
The monsters weren't always the problem;
Sometimes, it was the equipment.
Sometimes, it was the situation.
And sometimes…
It was the people who were supposed to protect you.
I swiped my ID at the first security checkpoint.
**ACCESS GRANTED.**
The second scanner checked my fingerprints.
**IDENTITY CONFIRMED.**
The third scanner paused.
That one always made new employees nervous because the third checkpoint wasn't checking who you were.
It was checking *what* you were.
A small green light swept over my body before a computerized voice spoke.
"Biological Status: Common Human."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Wow. Common? How rude..."
The security officer behind the desk looked up from his paperwork.
"You know the machine isn't insulting you, right?"
"That's exactly what an insulting machine would say."
The officer sighed.
His name was Carl. He'd been working security for eight years. He was also a werewolf, which sounded intimidating until you realized he spent most of his shift arguing with the scanner because it refused to recognize ghosts.
It wasn't really the scanner's fault. Most of its identification systems relied on things like body temperature, fingerprints, retinal scans, and heartbeats…all the little details that came with having a physical body.
Ghosts, unfortunately, had a habit of not possessing any of those.
So every morning, Carl had to manually verify that the ghost floating through the checkpoint was, in fact, the same ghost who had floated through yesterday.
According to him, spectral identification was still "an unsolved pain in my ass," and ghosts should stop wasting everyone's time by using the checkpoint and just pass through walls like they were supposed to.
On the other hand, Margaret, our oldest ghost custodian, called that “species discrimination.” According to her, going through walls felt like “swimming through wet cement.”
I stayed out of that argument. Mostly because I had no idea how to mediate a workplace dispute between a werewolf and a centuries old ghost about proper ghost etiquette.
Once Carl finally waved me through, I headed toward the elevators.
The Bureau was a lot bigger than people imagined.
Actually, scratch that.
People didn't imagine it at all.
Officially, the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs didn't exist. If you asked the government, this building was a geological research center, which was hilarious considering it was built six hundred feet underground.
Apparently, we researched geology by avoiding it.
The Bureau had been around for almost a millennia, long enough that nobody really remembered what it had been called before.
Our job was pretty simple: find the things that shouldn't exist, figure out what they were, and keep them from ending the world.
Contrary to what Hollywood thought, we didn't hunt monsters for sport. Most of the creatures here were never dangerous to begin with. A vampire who just wanted a stable blood supply wasn't exactly plotting world domination. Neither was the ghost who'd spent the last thirty years complaining that people kept walking through her while she was mopping.
Sure, we had the occasional nightmare-fueled entity locked several floors below us, the kind that could level cities or rewrite someone's memories just by making eye contact.
But those weren't the majority.
Most of our work was research, medicine, diplomacy, and containment.
Turns out the best way to stop most supernatural incidents was by talking before shooting.
Who would've guessed?
The Bureau was divided into six divisions.
Containment kept things locked up. Research tried to understand them. Field Operations found new anomalies. Medical kept everyone alive. Administration fought paperwork.
Then there was Behavioral Analysis.
My department.
Whenever an entity refused to cooperate, whenever negotiations broke down, whenever researchers wrote “*Subject displaying unexplained aggression”* in a report...
They called us.
Usually me.
Because more often than not, the subject wasn't aggressive.
It was scared.
Or grieving.
Or lonely.
Those were very different problems.
Unfortunately, most people didn't notice the difference until someone got hurt.
I don’t have the sharp senses of a werewolf. I don’t know ancient magic like the witches, and I certainly don’t have centuries of experience like the vampires.
The only thing I am unusually good at...
Is understanding people.
Even when the "people" in question have stopped being human a very long time ago.
As I rounded the corner, I spotted my supervisor leaning against the observation room window with his arms crossed.
Director Mercer.
Common Human.
Mid-fifties.
Always looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
He glanced up as I approached.
"Morning."
"You only say 'morning' like that when my schedule's about to get ruined."
He handed me a tablet.
"I had plans, you know."
Mercer raised an eyebrow.
"You don't have plans."
"I was ***planning*** on pretending to work until lunch."
He ignored me.
"Containment requested a behavioral assessment."
I skimmed the report.
**SUBJECT:** F-214 H-class
**STATUS:** Non-compliant.
**INCIDENT:** Refusing food for seventy-two hours. Displays escalating aggression toward personnel.
I sighed.
"They already tried tranquilizers, didn't they?"
Mercer didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
"They did?"
"They're scientists."
"They're impatient scientists."
I handed the tablet back.
"Give me five minutes."
The observation room overlooked a containment chamber built to withstand far worse than whatever was inside. About a dozen researchers stood behind the reinforced glass, arguing over graphs and medical readouts.
The subject sat motionless in the corner.
It resembled a deer.
If deer happened to be eight feet tall, covered in black feathers instead of fur, and had antlers that seemed to bend in directions, antlers probably shouldn't.
No one said anything.
They were waiting for my opinion.
I watched the creature.
It never looked at the food.
It never looked at the door.
It watched the people.
And every single time someone moved, its feathers tightened against its body.
One researcher cleared his throat.
"Well?"
I looked at him.
"How many people have gone into that room today?"
He frowned.
"...Six."
I nodded toward the creature.
"That's your problem."
There were confused looks all around.
"It’s an H-class, obviously it thinks you're predators."
One of the researchers frowned.
"It attacked Technician Morales yesterday."
"No."
I shook my head.
"It panicked."
"There's a difference."
The researcher looked ready to argue, but Mercer cut him off.
"Do what he says."
The room emptied until only I remained.
I picked up the food tray, opened the containment door, and walked inside.
Behind the glass, every researcher tensed.
That reaction was normal.
Most people who worked at the Bureau respected the things in containment. They studied them. They documented them. They tried to understand them.
But respect and fear were separated by a very thin line.
The funny thing was...
I wasn't afraid of the creature.
I was afraid of proving everyone right about it.
I sat down.
Not across from it.
Not close enough to intimidate it.
Just close enough that it knew I was there.
The creature watched me.
I watched it.
Five minutes passed.
Nothing.
Ten minutes.
Still nothing.
Then behind the glass, I heard the researchers getting impatient.
"Is he seriously just sitting there?"
"That's the strategy?"
"Apparently."
I ignored them.
People hated silence. They always wanted to fill it with questions, commands, or threats.
The creature didn't need someone trying to control it. It needed someone to stop treating it like a problem.
Slowly, its eyes moved toward me. For a second, I thought it was finally going to approach.
Instead, it lowered its head.
Interesting.
I looked closer, not at its face, but at everything else. The researchers had focused on the obvious: the claws, the teeth, the size, the things that made it look dangerous. They missed the details.
I didn't.
One of its antlers had a crack running along the base. Not broken. Cracked. Like something had hit it hard enough to damage the bone. Its left wing hung lower than the other, and every few seconds it shifted its weight away from one side.
I frowned.
"You're hurt."
The creature froze.
Behind the glass, someone reached toward the alarm. I lifted a hand.
Don't.
Not yet.
Slowly, the creature raised its head.
I pushed the food tray across the floor. Not directly toward it. Just closer.
"Nobody noticed, did they?"
The creature stared.
"You weren't refusing to eat."
A pause.
"You were in too much pain."
For the first time since I entered, the creature moved. Slowly. Carefully. It approached the tray.
And ate.
Behind the glass, the room erupted.
"He's eating."
"Get Research down there."
"How did he know?"
I didn't celebrate.
Because this wasn't a victory.
A victory meant something had gone right. This wasn't that.
This was everyone realizing they had spent three days punishing an injured creature because they were too busy looking for a threat.
I stepped out of containment a few minutes later. Mercer was waiting.
"So?"
I looked at him.
"Call Dr. Lyra."
Dr. Lyra arrived ten minutes later, already looking annoyed.
That was normal for Lyra.
Being a dryad meant she had spent centuries understanding nature. Her healing sap made her an exceptional doctor, far beyond human standards. Ironically, humans were still the one species she struggled to understand.
"What happened?"
I pointed toward the creature.
"Broken antler. Damaged wing."
She looked at me.
"And you figured that out how?"
"Observation."
She stared for a long moment before shaking her head.
Then she looked at Mercer and sighed.
"You're wasting your life here."
I smiled.
"Good morning to you too."
"I'm serious."
That made me stop.
Lyra crossed her arms.
"Mercer is always using you for dangerous operations"
I looked away.
"He needs someone who can do this."
"No." Her voice softened. "He needs someone who feels responsible enough to do something no one else wants to…"
I didn't answer.
Because she wasn't wrong.
And I hated that.
"You think this ability is your purpose."
"It's useful."
"That's not what I said."
I looked through the glass at the creature eating while the researchers rushed around it.
"This is the one thing I'm good at."
The words came out quieter than I intended.
Lyra's expression changed.
There it was.
The thing I always tried to hide.
Not fear.
Not sadness.
Something worse.
The belief that without this ability, I wasn't worth much.
"You were halfway through a psychology degree," she said. "You should be helping people through their problems, not drowning in your own."
"I already dropped out."
Lyra sighed.
"You don't have to keep punishing yourself because of what happened."
"I'm not."
She gave me that look. The one people always gave me. The one where they thought they understood me.
The worst part was...
They didn't.
They just felt sorry for me.
Before I could answer, Mercer stepped back into the room.
"Field Operations needs Behavioral support."
Lyra immediately turned.
"No."
Mercer looked at her.
"Excuse me?"
"He just spent the last hour calming an injured anomaly because your researchers couldn't recognize basic distress signals."
Mercer didn't react.
"Which is exactly why he's needed."
Lyra stepped forward.
"He's a person, Mercer."
"So are the civilians we're protecting."
"And if you keep sending him into situations like this, eventually you're going to push him too far."
Mercer looked at me.
"We aren't asking him to fight." He paused. "We're asking him to do what he does best."
**Understand.**
I hated that he knew exactly what to say.
Because the worst part was...
I wanted to go.
Two hours later, I was sitting on a transport plane heading toward Operation Black Birch.
An abandoned town.
Forty-seven miles from the nearest populated area.
Intelligence suggested a shapeshifting entity had infiltrated a civilian evacuation shelter.
The problem?
Nobody knew which person it was.
Eighty-six civilians.
One monster hiding among them.
The person sitting across from me was an intern named Rachel. She had been staring at me for almost ten minutes before she finally spoke.
"Sorry."
I looked up. "For what?"
"I just... I've heard about you."
I laughed. "That sounds worse than you probably meant it."
"No, I mean your work." She smiled. "No wonder Behavioral Analysis hired you."
I looked away.
"I didn't exactly apply."
She tilted her head. "No?"
I shook my head.
"I was halfway through my degree when they found me."
Before Rachel could ask another question, someone farther down the aircraft looked up from a folder.
Christian, an elf. Pointed ears. Silver hair tied neatly behind his head. Reading glasses balanced on the end of his nose.
He blinked.
"Wait."
The cabin fell quiet.
He looked at Rachel. "You seriously don't recognize him?"
Rachel frowned.
"Should I?"
The elf looked genuinely surprised.
"That's him." He pointed at me. "The sole survivor of the Vesper University massacre."
Silence settled over the cabin.
Then someone near the back muttered, "The boy who lived."
A few awkward laughs echoed through the aircraft.
I didn't join in.
Rachel's smile faded. She looked at me the same way Lyra had.
The same way almost everyone eventually did.
Pity.
I hated pity.
Fear was honest. Pity made people think they understood you.
They never did.
I wasn't brave. I wasn't special. I was just the person who happened to survive.
It was a Thursday night when it happened. An ordinary Thursday. No storms, no power outages, no warning that something terrible was about to happen.
I had spent the evening cramming for a literature exam I wasn't prepared for while my roommates argued over what movie to watch.
Just a normal night.
The kind you never think you'll remember.
Until you can't forget it.
The screaming started sometime after midnight.
At first, I thought my roommates were fighting again. That wasn't unusual. They argued about everything.
Then I heard another scream.
Then another.
I opened my door expecting to find another stupid argument.
Instead, I found him.
A man standing at the end of the hallway.
Not a monster. Not some ancient creature hiding behind a human face.
A man.
He was dressed entirely in black, and a pale mask covered his face. I couldn't see any emotion, any expression, anything that told me who he was.
Only two empty eyeholes staring back at me.
The knife in his hand looked black under the emergency lights. Not because of the blade itself. But because it was covered in blood.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
I was too terrified to do anything. I couldn't run. I couldn't scream. I could only stand there and wait for what I thought was going to happen.
Then he looked at me.
Not past me.
Not at the hallway behind me.
At me.
I still don't know how long we stood there.
A few seconds.
Maybe longer.
Then he lowered the knife, turned around.
And walked away.
He spared me.
Not because I fought him. Not because I escaped. Not because I did anything to deserve it.
He simply chose not to kill me.
By the time the police arrived, all seven of my roommates were dead.
The university called it an isolated tragedy. The media called it one of the worst mass murders in the town's history.
My psychologists called it the beginning of my condition.
Hyper-empathy.
They believed surviving something that traumatic changed the way my brain processed emotions. It wasn't immediate. It didn't happen overnight.
At first, I was just a survivor dealing with trauma.
Then, slowly, I started noticing things other people didn't.
Fear hidden behind anger.
Pain disguised as frustration.
Grief buried beneath silence.
To them, it was a trauma response.
To the Bureau, it was an ability.
To me, it was something I never wanted.
The Bureau quickly classified the massacre as a suspected supernatural incident. They believed whatever happened that night wasn't entirely human.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe they weren't.
I never cared about their theories.
Because I knew what I saw.
I didn't see a monster.
I saw a man.
A man who looked me in the eyes after killing seven people...
And decided I should live.
Rachel's voice pulled me back.
"I'm... I'm sorry."
I forced a smile.
"It's fine."
It wasn't.
It never had been.
The cabin fell silent again.
No one knew what to say after that.
But the silence didn't last long.
The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom.
"Approaching the operation zone. Five minutes."
The transport began its descent.
Mercer stood from his seat at the front of the cabin, and every conversation stopped. He tapped the holographic projector mounted to the wall.
A three-dimensional map of a small town appeared.
Rows of abandoned houses.
A church.
An elementary school.
An evacuation shelter highlighted in red.
"Eighty-six civilians were evacuated here six hours ago," Mercer said. "Field Operations intercepted evidence that a Level 3, C-class shapeshifter entered the shelter before lockdown."
The hologram zoomed in.
"Eighty-six civilians."
One red dot flashed.
"One of them isn't human."
Rachel frowned.
"Can't we screen them individually?"
"We already have," Mercer said without looking at her. "Blood tests. Thermal imaging. Silver exposure. Psychological profiling."
Nothing.
"The entity has defeated every identification method available."
An uncomfortable silence settled over the cabin.
Mercer continued.
"If it escapes the quarantine zone, projected civilian casualties exceed forty thousand within the first seventy-two hours."
Someone quietly swore.
Mercer looked at my side of the plane..
"Behavioral Analysis."
I nodded.
"We'll interview them."
"Good."
The aircraft touched down. The rear ramp lowered, and cold air rushed inside.
Outside, dozens of armored personnel surrounded the shelter. Snipers occupied nearby rooftops. Containment vehicles blocked every road leading out of town.
It looked less like a rescue operation...
And more like the beginning of a war.
The shelter had once been a high school gymnasium, but now it was packed wall to wall with frightened civilians. Children slept on cots while parents whispered to each other, and volunteers moved through the crowd handing out bottled water.
The moment I stepped inside, I felt it.
Fear.
Not one person's fear.
Everyone's.
It pressed against my chest like a weight.
Rachel looked around nervously. "I hate this."
"So do they."
She glanced at me. "What?"
I nodded toward the room. "They're terrified."
"I mean... obviously."
"No." I shook my head. "They're not afraid of the monster."
She frowned.
"They're afraid of us."
Her eyes drifted toward the soldiers lining the walls, rifles raised, faces hidden behind helmets. I couldn't blame the civilians. If armed soldiers burst into my shelter and refused to explain why, I'd be terrified too.
Mercer entered behind us.
"Report."
I looked around the room one more time before turning back to him. "I need time."
"How much?"
"A few hours."
Mercer's expression didn't change.
"You have thirty minutes."
"Thirty isn't enough."
"It's what you have."
He turned and walked away.
Rachel watched him leave.
"Does he always do that?"
"Ignore the people who know what they're talking about?"
She nodded.
"Yeah."
I smiled weakly.
"Pretty much."
Twenty-three minutes later, we still hadn't found anything.
My team had spoken to teachers, children, paramedics, and parents, but there wasn't a single inconsistency, not a single lie, and not a single emotional response that felt wrong.
Everything I sensed was exactly what I expected.
Confusion.
Exhaustion.
Fear.
Grief.
I rubbed my temples.
Something wasn't adding up.
Mercer's radio crackled.
"Director."
"Report."
"Research Division just updated their assessment. The shapeshifter has entered a secondary adaptation phase."
The shelter fell silent.
"Meaning?" Mercer asked.
"Current estimates suggest we have less than ten minutes before it fully adapts to its host. After that, it will remain hidden indefinitely."
Mercer turned to me.
"Behavioral?"
I looked around the shelter.
Eighty-six frightened civilians.
Eighty-six chances to miss one lie.
"I need more time."
"How long?"
"At least an hour."
"You have ten minutes."
"That's not enough."
"It's all we have."
Mercer looked toward the soldiers.
"Field Operations. Prepare Protocol Ash."
My stomach dropped.
"You can't do this." My voice echoed through the shelter. "They're people. They're innocent."
Mercer met my eyes without the slightest hint of anger.
"If the entity escapes," he said quietly, "forty thousand people die in the nearby city"
I stepped toward him.
"Then let me keep looking."
"You have ten minutes."
"That's not enough!"
"No." He held my gaze. "It isn't."
A long silence settled between us.
Then he said the words I'll never forget.
**"People are going to die today."**
Another pause.
**"I'm trying to make sure only eighty-six do."**
Mercer gave a small nod.
The soldiers moved.
I lunged for him.
Hands like iron clamped around my arms before I got two steps.
"No!" I shouted, thrashing against their grip. "Please!"
I threw everything I had into breaking free.
The soldier werewolves barely had to try.
To them, I wasn't a threat. I was just another human to restrain.
I couldn't reach Mercer.
I couldn't reach the eighty-six innocent people staring at us in terror.
And suddenly...
I wasn't standing in a shelter anymore.
I was back in my dorm hallway.
Frozen.
Helpless.
Watching someone else decide who lived...
...and who died.
Then it hit me.
The crying.
The screaming.
The prayers.
Eighty-six terrified people, all convinced they were about to die.
Their fear crashed into me all at once.
My chest tightened.
I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't tell where my emotions ended and theirs began.
"Stop..." My voice cracked. "Please..."
Nobody moved.
Rachel was shouting my name, but she sounded impossibly far away.
My vision blurred.
Tears streamed down my face.
Not because I wanted to.
Because they did.
My stomach lurched.
Then I doubled over and vomited onto the gym floor.
The soldiers immediately let go of me.
"Ethan!"
Rachel caught me before I hit the ground.
I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Every emotion: terror, grief, panic, hopelessness….bled together until I couldn't tell which ones belonged to me anymore.
The last thing I saw was Rachel's face.
She wasn't looking at the soldiers.
She wasn't looking at Mercer.
She was looking at me...
...like she was watching someone come apart.
Then everything went black.
When I woke up, the ceiling wasn't the shelter. It was the medical wing.
Again.
"You're awake."
I turned my head and saw Lyra sitting beside the bed with her arms crossed. She looked exhausted.
"I told you this job is taking a toll on you."
I reached for the water sitting on the table beside me and drank.
"No."
Lyra stared at me.
"No?"
"I'm fine."
A long silence followed before she sighed.
"Ethan."
I froze.
She used my name.
That meant she was actually angry.
"You have already blacked out twice this week."
"It's fine."
Her expression hardened.
"You always say that."
I looked away because she was right. I always said that. But what else was I supposed to say? That sometimes I couldn't tell where my emotions ended and everyone else's began? That every disaster felt like I was experiencing it myself? That every person I failed stayed with me?
I put the cup down.
"I have work."
"Ethan—"
I stood up before she could continue and left.
I didn't get far.
The same elf from the aircraft stepped into my path, his hair now loose over his shoulders.
"I have good news."
I stared at Christian.
"That usually means there's bad news."
He smiled slightly.
"You're learning."
I waited.
"Director Mercer is in deep trouble."
I stopped.
"What?"
"He is being investigated."
I frowned.
"Why?"
The elf looked surprised.
"You haven't heard?"
"No."
He adjusted his glasses.
"The operation report came in."
My stomach tightened.
"The shelter?"
He nodded.
"Mercer ordered Protocol Ash."
"I know."
His expression became serious.
"The eighty-six civilians he killed..."
He paused.
"None of them were the entity."
I felt cold.
"What?"
"The imposter was never inside the shelter."
My mind went blank.
"Then where was it?"
The elf looked at me.
"It had already changed into a guard."
Silence.
"He was standing outside the shelter the entire time."
I couldn't speak.
All those emotions. All those people. All that fear.
Mercer hadn't saved them.
He had killed them.
The elf continued.
"The creature is contained now. Research Division believes it's a rare hybrid."
"Of what?"
He looked at me.
"A wendigo."
A pause.
"And a skinwalker."
The hallway felt colder.
"Highly dangerous."
I looked toward the Director's offices, toward where Mercer would be.
The man who had chosen numbers over names. The man who had looked at eighty-six people and seen a calculation.
And for the first time...
I wished he would have died instead.
The thought stayed with me because it wasn't just anger. It wasn't just grief. It was something darker.
A part of me genuinely wanted him gone.
And that scared me.
Because I had spent my entire life feeling too much. Other people's pain. Other people's fear. Other people's suffering.
Hyper-empathy was supposed to make me understand people.
But in that moment...
All it did was make me understand exactly why I hated him.
I found out later what happened to Mercer.
The Bureau didn't call it “prison”. They called it "removal". But everyone understood what that meant.
You couldn't simply leave this organization after learning the things we knew….the existence of anomalies, the creatures hiding among humanity, the things that lived outside reality itself. Information like that wasn't something you carried into retirement.
Mercer wasn't fired.
Not really.
He was contained.
The same way we contained everything else dangerous.
The irony wasn't lost on anyone. A man who had spent years deciding what was an acceptable loss had finally become one himself.
Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to celebrate because within an hour of Mercer's removal, we had a new problem.
A new Director.
Which was why I was standing inside the Board Room, the place where the highest decisions in the Bureau were made.
Lyra sat across from me, looking more tired than usual. And somehow, after everything I had seen, she was still the person who looked the most human in the room.
The others...
Were not.
Six seats surrounded the table.
Six department heads.
Six people responsible for keeping the Bureau alive.
The head of Containment was a giant.
Literally.
A stone-skinned being that looked like it had been carved from a mountain. The Bureau had discovered him centuries ago.
They were supposed to contain him.
Instead, they hired him.
Research belonged to Dr. Evelyn.
An elf whose knowledge of magical biology and supernatural history was considered unmatched.
Field Operations was led by Commander Voss.
A werewolf.
The kind of person soldiers followed without hesitation. Every combat agent, every extraction team, every person sent into places humans weren't meant to survive answered to him. He was also the reason every soldier in the organization was a werewolf.
Medical was Lyra.
A dryad.
A creature connected to life itself, now responsible for keeping both humans and monsters alive.
Administration was the strangest.
Director Adrian.
Half-human.
Half something the Bureau had never officially classified.
He was proof of what the world had spent centuries ignoring.
Monsters and humans weren't separate anymore.
They had been living together for generations.
Some used magic.
Some used technology.
Some used both.
Elves who didn't want their ears recognized used spells or even human cosmetic procedures to alter their appearance. Vampires changed identities every few decades. Werewolves learned to control their transformations and lived ordinary lives.
The supernatural world hadn't replaced humanity.
It had blended into it.
And after centuries of coexistence, the hardest thing wasn't finding the monsters.
It was knowing who was one.
Then there was Behavioral Analysis.
My department.
The seat Mercer had left behind.
Then the door opened.
Every conversation died instantly as a man walked in.
At first glance, he looked completely ordinary.
Early thirties. Dark hair. Perfectly tailored suit. Calm expression.
Then you looked closer.
And remembered he wasn't human.
The newly appointed….
Director Lucien.
A vampire.
Three hundred years old.
And yes...
The stories were true.
Every vampire was beautiful.
Not because they were trying to be.
Because evolution had made them that way.
Predators weren't supposed to look dangerous.
They were supposed to make you lower your guard.
Lucien had the kind of appearance that made people trust him before they even realized they were doing it. If he wasn't running Behavioral Analysis, he probably would have been on the cover of a luxury watch advertisement, standing in an expensive suit, looking mysterious while millions of people convinced themselves they could look like him.
But Lucien wasn't famous only because of his appearance.
He was also famous because he understood monsters.
Before becoming Director, he was one of the Bureau's greatest researchers. He had negotiated with creatures that had killed entire teams. He had convinced hostile entities to cooperate without a single weapon being drawn.
People joked that Lucien could walk into a room with a monster and leave with both sides signing a peace treaty.
The strange part was how he did it.
He never raised his voice.
Never lost control.
Never looked afraid.
At first, I thought it was confidence.
Then I watched him closer.
Lucien wasn't experiencing emotions.
He was *copying* them.
The slight concern in his eyes when someone spoke.
The small smile at the exact moment someone needed reassurance.
The carefully measured pauses before answering.
Everything was perfect.
Too perfect.
Most people saw empathy.
I saw a performance.
Not a fake one.
A practiced one.
Three hundred years of watching humans had taught Lucien exactly what they expected to see.
Fear.
Compassion.
Concern.
He could imitate all of them flawlessly.
And somehow...
That was more unsettling than if he couldn't understand emotions at all.
Everyone else in this room saw a man who understood them.
I saw someone who understood emotions so well...
he didn't need to feel them.
And for the first time since I joined the Bureau...
I reconsidered Behavioral Analysis.
Not because of Mercer.
Not because of the job.
Because of him.
Mr. Lucien…
Maybe Lyra had been right.
Maybe I should have listened when she told me to think carefully about this department.
Because Mercer had been easy to understand.
He was cold.
He was ruthless.
But Lucien...
Lucien was something else entirely.
After talking to the other directors he started surveilling the room.
Then his eyes landed on me.
And for a moment...
Neither of us spoke.
Then he smiled.
Not warmly.
Not coldly.
Just perfectly.
Precisely.
"Agent Ethan."
I felt something I couldn't explain.
Not fear.
Not discomfort.
Something closer to uncertainty.
Because for the first time in my life...
I was standing across from someone who can look at a person’s fear, sadness and love and understand exactly what they meant without ever feeling them.
Meanwhile I was drowning in everyone else’s emotions, never knowing where they ended and I began.
He was a man who could understand humanity without being human.
I was a man who felt humanity so deeply that I was losing myself.
And somehow….
That was more terrifying than Mercer ever was.
#entertainment
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