A word, a flash of light, then nothing.
Dusk was encroaching on the town's sunlight as the hunched figure ran up the alley with an odd limp and a small bundle cradled in its arms. Because of the dimming light, one could only see the navy boiler suit it wore. If anyone was passing along that stretch of road and happened to glance up the alley, they would assume it was male, from the unidentifiable features of the back of a head and the boiler's suit. If they happened to venture further up the mouth of the rather dark alley, they would be in for a surprise.
Upon closer inspection, the afore-assumed male figure would prove to be distinctly not human in origin. This lack of looks did not particularly affect the creature, although she, because the creature was in fact a girl, generally avoided densely populated areas and going out of the sewers before five in the evening.
Once she reached the end of the alley, the bundle was carefully placed to the side of a medium-sized circular metal lid. The lid was removed, the bundle tucked securely back in its arms and the figure disappeared down the drain hole.
Once the circular covering was safely back in place, the creature started up a high-pitched keening noise. Her back slid down the damp wall, curiously in almost an exact replica of humans when they have reached high levels of grief or shock. The bundle was shaken, softly, before becoming more violent, leading up to the hurling of the ragged bundle at the opposite wall.
The impact against the wall separated the rag from the majority of the clump, revealing for the first time a shockingly white, wrinkled newborn creature. The neck was slit and crimson blood was still oozing from the wound. Upon seeing the exposed body, the female creature, probably the dead infant's mother, started shrieking louder, its cries bordering on the human hearing range.
Leaning back from the monitor, Tosh shakily drew a breath, "My God…," she seemed to snap out of the shock and regain full composure in the same moment because she quickly turned on her coms, voice iron hard and commanding, "Jack, get down here now."
Her voice never rose above a soft snap but Jack heard the tone of her voice and knew it instantly. It was the tone of those pushed close to the edge. Alarmed, he almost leapt down the stairs to get to Toshiko's work station. There, he was greeted by a sight on the monitors that while different, was no less horrifying.
The creature was dipping her finger into the blood that was still exuding from her child's neck. She was moving her finger over to the wall and writing on it. In English. Something wasn't right. Weevils didn't write in English. They were primitive and just a bit stupid and didn't write. They needed to get there.
Almost simultaneously, the hub burst into action. Tosh moved to grab her portable tablet computer while Jack made to grab his coat while yelling. Everyone else realised what was happening and within the next ten seconds, everyone was sliding into the car. Almost immediately, the car was starting and then, suddenly, they were moving at an alarming rate through the streets of Cardiff.
Tosh had managed to hack back into the CCTV by the time they hit the outskirts of Splott. It wasn't until they were at the dead-end alley of System Street that the CCTV cut out.
The sewers were dark, dank and smelly, as she wrote on the wall, 2 + 2 = 4, in big letters. She had read a small book someone must have thrown down the drain, not a day before she'd found it, otherwise she'd never have been able to make it out. The masters were coming, she knew that. They were different than the masters from the book, though. They wouldn't give her a second chance. Her baby was her warning. It didn't matter if her like ended, as long as she got the message out. She scrawled faster and faster, before one word, spoken from a master behind her, stopped her where she stood.
The word was repeated, a flash of light followed, and then there was nothing.
Tosh frantically tried everything she could, alternative cameras, rebooting the link, but nothing gave her the same view inside the sewer. Jack was feeling anxious about entering the hell-hole with no knowledge of what lay inside. So, naturally he went first.
Inside the sewer was dark wet and slimy, with a horrid smell that made Jack want to puke. More importantly, there was nothing. The infant weevil that should have been over to his right was no-where. The writing on the wall the he himself had read was no-where. The mother weevil, the rag, everything was gone. Even the high-pitched keening that was ever-present on the CCTV was replaced with a heavy, oppressing silence.
"Have you found the body yet?" Owen's snarky voice cut through the silence like shattering glass, masking the barely audible mechanical whir as it started up and faded into the distance.
Jack took a few seconds to respond, "Nah, there's nothing here, no baby, no weevil, no blood, no writing, no nothing. I say we come back tomorrow and check it out." Everyone was confused with Jack's reaction, and to be truthful, so was he. Why was he telling everyone to get out, go away when there was nothing there? Something in the back of his mind kept telling him he was right, and as it got stronger, he felt the need to reinforce himself, "That's an order!" was added almost as a very afterwards after-thought.
Jack pulled himself out, shut the lid, and continued to be distant like he was every time something big was happening and he was troubled. Thoroughly disgruntled, the team reached the hub, and without saying a word left for their respective homes.
What they didn't realise was in the sewers below them, below the hub, the words were repeated five times, five flashes of light followed, and nothingness filled the five voids where life had once been.
A/N: Wow, I didn't think when I started writing it that this would be the final result. If you would like this to become more than a one-shot, please just review saying something along the lines of "I would like to know what happens next," or something like that. I would continue writing the story anyway, but I'm a lazy bugger and would probably get three words done and then never look at it again. If I know, however, that someone actually wants to read a next chapter, I will end up writing a next chapter.