he slipped in and out of consciousness, eyelids flickering as he fought to wake up. it hurt, but anything was better than the darkness inside his own head. finally he opened his eyes fully and stared up at the white ceiling. as his eyes adjusted to the light he realised where he was, the smell of antiseptic and the pure white walls with the hunter symbol embossed into them were unmistakable, he was in the hospital ward at headquarters.

as he shifted to get out of the bed a sharp pain caused him to hiss in pain and finally look to check his injuries, as he was only wearing pyjama bottoms they were easy to spot. his ribs were bandaged and his stomach and upper chest were covered in golden brown bruises, scratch marks and scars covered his arms. from the looks of him, he'd been in here a week or two. as he examined himself he remembered...

he'd been on a recon mission, to hunt down the lair of a pack of incubii who had been terrorising several small towns west of malice. his orders were to locate the enemy, report their position and wait for the exterminators to join him. he'd found them easily enough, they'd hid their tracks well but he was better. as he'd approached the den to check on numbers he'd stumbled upon their 'discards' a pile of barely recognisable body parts, shredded flesh and limbs. he'd seen worse so he hadnt been been too phased and started past it when he'd seen them, just behind the flesh pile, a pile of heads. just slung in a heap, he didnt recognise any of them but the colours of their hair... the memorys had hit him hard, sending him to his knees. red and green tangled together, and flowing blonde covered in blood, that one hit the hardest, made him gasp for breath, made the old impotent rage rise. he'd surged to his feet pulling his guns as he rose and with a roar of sheer fury he'd run into the incubii's lair guns blazing. he remembered that he'd startled them in the middle of feeding, 6 had gone down before even 1 managed to get to its feet. it'd been a slaughter, as he'd dodged their claws and fangs ignoring the gauges when they hit, desperate to take them down, to kill them all, for her, for the one who'd been taken from him so long ago. and he'd been winning, only a couple were left when he realised he was out of ammo, when his trigger clicked on an empty hadnt had much of a chance after that. he'd had his knife but no-one could take on an incubii at close range, they were too damn fast for that. as they'd dragged him down, ripping at his skin, his last thought before he'd lost consciousness had been surprising even to him, ''i'm so sorry jared''.