Monster girl Encyclopedia: Joshua's Grimm

At first I was afraid, I was petrified! I kept thinking I could never live without you by my side. But then I spent so many nights just thinking how you done me wrong and I grew strong. I learned how to get along! And so you're back from outer space! I just walked in to find you without that look upon your face. I should have changed that fucking lock! I would have made you leave your key if I had known for just one second you'd be back to bother me! - I Will Survive: CAKE ver.

Chapter 1: A Brave New World

The streets of Michigan were barren at night if it weren't for the few people brave enough to venture outside to do grocery shopping or whatever else they had in mind. The Michigan state government had placed a "stay-at-home" order thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic on almost everything to the point the citizens had started to protest. They had things they needed to get done and the pandemic gave them somewhat of an opportunity to get started seeing how almost everyone was temporarily out of a job. One such car speeding home was driven by a young man who went out to buy the little food he could before every store closed for the night. As he neared the apartments he lived in the brakes on his white Ford Escape groaned like they were just as tired as he was.

He turned into Village Manor Apartments in Oxford, his hometown, and pulled up to the third building he barely called home. Stepping out of his car he began adjusting his green M-65 field jacket and grey flat ivy hat as well as his blue jeans and checked to make sure he had his wallet, handgun, contact lens case, and his phone before grabbing his old and rather worn out, dark green Molle backpack and his car keys and slammed the car door shut. With a push of a button on his car key the trunk popped open and the little food he had managed to buy stared back at him from the trunk. The sound of crickets could be heard over the deafening empty silence of the lonely night. The young man grabbed two grocery bags before looking at his building and approaching the front door and letting out a sigh as he fumbled for the key to let himself in. The young man slowly walked inside and over to room 301 on the first floor and unlocked his apartment room.

Once inside he turned on the lights, locked the door behind him, set his grocery bags on the small kitchen counter, and pulled out his wallet. He had no money left inside after this run to the store and he threw his wallet down on the counter in anger, the wallet showing his license. Joshua Gehrke was his name and it said on his license he was born on March 17th, 1994, six foot and one inch tall. Joshua took his hat off and walked over to his dining table, placing his hat on the bare white tabletop, and sat in a chair next to the table as he scratched his messy blonde hair that stretched to his shoulders. He looked around at the small apartment room all the while thinking about what his life had come to. A small T.V., a small bed with a small end table with a drawer and small trunk, and a small this and that is what made up his world in here. This world could now best be described as a small prison no matter how you looked at it. A place that used to be colorful but was now bleak and grey.

Joshua stood up and walked over to a photo next to his television. In it was a much happier Joshua along with a beautiful Japanese-American woman smiling while sitting next to him. It had been better days back then when he was younger and in love, but the woman wasn't in his life for long.

"What happened to me? To us..?.. Why did you have to leave me so soon, Reiko?" Joshua said with a bit of sadness creeping into his voice as he looked at the photo.

Reiko had developed breast cancer and needed very expensive treatment. Joshua was twenty-three at the time and had been attending a trade school at the time and ended up sacrificing his education to pay for her treatments to no avail. By the time he was twenty-four, Reiko would end up passing away from her fight with cancer. That meant the apartment they shared soon became a lonely prison with no hope of escape. The room's white walls began echoing with past conversations between the two of them from a much happier and lively time.

Joshua walked back over to the counter and stuffed his wallet back in his pocket then walked over to his bed before reaching under it for a box with some important memories inside. He moved a heavy trunk from up against the wall to reach his prize and grunted as he reached into the dusty darkness under his bed. In this box were three books he kept as a keepsake of Reiko's love for him when they were young and deeply in love. A dark red hardcover book called "The New Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Firearms"by Ian V. Hogg came first, then a white paperback book that looked like a catalog called "Shooter's Bible: Guide To Firearms Assembly, Disassembly, And Cleaning"by Robert A. Sadowski came next, and finally a dark blue hardcover book called "Shop Theory"by Henry Ford Trade School was last. Underneath the books sat a survival knife, a Purple Heart Medal, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest honor a citizen could receive. Joshua had fought in the Sino-American war that took place on U.S. soil a year and a half ago and ended in September a few months ago, not as an actual U.S. soldier, but as a resistance fighter. He fought with a scoped Springfield Krag–Jørgensen in .30-40 Krag until he acquired an SKS from a dead Chinese soldier and a Chinese Mosin-Nagant and scored two hundred confirmed kills when working as a sniper. The war left him worse for wear—both physically and mentally. He shook his head at the medals before closing the box and opened the encyclopedia, flipping through a few of its pages.

Joshua was somewhat of a firearms enthusiast and kept a few guns—his bolt action Springfield Krag rifle in .30-40 Krag, a single shot 12 gauge with a twenty-inch barrel, two shotgun choke tubes, and several chamber adapters of various lengths and calibers that allowed him to fire different pistol rounds through it as well as a pump-action 20 gauge Mossberg; a Ruger GP100 in .357 magnum and a Colt Single Action Army in .45 colt; a P-83 Wanad and PA-63 both in 9x18 Makarov; a Springfield XDs in .45 ACP, and the type 56 SKS semiautomatic rifle in 7.62x39 that he took as a war trophy as well as the Chinese Type 53 Mosin-Nagant with a side-folding bayonet taken as yet another war trophy—in a trunk in front of his bed, for the pistols, or in gun cases for the long guns, against the wall under his bed. It was thanks to his job in the car parts factory before the pandemic as well as his grandfather who got him into firearms. Joshua always carried his PA-63 and three spare, seven-shot magazines loaded with hollow points carried in a jacket pocket as well as three emergency magazines in a back pants pocket loaded with FMJ's since he had taken a CPL class back when he was twenty-one after an incident a year prior at a restaurant that he could have prevented. Reiko had been with him that night at the restaurant as well as a friend who found himself on the wrong end of a disgruntled ex-employees semi-auto rifle and Reiko supported his decision to get his concealed carry license after the event.

The PA-63 quickly became a favorite for Joshua with its low recoil and high reliability. The PA-63 had one flaw: its frame was known to crack if used with heavy bullets or after firing well over five hundred rounds in a single range session. Joshua's PA-63 was customized with a floral leaf scroll on the sides of the slide and custom rubber grip panels that were slightly thicker than the factory plastic panels and offered a better grip profile. He also changed out the recoil spring with a stronger one and the hammer spring with a reduced power spring to give him a faster, but still reliable trigger speed. It also had orange paint on the front sight for easier and faster target acquisition. It was still a huge plus seeing as world war three looked to be just over the horizon in 2014 when NATO disbanded and a handful of countries began to neglect the Geneva convention. Joshua trained under a professional who had ten pistol competition wins under his belt to learn how to handle semi-automatics and win a pistol competition of his own. His PA-63 also served him well during the war as a backup sidearm to his Cot SAA where he made great use of it when needed. After his Colt's trigger and locking bolt spring completely broke during a firefight, he was left with only the PA-63 in the final days of the war. Joshua used his PA-63 to kill the Chinese general responsible, Gen. Yingjie Lei; and put an end to the war once and for all.

Joshua pushed the memory of the restaurant and war out of, his mind as he grabbed his three books. He began to think about the good times—better times from when he and Reiko were together. His eyes began to feel moist and Joshua had to struggle to hold in his tears. Here he was, a twenty-six-year-old, all alone, and he didn't know what to do. Joshua grabbed his books and dejectedly carried them over to his table then went and grabbed an Angry Orchard hard cider from his refrigerator. He took a sip from the dark glass bottle as he stuffed his wallet in his bottom right jacket pocket and put his hat back on. Dark thoughts began brewing in his mind, and all of them were solutions to his problems, even if it meant going to prison or committing suicide. Should he become a career bank robber? Maybe head north to his cabin for a month just like he did at the end of the Sino-American war? Living off the grid did have its benefits, after all, as no one ever really bothered him or cared what he did in the middle of nowhere. It was also out past Highway 55 meaning he could shoot any one of his guns up there so long as he didn't shoot in the direction of the road.

The cabin used to belong to his grandfather. The two often went up there together when his grandfather adopted him when he was fifteen after he had been bounced around from foster home to foster home since he was four years old. Joshua never had an easy life in the foster system as many of the families only saw him as an opportunity to make money from the government and that wasn't counting the ones who just adopted him to have him do most of the work around the house. After he was adopted by his grandfather, his life changed for the better. It was also when his life got a little stranger, but Joshua was just a normal guy, right?

Little did Joshua know being watched from afar as he sat there and drank his alcohol while looking at his books. The images inside had caught the interest of a few individuals who hoped to use them for their benefit. As Joshua drank more from the bottle till it was empty, the distant watchers only smiled at their discovery.