Author's note - Hello everyone, I sincerely thank you for reading this far into the story. This is my first fanfiction so it isn't perfect, expect quality and writing style to gradually improve as the story progresses.

I also apologise for the sporadic posts, I do university full-time as well as working part-time, so I get quite busy for some weeks. To make up for my long break, I have posted 3 chapters in advance! Thank you all for reading, it means a lot to me so feel free to comment as I will do my best to improve.

- End Author's note

John's watch vibrated furiously, prompting the start of what would be a pivotal day he surmised. "That or I really am blowing things out of proportion and just did a silly project." He shrugged and sat up, doing his usual stretches, and finally started his daily routine.

Once his angler attire was donned, he partially dismantled the device he had constructed last night, gently placed it in his backpack and layered some clothes on top to keep it padded and protected. "OK, set it up in the service station, set the time to noon and book it. It is 8 am, so I have a few hours to protect myself here in case things get out of hand." John whispered to himself, running the plan over in his mind.

He knew that things could go wrong if he set the volume incorrectly, it would be especially dangerous if it went off when he was close by.

"The best-worst case scenario is that the creature is still here and I see tracks in the 'presence-detectors', what I do is wait here for a while longer and hope it loses interest after a few days or weeks." John shifted a bit before continuing. "Worst case scenario, it attracts a lot more that I was unaware of in the area. They never leave me alone, and I either starve to death hoping to wait them out, or die at the hands of them."

This realisation started to sink in, which stopped John dead in his tracks. "Should I really do this? This is like Schrödinger's cat, I do not know if there is or isn't a creature here, but would finding out really matter that much at all? Either way I survived, even went outside a few times." John sat back down and started to think this over.

"Pros and Cons. Pros, this will let me know if I need to be extra cautious, or even wait out the creature, it gives me opportunity to lure it away if it is close by, maybe by another lure, a city down. Now the cons, if this goes south, I could starve, or be killed because of it."

The answer is obvious, he shouldn't go forward with this.

"But, the fear of the unknown, is almost, if not stronger then the fear of death itself. I do not know if this creature is slowly creeping in, ready to strike in the dead of night. Or if I am simply giving these creatures too much credit, and that the one I encountered a week ago, lost interest already."

John made up his mind, he would go through with this. "Better to stare death down, then to have death come unseen."

John arrived at the fuel station, and upon opening the door, he was met with a strong odour of tomato sauce lingering in the air. However, as he inspected each puddle, they were untouched, reliving some fears of a stalking creature, if it were following, it was not close enough.

He stepped around the puddle and stopped in the centre of the backroom before placing his backpack down and quietly unzipping it, revealing his wrapped-up contraption. With steady hands, he placed the bundle on the ground, unwrapped it and slid the shirt back inside the backpack. There he laid the chess clock flat and was about to set the player-two timer to 3:45 hours, however, he noticed a slight mistake in his plan. "Shit, the clock can only go to an hour max. Dammit, I should have checked that earlier. Well, whatever, I will have one hour to vacate and hide in my room, plenty of time."

He twisted the crown on the clock face and set the minute and second hand to 60, before getting another idea. "Well this will switch over to player-one, I could give him 5-10 minutes, then everything will shut off. 5 or so minutes will be plenty if the creature is nearby, and means I could potentially avoid attracting too much attention if I got the volume wrong."

Setting the player-one hands to 5 minutes, John finally wired up the relay and CD Player, twisting the thin wire strands and 'arming' the lure. He rotated the volume knob to zero and did a quick power on, the CD spun up, confirming it was still functioning. He then shut it off, put the plastic tab in between the battery terminal and contact, and then switched on the chess clock.

He cycled between the players, ensuring the relay popped on cue, and shut off too while ensuring the CD player cooperated as well. With that finally done, John held his breath as he clicked the chess clock back onto player-two, and turned the volume to halfway on the CD player.

The quiet ticking filled the room as he watched the second hand slowly move in the watch face, the blue light on the loose display indicating his temporary safety in the vicinity. "Time for me to scram, I sure hope this ends well..."

John had successfully made it home, his heart was starting to pound as the gravity of the situation was starting to mount, but he did his best to remain calm. "Deep breaths John, deep breaths." He whispered to himself, rubbing his shoulders as he walked inside through the front door. He turned and twisted the lever, locking the door, just in case he thought to himself as he rounded the cabinet and went through the back door and into the kitchen. He grabbed a heap of his clothes and brought them inside his room with him, he then started tucking them into all the gaps in the door and even pushed the chair against it.

He then turned and cowered in the corner of the room and studied his wristwatch. "8:45 am currently, I set the lure at 8:30 so I have 45 minutes until it goes off, just got to pass the time and not let my nerves get the better of me I guess." John then grabbed one of the electronic magazines and attempted to calm down by immersing himself in it, however, it was quite difficult.

As the minutes counted down back at the fuel station, John sat timidly reading his magazine, while the creature sat perfectly still, listening to the outside world, ever ready for its call to action.

40 minutes, became 30, which became 15, now only a minute away. The clock's second hand quietly ticked, until it finally stopped on the red line.

Click

John was startled as a harrowing screech rang out from outside in the distance, the sound of glass smashing and then the sounds of a sprinting monster. John held his breath, fearing the creature bursting through the door in front of him, however, the steps became quiet and distant, before a faint crash of glass was heard, where he guessed the fuel station was.

"Holy... Shit... I think the sauce was not necessary. There is a creature in the town with me." He said still in half shock at the ferocity he just heard, he had entirely expected nothing to happen, but then again, he was dealing with an other-worldly creature.

The creature was in a frenzied state, smashing through the fuel station's front glass and rocketing in and through to the source of the voices. It rammed through the half-open backroom door and inside, expecting to face a human, but instead was met with thin air. It had anticipated a human to stop its charge, however since none was there, it awkwardly tried to halt. It was instead becoming unsteady on the sauced tiles and stumbling, falling over but managing to catch itself with its arms.

Questions flooded the creature's mind as it steadied itself, it scanned the room for any humans but found none. Its head locked onto the object in the centre of the room, the source of the voices, before it decided to even go over there, it looked at its digits that had touched the ground, they were covered in a viscous substance. That is when it noticed the entrance and exit had it all across the floor in front of it. That was not here when I last checked, nor was that 'thing'.

The creature looked back to the device, still hearing the human voices coming from it. That is no natural object, that is of human origin.

Even more questions flooded the creature's mind as it still tried to process the situation, it sat upright and simply looked back and forth, between the sauce on the floor and the object. Did...Did the human do this on purpose? That...No I didn't think they could do this.

The creature settled its focus on the object in the centre of the room, watching it curiously as it spoke. It has human sounds, despite not being human itself. They aren't natural, but hearing them, I see patterns. The creature crept closer to it until it was on top of it, watching it curiously but with an air of caution. I have never heard a human speak long enough to find such, interesting patterns. Nor have I guessed they can come from, lifeless objects. As it sat, it gently prodded the CD player, feeling and hearing its hard plastic shell. It turned its gaze to the source of the rhythmic ticking sounds and focused on it. Like a heartbeat that never changes pace, lifeless, but not entirely dead.

The creature sat upright and watched on in fascination, completely absorbed with questions, while it listened to the human voices.

As the moments passed, the creature sat on still entirely entranced, until a resounding click came from the relay, and silence swept the room. The creature startled by the sudden end to the sound, became wary of its surroundings, before settling back onto the device. Without thinking much further, it picked up the individual components of the device, being gentle not to break them, before quickly setting off outside the fuel station and sprinting back home.

The creature did not want to admit it, but it wanted to listen to the device speak once again.

John tensed once again as he heard resounding footsteps approach, however, they quickly disappeared from where he heard them originate only minutes ago. "I guess this is the best-worst case scenario..." He looks onwards at his small conglomerate of canned goods, muesli bars and water bottles, and the small pile of electronic magazines and the burnt-out CD player that lay on top. "Let's hope I can wait out another week, or I'm done..." With that, John crawled over to his bedding and dragged it under the table along with his pillow. He laid down and rubbed his arms and shoulders gently, attempting to dismember the anxiety he still felt, but he knew it would take a while for that to happen.

The creature was sitting in its den, in front of it was the lure that it had delicately arranged together in hopes that it was still functional. I hope it can speak again. The creature said internally as it gently touched its index finger against the plastic of the CD player, it traced around the details, and grooves of the Sony logo embossed in the frame, before gliding over the buttons and hearing them click, it initially worried that it would damage the device, but it guessed the click was intentional given the pronounced features.

What am I doing? This question had a double meaning, as it didn't know how the device worked, and it was starting to feel ashamed of itself for simply forgetting about the human.

The creature lifted its digit from the device and leaned back, resting against the bedframe behind it. In actuality it didn't know what it was doing, what transpired only minutes ago left it quite stunned, and it needed time to process it. The importance of finding the human seemed to dwindle for the moment, currently it wanted to see the magic of the device in action.

The creature leant forward and shifted positions until it was resting on its chest and elbows, allowing it to be close enough to the device to properly inspect it. It let out a sequence of varying pitched clicks, smiling to itself as it saw the device properly in great detail, paling in comparison to the rough shapes and contour lines his vision portrays things at usual distances. It yet again couldn't hold its curiosity at bay and started to touch and prod the device. It jolted as the CD caddy snapped open, the creature let out a quiet hiss at being startled but went back to inspecting the item.

It pressed down on the lid of the CD player, watching its springy motion before fully completing the motion, a small click followed and the lid stayed close.

Interesting, also intentional.

It tried to recall the motions it did on the device, wondering if a specific order of prods caused the action, but it noticed a strangely textured button that sat off to the side of the screen, pressing it in, caused the lid to fling open again, much to the delight of the creature who closed it once more. It became more confident in handling the device and decided to risk picking it up so it could better discern detail.

After turning it over a few times, and feeling around, it became more curious about the wires that led from the bottom of it. This doesn't seem intentional. Too fragile and different. Flipping the device it felt around the exterior, finding the gap that the wires went in, it started to tug and press on different parts of the back until suddenly the battery cover fell off. From there its suspicions were confirmed, it felt the loose wires wrapped around as well as the plastic protruding from between the batteries. Humans did this, he knows this magic. But did it give it the voice, or did it already have the voice before the human added this?

The creature was unsure what the human had done, but it did its best to memorise how things went, just in case his hunch was incorrect so it could put it back together; and started to tug at the wires more firmly. They slid from the terminals easily and fell to the ground, with newfound confidence, the creature tried the plastic tab next. Pulling on it, before it finally gave way, suddenly feeling the CD player vibrate slightly before the voice came.

The creature lay there, feeling both delight and awe in the device it held, listening to the voice speak. Rhythmically and with intent, patterns in frequencies slowly emerging, the creature gently rested the device on the ground. The creature grasped the bedsheets and pillows it had used for the previous night's watch, sliding them underneath its elbows and chin before watching onward in complete fascination with the device. I think I like the sounds this human makes...