“The sun doesn’t always shine in West Virginia, but the people do.”

– John F. Kennedy

(A quote that feels less like a promise now, and more like an epitaph for a place forgotten by God and government alike.)

CASEFILE: LITTLE THINGS

TO: Vincent Palmer

FROM: Peter Holman (field_operations_4)

SUBJECT: Norton Incident / Vaughan

Vincent,

The scouts are rattled. Something rotten is festering down in Norton, Virginia, and it’s not just the usual rural decay.

We flagged a disturbance involving a local veteran, Derek Vaughan. Two weeks ago, his child was taken. Abducted. But Vaughan didn’t report a man or a beast. He was raving about a construct—a "wolf" made of white material, segmented and artificial, with deeply personal insults carved directly into its chassis.

Vaughan is currently incapacitated at St. Jude’s. His injuries are… specific. He survived, but he’s been mauled in a way that suggests surgical precision rather than animalistic rage. Hospital staff are stone-walling me. They claim "patient confidentiality," but they look terrified. I need you to flash the badge and push through.

P.S: The air is surprisingly clear up here, despite the stagnation. Which begs the question: Why the mask, Vincent? That GP-5 makes you look like a walking tombstone. Have you even checked the filter for asbestos? It’s antiquated Soviet surplus. They’re going to mistake you for a ghost of the Cold War. Take it off.

TO: Peter Holman

FROM: Vincent Palmer

SUBJECT: Re: Mask

Do not speak of the mask again.

It isn’t an accessory. It is a necessity. It hurts to wear it, yes, but taking it off hurts more. It is the only thing keeping the rot out. It stays on.

HOSPITALITY

The fluorescent lights of the hospital hallway buzzed with the sound of a dying insect, casting a sickly, jaundiced orange hue over the linoleum floor. The air smelled of antiseptic masking the underlying stench of copper and bile.

“Derek Vaughan… I’m looking for Mr. Vaughan…” Vincent muttered, his voice muffled slightly by the rubber seal of his gas mask. His breathing was the only rhythmic sound in the corridor: hiss, click, exhale.

He passed open doors, glancing at the purgatory inside.

CHARLES SCHULTZ. ROY ANDREWS. LUKE MULLEN.

The names weren’t printed on official placards. They were scrawled hastily on the doors in red grease marker, dripping slightly, as if the staff had tagged them for a butcher shop rather than a medical ward. It spoke of an infrastructure collapsing under the weight of something it couldn’t understand.

ROOM 304. The name DEREK VAUGHAN was written in black, underlined twice.

Vincent paused at the small rectangular window. Inside, the room was bathed in the blue-grey static of a television set mounted high on the wall. A figure lay on the bed, motionless, wired into a symphony of beeping monitors.

Vincent checked the dossier, the paper crinkling in his gloved hands. “Black hair. Blonde roots? No, blonde hair, dark eyes.” The man in the bed matched the description, though he looked smaller than his file photo. Withered.

Knock. Knock.

The sound echoed too loudly in the silence. Vincent didn't wait for an invitation. He pushed the heavy wooden door open, and the temperature plummeted. The hospital’s air conditioning was set to morgue-levels of cold, biting through Vincent’s coat.

He approached the bed, dragging a metal chair across the floor. The screech of the legs made the veteran stir, but not wake. Vincent leaned in, inspecting the bandages.

“Christ,” Vincent whispered.

The wounds weren't just scratches. They were gouges. Claw marks that had torn through muscle but missed the arteries, delivered with sadistic calculation. The weeping sores smelled of iron and… ozone. Like burnt circuitry.

“That wasn’t a bear,” Vincent murmured, looking at the bite radius. “And it wasn’t a wolf.”

“...Mr. Vaughan.”

The veteran didn’t move. Vincent’s gaze drifted up to the television.

It was a local broadcast, the signal weak and grainy, cutting through the static. A show. A boy with pale skin and large, terrified eyes was holding hands with a wolf.

“Colt! Help me! My tail is stuck!” The wolf’s voice warped through the TV speakers, sounding like a grown man pitching his voice up, straining to sound friendly.

“Uuhh... I'll help you! That rock is... so heavy...”

The character, Colt, spoke with a delay. His mouth moved before the words came out. He was struggling to lift a crudely drawn rock, but his eyes remained fixed on the "camera," staring directly at the viewer. He didn't look like a character; he looked like a hostage reading off a cue card at gunpoint.

In the bottom right corner, a logo pulsed intermittently: a stylized bear skull, grinning without teeth. No network name. No station ID.

“Good job, Colt!” the Wolf screeched, the audio peaking into distortion. “Now we can go deeper into the woods! Forever!”

On the bed, Derek Vaughan gasped, his body jerking upright as if electrocuted. He thrashed, eyes wide and unseeing, until they locked onto the masked figure sitting beside him.

“FBI?” Vaughan rasped, his voice ruined by screaming. “Are you… am I in trouble?”

Vincent held up a hand, leather creaking. “Relax. I’m not here to arrest you. I’m here about the boy.”

Vaughan blinked, the adrenaline fading into misery. “...My son?”

“Your son,” Vincent confirmed, opening the folder. “Missing after soccer practice. You told the 911 operator he never came home. You went into the woods. You said you… ‘found’ something.”

Vaughan began to tremble. His eyes darted to the corners of the room, checking the shadows. “I… yes. The White Wolf.”

Vincent leaned forward. “We found no tracks of a wolf, Mr. Vaughan.”

“It wasn’t an animal!” Vaughan hissed, grabbing Vincent’s wrist. His grip was weak, frantic. “You have to believe me. It stood on two legs. It was tall. Pale. Its joints… they were segmented. Like a doll, or a machine. I saw it in Jefferson.”

Tears welled in the veteran’s eyes. “It had writing on it. Carved into the white shell. It said ‘Go home, soldier.’ It knew me. It was… personal.”

“And it did this to you?” Vincent gestured to the bandages.

“It touched me,” Vaughan whispered. “It touched me and I felt cold.”

Vincent stared at the man. The story was madness, yet the fear was absolute. He looked away, towards the other side of the bed, near the darkened corner where the bathroom door stood ajar.

And his heart stopped. Standing in the shadow, obscured by the flickering light of the TV, was a figure.

It had no hands. It had no eyes. It had no mouth.

It was a smooth, pale mannequin of a thing, lacking all human definition, yet it stood with an intelligent posture. It tilted its head to the side, a bird-like, inquisitive motion. It was watching him.

Vincent scrambled back, his chair clattering to the floor. “Hey!” he shouted, his voice cracking behind the mask. He lunged around the bed, reaching for his sidearm—but the corner was empty.

There was nothing there but the peeling wallpaper and the cold draft from the vent.

“He-he-he…”

A giggle. Dry, dusty, and childish. It didn't come from the room. It sounded like it originated from inside Vincent’s own ear.

He spun around. On the bedside table, where there had been nothing a moment ago, sat a small object. A hat. A child’s colorful propeller hat, dusty and grey, looking centuries old.

“...Mister?” Vaughan was staring at him, terrified. “Who are you yelling at?”

“What the fuck…” Vincent breathed, his hands shaking violently. He looked down at his gloves. They felt numb. “You didn't see it?”

“See what?”

Vincent backed away toward the door. The air in the room had changed. It wasn't just cold anymore; it felt heavy, pressurized.

“Something is messing with me,” Vincent stammered, backing into the hallway. “But I think… I think I found what you saw.”

As he grasped the door handle, a voice drifted from behind him. It wasn't Vaughan. It was high-pitched, distorted, identical to the Wolf on the television.

“You…”

Vincent didn't look back. He slammed the door and sprinted down the orange-lit hallway, the sound of his boots hammering against the floor. He had a location: Jefferson. He had a description: The White Wolf.