July 16, 2005 - Torrington, [REDACTED]

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The blinding lights of the car’s headlights shone brightly on the road, surrounded by the darkness of the outside. The moon illuminated tonight, but the night stars were not visible for the driver. Only twenty minutes until I reach the location. Once there, I should come up with a strategy plan for how I’m going to break in undetected. Knowing what’s going on there, barging in without a second’s thought is practically suicide. 

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Jason Wallace was a man of precaution. He took his work as a cryptid investigator very seriously. From reports of creatures such as a dreaded walking siren and a skeleton horse, he had been called in to investigate unnatural encounters all across the state. While these encounters with cryptids are usually rare, any documented incident was to be taken with absolute precaution. And recently, a brand new problem had just resurfaced from the depths of the past. 

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A few weeks ago, there was a drug store robbery up in a city by the name of Torrington. The gunman responsible, later identified by the authorities as Ethan Toomes, shot and killed the cashier and one innocent bystander in the process. From what he could find about it in the case file, Toomes went straight to his car and tried to drive away as quickly as possible. The police found his car abandoned by Blakeshire Road the next day, empty on gas. There were a few signs of shoe prints that led to a small trail, but the trail stopped dead short by the abandoned mall parking lot on the outskirts of the city. By the time the police investigated the scene, they were able to find Toomes. Or at least, what was left of him. 

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According to the document, it showed that Toomes’ legs were found in the lower mall region. Whatever happened to the front of his torso was disputable, but none of the coroners were able to come up with a reasonable conclusion. It seemed as if Toomes’ entire torso up to his stomach region were chewed off. There were dozens of sharp teeth marks along the hips that proved this, but there were no animal teeth that matched the kind of marks found on this corpse. The rest of the body was transported into forensics for later testing. As of right now, the police have suspended their search of the area until further notice. 

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What makes this curious to me is that this isn’t the first time someone has disappeared at that mall. No, there was another incident that occurred around a decade earlier here, from what I’ve heard. Jason had to ask around town to get more information about that incident, and it wasn’t that hard to hear what the townsfolk had to say. It must’ve been quite the incident back in the day. 

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Around 1995, there were two teenagers, Kyle Ellis and Johnathan Rogan, who visited that very same mall. The citizens there told me those boys were trailblazers, always trying to find new ways to live on the edge, to prove their bravery and the lengths they would take. You know, breaking and entering, drugs, those kinds of deviant things. So one day, they decide to head out to the abandoned mall. And by the time they came back out, Kyle came running into the police station the next day and stated that Johnathan was murdered in cold blood. From the details in the police report, he looked incredibly shaken, out of control, like he just had an extremely traumatic experience. Based on the testimony, Kyle claimed that he watched his friend get devoured alive whole by some kind of…

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That’s the thing. Kyle’s description of this monster was what made everything immediately questionable. The very few things the cops could get out of him without having him suffer panic shock was some kind of demented, gigantic ink-like nightmare, something that could only be seen in one’s own sleep paralysis. The details were all over the place, and the blurred picture didn’t provide much help, either. Merely a gigantic dark shadow that seemed to break the laws of physics itself. 
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As the police began to investigate the mall, they were able to find no trace of Johnny’s body or his alleged kidnapper anywhere, nor anything that could’ve led to a potential suspect. Nothing. What they did find, however, was an open supply of LSD pills near the back...and it was opened. Further examination revealed that Kyle’s fingerprints were on the pills, so the officers had reason to believe that Kyle’s testimony was far from truthful. By the time he headed into the station, the supposed drug effects would’ve probably worn off, so running a drug test wouldn’t really have helped his case too much. Nevertheless, the search for Johnathan continued for weeks afterwards, but nothing was coming up. 

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That’s where I come in. If it’s true that whatever took this Rogan kid is the thing that killed Toomes, then I’m looking at another potential cryptic to report into the agency. I just need to know what I’m dealing with first before I do anything drastic. I know that whatever this creature is must have a very large mouth if it was able to bite off Toomes’ torso, so I made sure to bring along a shotgun and plenty of shell ammunition for this. I also decided to bring along a flashlight, an HD camera to catch anything I might find for proof, my paranormal reader, a bible (just in case), and plenty of water. I should probably not go too far away from my vehicle, though. I might want to stay close by to my ride out of here in case things go terribly wrong, Jason thought, as he continued to drive along the dark and empty road down to the mall.