Deep in the Appalachian Mountains a group of scout sniper recruits are preparing for their finale examination. The goal of the exam is wilderness trek through the mountain into the "safe town" on the other side. The recruits are being dropped off with only basic survival gear.
Each gear pack includes a bedroll, cantina, combat knife, compass, flashlight, matchbox, tactical watch, water poncho, 4x optic, 5 MREs (Meal Ready to Eat), 50ft rope, map of the mountain range, Beretta M9A1 with 4 additional magazines, and a flare gun (used only in emergency situations and will lead to a failure).
Varen along with his spotter Leo are the last to touch down from their helicopter ride.
Leo the first one to land looks over the area and waits for Varen to drop down.
"Leo, you notice anything?" Varen asks as he unhooks his harness and waves the piolet off.
"Nothing on our location but look over there, doesn't that look like a campfire?"
Varen stands on a protruding boulder and points to the south at what looks like a small signal fire that comes out of the canopy of trees on a different mountain ridge.
Varen looks older now at the age of 20, his hair has been mostly shaved with only half an inch remaining on top. His skin is more of a dark caramel with his skin being tanned. His leaned build became more muscular. He stands at a height of 6' 2" with black sunglasses and a camo baseball cap.
"Nice find Leo is that in the direction we need to go to get to the town? That is probably another team that got here before us. We can meet up or trail them if they are already gone."
Leo stood up he is a lightly tanned young man at the age of 21 standing tall at 6' 3" in full camo gear, sunglasses, camo bucket hat, and tan combat boots with his 25lb pack.
Leo and Varen met when they both finished high school and decided to join the Marine Corp. They met when they went for basic training at camp in San Diego. Together they passed through basic, and their Sargent had them apply for recon sniper training.
Moving as a team Leo and Varen took the rest of daylight to hike and scale down their mountain and up to the campsite on the other side. The smoke stopped appearing in the sky after they made it down their mountain side and about to climb up onto the other.
Varen having more experience tracking due to the training with his grandfather took point and was able to find the route the other team had used to go up the mountain.
It took almost an hour before they were able to find the campsite. Not wanting to startle which ever team was there Leo whistled out the Oly Oly Oxen free tune (a signal that the trainees used to identify each other).
No answer came.
Cautiously the duo entered the clearing. It was empty except for the dead campfire, and the two gear packs that the other team should be using.
The gear packs were left next to the campfire as well as a half-eaten MRE.
"What in the hell?" Varen and Leo could help but gasp as they stared at the ground.
They noticed that there was a set of prints the size of a bear's paw, but it was in the shape of a disproportionate human hand. The prints looked like it was chasing after a cluster combat boot print. The distance between each of the boot prints indicated that the recruits were running and whatever was following them was huge and heavy judging by how deep their prints went into the ground.
"Something went wrong here." Varen finally whispered to Leo who only nodded in return.
Both being cautious, they drew their Berettas. Leo signaled Varen to investigate while he kept watch. Agreeing Varen slowly crept forward into the clearing.
Sweeping his gaze across the tree line on the opposite side of the clearing and not noticing anything Varen carefully approached the two packs going around the area where the odd handprints were in the ground.
Varen was able to reach the packs without disturbing any of the prints. Looking at the names on the packs they read Carrillo and Robinson. Both were dropped off around the mid-day from the helicopter.
Opening the packs, he noticed that there was nothing missing other than one canteen and one MRE. All the gear was still in place along with their flare gun.
What ever happened here happened fast enough to where both Carrillo and Robinson who were sniper scouts could not react fast enough to take their gear.
Varen gave the rest of the camp a once over to see if he missed anything.
By now the fire was just embers and the last rays of the sun were slipping over the mountain face behind them.
Varen walked back towards Leo, back tracking the boot prints the same way he came in.
"Robinson and Carrillo were the ones that were camped here. Whatever happened to them they were not able to get to their packs in time and had to book it into the wilderness west of here. What ever made that hand print chased them their too. The weird part is that handprint seems to appear out of nowhere right on the Eastern edge of the clearing. It was to far away from the trees for it to have jumped down from the tree and there were no traces of it passing through the brush. Anything that size would leave traces of its passing, but this did not."
"You sure about that? Do you think this is part of the exam? One of the Sargent could have set this up to see our reaction time or our tracking skills," Leo stated hopefully.
"The Marines would not test us when we have live ammunition if some got shot that could lead to other problems, I would rather think that this is Big Foot than the Marines that set this up."
"Besides what could leave a handprint in the ground and nothing else, and why do the tracks make it seem like it was walking on one hand? No something else happened here. We should send up a flare to get other people to help us investigate this." While Varen was talking he was also trying to set up a new fire off to the other side of the clearing.
"We do not want to follow the tracks in the dark when we do not know what made them. We also could use the help of more people to scare off whatever the thing that made the tracks."
"Don't worry they won't fail us if we use the flare to help another team."
Sighing Leo could not help but agree with his partner. He especially did not want to go chasing monsters in the woods. For what else could come and go without a trace and scare off two marine snipers?
While Varen was setting up a new fire that they could use to stay warm, Leo carefully made his way towards the center of the clearing to fire off the flare gun.
Being carefully to not disturb the "crime scene" Leo was able to set off a red flare into the sky.
It lit up the valley that was just covered in darkness, it was a second sun come to give Leo and Varen comfort that someone would come to help find their fellow marines.
That hope was snuffed out by a spine-chilling roar that came from somewhere else on the mountain. Followed by a shadow rocketing off the ground and enveloping the flare. As the flare was engulfed in the shadow the fire simmered out and the valley was left in a numbing cold blackness where stars could not even be seen.