A week had passed since Katherine had come to the school to question Maddox's classmates on the events before the disappearance of Susan Rose to glean any sort of information as to her whereabouts. The only thing that the students were able to provide was a general list of events that occurred that day with her going about her day perfectly fine with her seeming the same as usual during school and how she followed her routine of classwork and homework help during lunch. That is what Katherine found which she was currently trying to make sense out of as she sat in her cubicle inside her company building. The company was called the Endeavor Corporation which did two things acting as a research and development company funded by the American government to help with space shuttle testing and development for NASA. This leads to a bit of government funding as well as some perks as this company has built up a bit of a reputation with its tests on different designs as well as catching the errors that NASA had with its designs.
The second thing that the company did was work with international government-funded agencies that were made to combat the miasma and the ones affected by its power. As a result of joint efforts, a conglomerate was formed with all the major countries in the world having a seat to discuss their findings, views, and standings with dealing with this crisis. Still, though all of this was hidden from the public as people would not be able to handle it so each of the agencies had a civilian facade besides protecting the world from the miasma's influence. That was what their purpose was and as such these things were left to them to deal with as those who did not have essence were more susceptible to its power.
Thus every agency only focused on combating the miasma and nothing else of the regular world would distract, most of them, from this duty. Katherine as like most who came to join one of these agencies for a variety of reasons which were all due to the miasma. Still, most of these agencies had a majority of females running the show as males tended to succumb to the miasma more easily than females. The statistics that have been found are that in everyone 10 essence users at least 1 would be male while the rest would be female those that fall to the miasma being every 10 miasma infected individuals there will be at least 2 females who had fallen to it.
All those that showed signs of awakening with one or the other powers would be put under surveillance by the country's respective agency within the conglomerate. Then once they showed signs of miasma they would be killed if the transformation process began if they did not die and if they awakened the essence they would receive proper training to help fight the miasma through various methods. Katherine had placed a small watch team onto Maddox to observe him since he seemed to be the most suspicious out of everyone within his class and when she tried to influence him just a bit through the essence but it had no effect on him.
Still though with no report from the men she placed on him led to her into believing that Maddox was more than likely the cause of Susan. Still, all she could do is give her report to her superiors so that they could make whatever decision it is that they decide to do, so besides adding on a new and larger surveillance team onto Maddox she can only wait for further developments.
Maddox for the past week had been preparing on his own by buying items that he believed were useful from the internet to help fight these 'people' once they showed up again and Maddox believed that they would once again be coming to his home at the beginning of the month which was only a few days away. So he purchased a few things that would help with dealing with them, a few of the items included a switchblade, nails, a can of bug spray, and a lighter to name a few. These items were mostly bought online and sent to different addresses that he picked them up from on his way back home when he decided to come home earlier than usual and stopped helping the people of the neighborhood as often.
Creating what he needed was easy since all that was needed was duct tape and youtube videos to create some adequate weaponry and items. Still, could Maddox really take someone's life was something else that he was unsure of, still, he had the confidence that he would pull through with it as long as he had the resolve to do so then he could. With no one else to turn to Maddox looks to the internet for answers which at first leads nowhere until he finds something that may be able to help him.
Reddit.
A place that has all sorts of people on there from around the world that can provide all sorts of information to him however until now Maddox had been hesitant to act upon this place as anyone with a bit of computer knowledge could easily find him from where ever he made the post and so before he attempted that place he started by looking through the internet in the hopes of finding something. A week had passed by then and as the month was coming to a close Maddox felt that he had not much time left and so decided to prepare to make a post on Reddit asking for help.
Preparations were made to hide as best as possible on the internet by using a VPN, high-end computer security systems that protected against identity theft as well as other tips and trips her found that had free trials as well as good reviews. All these were made on a new account under the name of Dominik Stone who entered the internet world in a Starbucks about another hour from Maddox's school which he walked to one day. Setting this up took about two days as Maddox had to constantly go to the Starbucks to set everything up and as a form of paranoia set it up away from any sort of perceivable cameras in case anyone looked at the time that the post was made as well as the security footage. He did it all on an old laptop that one of the people in the neighborhood gave him but he never used it as he had his computer. Now it came in quite handy which was how he could set everything up as best as possible to hide his digital footprint to prevent him from being tracked down.
This was because Maddox had never heard of this kind of thing happening before which meant that this was either a new thing that just occurred or that this is being hidden from people. Maddox would go with the latter since it seemed more likely in this day and age instead of it just showing up since more people would be talking about it then. Asking online would be a risk but nothing ventured nothing gained.
Maddox creates his post asking if anyone had information on the people he had seen before when they came into his house. Maddox even added a screenshot of the men when they first showed up at the house in their car after he did some tweaking to make sure that nothing was shown about his own home. With that Maddox sends his post online for the world to see.
'Bling'
Katherine received a notification on her laptop at home saying that someone had posted something online possibly related to miasma. The reason she got this report and asked to handle it was because she was secretary of the man who ran this specific office building and her boss tended to push all the work onto her instead of handling it themselves. Sighing and grumbling to herself Katherine lazily follows the notification to the linked website where she expected to find nothing of value since there was no way that those with miasma would let anyone talk about them. She opens the link and she nearly chokes on her own spit.
Ogres
She was looking at ogres, one of the more common variations of miasma that someone can turn into if they fall to it. They boasted strong physiques with moderate intelligence, one thing they boasted well in though was their reproduction rate hence they were typically cannon fodder for stronger fallen who command them. Some may be lucky to wield Miasma to affect their weapons but most have to rely on regular firearms and weaponry for fighting the members of the coalition.
The image had the nine ogres outside the cars as they stood surveying the scene before them with their pixelated faces and grayed-out skin tone showing that someone messed with the image before posting. The text that followed the post was this.
"These creatures are something that I found that wish to protect myself from... as well as those who I love, however, I cannot do so without some help. I want to know how to fight these creatures who I wish to eradicate so please if someone can tell me who I should turn to or how should I then please reply"
The post of course was made by an account under the name of "The Viewer". Seeing it Katherine scrubs it off of the website before looking into who it was that posted the image so that she could get into contact with the person who posted it to help them. Katherine starts the search for this mysterious person while there was someone else who was doing just the same elsewhere.
Maddox found his post deleted the next day on the website and so seeing it deleted by someone confirms his theory of this being something going on for a while now and not something that just appeared out of the blue. Maddox leaves his usual spot and does nothing else on Reddit seeing that it would be counter-productive in doing so. All that he could do now was prepare some surprises and look over that horrid film that he had on his computer to see if he could glean anything useful that he may have missed.
Leaving the Starbucks Maddox feels that someone is once again following him so he tries throwing them off a bit by instead going back to his school and entering his teacher's class who was doing some after-school study help. Leaving thirty minutes later and heading back home Maddox does not feel he is being followed and heads back home immediately without delay.
Sighing at the relief of nothing happening Maddox is surprised that when he enters his room he finds his mother inside his room sitting at his desk chair and viewing some things on his computer. Hearing the door open Maddox's mother turns around with a bright smile on her face that to others would seem genuine enough, but Maddox saw that it was only a fake one she wore when she was unhappy at something but could not show it. Maddox places his belongings down before sitting on his bed and looking at his mother.
"Hello, mother... is there something that you need from me?" He asks
Maddox may seem calm on the outside but on the inside, his mind was throwing major danger alarms as she had just been on his computer and if she saw anything from that day on there then he would be like those men that came to visit last time. He felt that he was being paranoid but he never knew what else it was that his parents were hiding or doing so his paranoia seemed to latch on and not let go.
Maddox's mother looks at him for a second before just sighs as she rubs her forehead before once more looking at Maddox.
"I knew that this day would come eventually..." Is all she says
...
Authors Note: Most countries have different names or terms which they call those who become infected with Miasma and were changed by it instead of dying, with America calling them fallen or infected
Some examples of different names that countries call them would be that the Chinese call them Wūrǎn (tainted) and Duòluò (depraved), Russians marks them as Pазрушенный (ruined) and Истекший (expired), and so on for all countries that deal with them
No set name has been given for them by the countries of the world to call them so they each refer to them in their own way.