A week had passed since Katherine had come to the school to question Maddox's classmates about the events before the disappearance of Susan Rose and to glean any information as to her whereabouts. The students could only provide a general list of events that occurred that day, with her going about her day perfectly fine, 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 trying to make sense 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 front for a research and development company funded by the American government to help with space shuttle testing and development for NASA. This led to some government funding and perks, as this company has built up a reputation with its tests on different designs and caught the errors that NASA had with its designs.
The company's real work involved international government-funded agencies created to combat the miasma and those 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 in dealing with this crisis. Still, though all of this was hidden from the public, as people would not be able to handle it, each agency had a public facade to protect the world from the miasma's influence. That was their purpose, 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.
This crisis has been ongoing forever, as the fights of these infected date back to early man, with depictions of demons and the like going back to the age of cavemen. Essence has been around for just as long, but humanity has only recently utilized it to combat this threat properly. With how deadly miasma is, it was a problem that drew everyone together to fight for survival, and each government made its own branch of essence-powered individuals.
Thus, every essence section of the government only focused on combating the miasma, and nothing else of the regular world would distract most of them from this duty. Katherine, like most who came to join one of these agencies for various reasons, was drawn 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 found are that in every 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, will have at least 2 females who have fallen to it.
All those who showed signs of awakening with one or the other powers would be 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 on 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, it had no effect on him.
Still, with no report from the men she placed on him, it led her to believe that Maddox was likely the cause of Susan's death. Still, all she could do was give her report to her superiors so they could make whatever decision they decided. Besides adding a new and larger surveillance team for Maddox, she could only wait for further developments.
For the past week, Maddox had been preparing on his own by buying items that he believed were useful from the internet to help fight these 'people' once they reappeared. Maddox believed they would 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, including a switchblade, nails, a can of bug spray, and a lighter. These items were mainly bought online and sent to different addresses that he picked up on his way back home when he decided to come home earlier than usual and stopped helping the neighborhood's people as often.
Creating what he needed was easy since he needed duct tape and YouTube videos to create adequate weaponry and items. Still, could Maddox really take someone's life? That was something else that he was unsure of. Still, he was confident that he would pull through with it if 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 it 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 wherever he made the post. So before he attempted that place, he started by looking through the internet, hoping to find something. A week passed, and as the month ended, Maddox felt he did not have much time left, so he prepared to 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, and other tips and tricks she found that had free trials and good reviews. All these were made on a new account under Jason 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 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 handy: 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 had just occurred or was being hidden from people. Maddox would go with the latter since it seemed more likely today, instead of just showing up, since more people would be talking about it then. Asking online would be a risk, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Maddox created his post asking if anyone had information on the people he had seen before when they came into his house. He even added a screenshot of the men when they first showed up at the house in their car after he tweaked it to ensure that nothing was shown about his home. With that, Maddox sent 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. She got this report and asked to handle it because she was the 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, 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 of, though, was their reproduction rate; hence, they were typically cannon fodder for the stronger fallen who commanded them. Some may be lucky to wield Miasma to affect their weapons, but most must rely on regular firearms and weaponry to fight the coalition members.
The image had 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 I wish to protect myself from, as well as those whom I love; however, I cannot do so without some help. I want to know how to fight these creatures, whom I wish to eradicate, so, please, if someone can tell me who I should turn to, or how I then please reply."
Of course, the post was made by an account named "The Viewer." Seeing it, Katherine scrubs it off the website before looking into who posted the image so that she could contact the person who posted it to help them. Katherine starts searching for this mysterious person while someone else does the same elsewhere.
Maddox found his post deleted the next day on the website, so seeing it deleted by someone confirms his theory that this has been going on for a while now, 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 counterproductive. All he could do now was prepare some surprises and look over that horrid film on his computer to see if he could glean anything valuable he had missed.
Leaving the internet cafe, Maddox feels that someone is once again following him, so he tries to throw them off a bit by going back to his school and entering his teacher's class, who was doing some after-school study help. Thirty minutes later, leaving his school 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 sitting in his desk chair and viewing some things on his computer. Hearing the door open, Maddox's mother turns around with a bright smile that, to others, would seem genuine enough, but Maddox sees that it is 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 you need from me?" He asks.
Maddox may seem calm on the outside, but his mind was throwing major danger alarms on the inside. She had just been on his computer, and if she saw anything from that day on, he would be like those men who came to visit last time. He felt that he was being paranoid, but he never knew what else his parents were hiding or doing, so his paranoia seemed to latch on and not let go.
Maddox's mother looks at him briefly before sighing. She rubs her forehead and then looks at Maddox again.
"I knew that this day would come eventually..." That's all she says.
...
Author's world fact: Most countries have different names or terms for those who become infected with Miasma and are 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 mark 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 world's countries to call them so they each refer to them in their own way.