From: Cultural Folklore Liaison – North Atlantic Division
To: Researcher 276
Attachment: N/A
Good morning, 276,
You have been selected for field deployment in the Scottish Highlands in relation to a confirmed Nuckelavee sighting. Please review the following information ahead of your departure.
Entity Brief – Nuckelavee
- Origin: Orcadian mythology (Orkney Islands, Scotland)
- Type: Sea-based daemon/hybrid entity
- Disposition: Extremely hostile; traditionally associated with plague, rot, and ecological blight
Physical Characteristics:
- Form: Horrific, centaur-like hybrid
- Upper Half: Humanoid torso with elongated limbs and a grotesque, contorted face
- Lower Half: Horse-like body, fused unnaturally with the upper torso
- Skinless: Entire body is devoid of skin—muscle and vascular systems exposed and in constant motion
- Eyes: Burning red, unblinking stare
- Breath: Highly toxic; causes crop failure, livestock illness, and respiratory distress in humans
Abilities:
- Known to bring widespread disease, drought, and decay
- Commonly associated with coastal rot and inland agricultural collapse
- Cannot cross freshwater—only known deterrent or weakness
Behavioral Profile:
- Primarily nocturnal
- Most active during dry seasons
- Folklore suggests the creature is unleashed or empowered during the absence of “Mither o’ the Sea,” a mythical maritime guardian
- May act in vengeance against perceived human disrespect of natural or maritime laws
Assignment Objectives:
- Observe and document behavioral traits of any wild specimens encountered.
- Confirm or rule out Nuckelavee involvement in a recent outbreak of disease in a rural Scottish town.
- Coordinate with the assigned Sentinel team for specimen eradication after documentation is complete.
The current working theory is that these entities may not require full-scale extermination if their numbers and effects can be contained. Your data will be pivotal in determining long-term strategy.
Prepare accordingly, and ensure all findings are transmitted through secure channels.
Regards,
Kevin Burnegrad
Cultural Folklore Liaison
A.P.C. – North Atlantic Division
____________________________________________________________________________
“Man, it’s cold,” Lucas muttered, pulling his jacket tighter as he stepped off the boat and onto the rocky beach at Port Stoth. The wind cut through his layers like knives made of ice, and the cold mist from the sea didn’t help. His boots sank slightly into the wet sand, and he winced as the chill bled through the soles.
He still couldn’t believe he’d been assigned a field op this early in his posting. But that’s what happens when you’re at the bottom of the food chain—first in line for grunt work. Welcome to the North Atlantic Division, he thought bitterly.
At least the Sentinel team they’d sent with him knew what they were doing. That was something. These things—if the folklore was to be believed—weren’t just dangerous. They were nightmares made flesh. His role was mostly observational, but if he did manage to bag a live specimen, well… that would definitely earn him points back at headquarters.
It was midnight. The boat had made it into the harbor without incident, but not without getting soaked. Saltwater clung to his clothes, mixing with the freezing drizzle in the air, and the whole world felt steeped in damp shadow.
While the crew started unloading gear behind him, Lucas broke away from the group and made his way up a slick stone path toward a figure waiting near the edge of a dimly lit road.
She couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, bundled in a heavy coat with a woolen hat pulled down over her ears, blonde curls escaping at the edges. She was holding a thermos in both hands, steam trailing from the lid like smoke.
“Hi there! I’m, uh… with the organization you contacted about the… uh…” He hesitated. “The Nuckeluh… Nuckleevy?”
He mangled the name beyond saving.
The woman chuckled, not unkindly. “Och, you tried, bless you. It’s Nuckelavee, like ‘nuckle-a-vee.’ They don’t teach you that where you’re from?” Her accent was soft but unmistakably Scottish, tinged with island lilt.
Lucas managed a sheepish grin. “Not exactly part of the curriculum in New Jersey.”
“Well then, welcome to Stoth. Name’s Blair.” She offered a gloved hand.
He took it, surprised at how firm her grip was. “Lucas. Nice to meet you.”
“You too, Lucas.” She gave him a quick once-over, then took a sip from her thermos. “So you’re here to deal with our local horror story, are you? The village’ll be glad to have you. Just… try to keep a low profile, yeah? Folks around here spook easy—especially this time o’ year.”
“Yeah, totally. We’ll keep things quiet. No flashing lights or big guns unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Blair gave a small nod, eyes scanning the shoreline behind him. The mist rolled in heavy tonight, swallowing the trees that clung to the cliffs above the village. Even the gulls had gone silent.
“I hope so,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “Last thing we need is word gettin’ ‘round that the Horseman’s walking again…”
____________________________________________________________________________
The small town of Cóig Peighinnean was usually a quiet, sleepy place—tucked away from the world, half-forgotten by time. But something had changed this year.
It began with the crops. They wilted before harvest, withering under a sun that hadn’t changed its habits in centuries. Then the children began to fall ill. Then the elderly. Then the strong. One by one, the town’s pulse began to slow.
Now, it barely beat at all.
Colin stood at the entrance to his mother’s cottage, the wooden frame groaning faintly in the sea wind. He’d come home from university hoping for crisp fall air, warm meals, and time spent with family. Instead, he’d been playing nurse for the past week—breaking fevers, forcing water down dry throats, watching people slip into delirium.
He shoved the door open with his foot, arms full of supplies. The hinges gave a low, tortured creak, as if the house itself resented movement. Inside, the air was thick—humid from boiling pots and stale from too many bodies lying still.
He set the bags down on the scarred kitchen table. The place smelled faintly of sick and burnt seaweed. A familiar stench—but even that had soured, clinging to everything like mold.
Walking through the village that morning had been like stepping into a graveyard. No children’s laughter, no chimneys smoking. Just fog rolling down from the cliffs, and a silence so complete it pressed on the ears. A few people still moved—ghostlike shapes collecting newspapers or fetching water—but even they seemed unsure if they were still alive.
Cóig Peighinnean lived off its crafts. Artisans, glassblowers, soapmakers. Colin’s family had made soap for generations—an old tradition using local kelp, burned and boiled down into caustic lye. The process stank and stained everything it touched, but the product was famous across the region. Strong stuff. Pure.
He took a deep breath and caught the faintest trace of that burnt tang. Familiar. Grounding.
But nothing felt grounded anymore. There were rumors, whispered ones, about curses. About old things waking beneath the sea. About a rider seen along the coast—skinless, red-eyed, breathing rot into the land.
Colin shook the thoughts away.
He needed to get back to his mother. He just hoped she—and the rest of them—could hold on long enough.
____________________________________________________________________________
Lucas and his crew had arrived in Eoropaidh, just a fifteen-minute walk from their target: Cóig Peighinnean. After a long night of setting up and grabbing what sleep they could, the mission had begun in earnest.
The Sentinels were off to one side of the safehouse, checking over their gear and zeroing their rifles. No one wanted surprises out there.
Lucas, meanwhile, had other priorities. Reconnaissance. That was his specialty, after all. And it didn’t hurt that their local liaison, Blair, had caught his eye in more ways than one.
He found himself sitting across from her in a narrow booth at a roadside diner—low ceilings, greasy air, cracked red vinyl seats. It was more crowded than either of them expected for a place like this. Locals chatted quietly between sips of tea and mugs of dark, bitter coffee.
Lucas ordered his black, and asked for cranachan—he’d read it was a traditional dessert. Blair went simpler: a couple of eggs and a coffee, though she mostly just pushed them around her plate as they talked.
“So,” Blair asked, propping her chin on her hand, “what’s it like workin’ for your organization?”
Lucas gave a crooked smile and stirred his coffee. “I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say… but honestly? It’s like any other research job. Lots of paperwork. Reading. Data analysis. This is actually my first time out in the field.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? You look like you’d handle yourself fine out there. Fit, too. Maybe that’s why they sent you, eh?”
Lucas blinked. Wait—was she…? His ears burned.
“Uh—I guess so? I’d like to think it’s more for my brain than my biceps,” he muttered, awkwardly shoveling a bite of dessert into his mouth.
Blair smiled, resting back in her seat. “Maybe after your little night-time hunt, you could swing by my place? Could use some company.” Her voice dipped just slightly, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth as her eyes held his.
Lucas choked a little, swallowed too fast. “U-Uh—yeah. Maybe I could… I mean, I’d have to let the Sentinels know. In case they need to reach me.”
“Sounds like a plan, Luke.” She stood, tossing him a wink. “I’ve gotta head to work, but I’ll see you for dinner, yeah? I’m guessin’ you’re heading out after dark—since that’s when all the sightings happen.”
“Right. Tonight.” He nodded, dumb grin spreading across his face as he watched her leave.
Field work, he decided, might not be so bad after all.
____________________________________________________________________________
Colin’s youngest brother died that morning. Just minutes after he’d returned home with supplies, in fact. The boy’s frail body simply couldn’t withstand the rapid advance of the sickness. It gave up—quietly, almost peacefully, like a candle snuffed by wind.
There was no time to mourn.
Colin stood over the child’s bed in numb silence for only a moment before moving on. Shock and grief threatened to anchor him in place, but he couldn’t afford it. Not yet. Not while the rest of his family still clung to life.
He hauled buckets of cool water from the well, soaked cloths, pressed them to fevered foreheads. He flipped frantically through the family cookbook, searching for old tinctures and home remedies—anything to buy time. He ground herbs with shaking hands, whispered his mother’s instructions from memory, ignored the tremble in his voice.
Colin had never been a religious man.
But that day, he prayed—desperately, constantly, feverishly—as he moved from bed to bed, trying to hold back the tide with nothing but cloth, water, and will.
By afternoon, the rest of the children were gone.
The twins slipped away near noon, just minutes apart. His younger sister followed an hour later, her tiny hand going limp in his as her breathing stopped. Colin didn’t even cry. He just sat there, listening to the ragged breathing of his parents from the next room. They weren’t doing much better.
Around four, during a rare break in the fever’s grip, he risked stepping outside. He ran to the neighbor’s house, hoping—stupidly, desperately—that someone else might still be alive. Might have medicine. Might know something.
The front door hung slightly ajar.
The stench hit him before his hand even touched the handle—sour, heavy, unmistakable. The stench of death. It poured out from the darkness inside and wrapped around him like smoke.
Colin turned away and vomited in the grass, retching until his stomach emptied.
He didn’t go in.
Instead, he walked back to his family’s cottage—slowly, hollowly—back into the house that had become a tomb.
____________________________________________________________________________
Lucas spent the afternoon preparing for the mission, humming to himself as he opened his gear bag.
He laid out each component like he’d done it a hundred times before—camera body, telephoto lens, night filters, tripod, backup batteries. This equipment cost more than his grad school tuition, and now it was his responsibility. But he felt good. Capable. Ready.
This is what he was trained for. Right?
The rain had cleared earlier in the day, and local forecasts promised a dry stretch ahead. That was something, at least. According to the reports, if the Nuckelavee was going to show itself, it would be on a clear night like this.
By dusk, Lucas was dressed in muted browns and greens, his backpack loaded with everything he thought he might need—camera, bivouac, protein bars, water, and even a little notepad, just in case inspiration struck. He’d rehearsed his gear checklist three times. Everything was accounted for.
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He jogged across the narrow lane to Blair’s house. She answered the door almost immediately.
“Oh, Luke! Come in, come in. I made Cullen Skink tonight—figured you should try something local before you go monster hunting,” she said with a grin.
Lucas chuckled, a bit sheepish. “Monster hunting, huh? Sounds cooler when you say it like that.”
They sat at her kitchen table, warm light casting a cozy glow over the room. The fish stew was surprisingly good, and the conversation was even better—casual, unhurried, even a little flirtatious. Blair had an ease about her that Lucas envied.
Still, he couldn’t shake the flutter in his stomach. He chalked it up to first-time jitters. Everyone probably got them.
When dinner ended, Lucas thanked her—maybe a little too earnestly—and stepped out into the cool Scottish night, heart beating a little faster than before.
It was go time.
The Sentinels were already loading up their matte black Jeep. Lucas tossed his pack in the back and climbed in, keeping quiet as they drove the winding road out of Eoropaidh and toward the ridge overlooking Cóig Peighinnean. The village lights looked faint and distant, swallowed by the fog.
They parked near a gentle rise above a narrow creek. The water flowed slow but steady, cutting a shallow line through the earth.
“Freshwater. That’s the key,” one of the Sentinels had told him earlier. “The thing can’t cross it. That’s your safety line.”
Lucas nodded then—and again now, trying to reassure himself. The science didn’t back the folklore, but sometimes the stories knew things data didn’t.
He stepped out and shouldered his pack, following the others as they fanned out. Two guards stayed nearby, silent and professional. The others melted into the hills with practiced ease. Lucas set up his bivouac on a patch of dry ground and got to work.
He unfolded the tripod, double-checked the lens, and lined up his sightlines. The horizon was clear. The creek was to his left. The village lay beyond, dark and still.
His fingers trembled slightly as he adjusted the focus. Not from fear, exactly. Just… adrenaline. That’s normal. Expected. His first real field op, and he was handling it just fine.
Right?
He slipped into the bivouac and pulled the camera into position, peering through the lens toward the distant fields and fog.
All he had to do now was wait.
He felt ready. Or close enough, anyway.
____________________________________________________________________________
Colin stood at the edge of the mass grave, shovel still in hand, sweat and dirt clinging to his clothes like a second skin.
It had taken the better part of the afternoon, with the help of the few villagers still healthy enough to lift a spade. The rocky soil resisted them at every turn, but eventually they carved out a pit six feet deep, twenty feet wide—just enough.
He had dug extra space near the edge for his siblings. He wanted them to rest apart from the adults, if only in death. His father had passed shortly before they finished the digging. Another body wrapped in linen. Another weight lowered into the earth.
By now, nearly 90% of those infected were either dead or fading fast.
Colin couldn’t understand why. Why this town? Why now?
From the little he’d pieced together, it had started just after the autumn festival—a local celebration held every year without fail. The next morning, someone claimed to have seen a strange rider in the hills. A horseman. Dark. Wrong. People whispered the name like it could burn their tongues.
The Nuckelavee.
An ancient Scottish demon. A harbinger of plague and death. Superstition, Colin thought at first. Folklore. But as days passed, and more and more friends dropped into fevered delirium, he stopped laughing.
Then someone he trusted—his closest childhood friend—came to him, pale and shaking, swearing he'd seen it. Eyes like coals. Skin sloughing off in sheets. A creature that didn’t belong in this world.
Now Colin stood among the dead, one hand on the wooden cross he had carved for the children, the other clenched at his side. Only his mother was left.
He should have taken them all out of town the moment he saw the first sign. But it was too late for regrets now. All he could do was try to save the one person he had left.
There was a legend—old, desperate folklore—that the Nuckelavee’s sickness could be cleansed. If a victim was taken to a source of fresh water and bathed in it, the curse might be broken. Might.
Colin clung to that chance like a drowning man to driftwood.
There was a stream half a mile outside town, tucked beneath the steep rise of a grassy hill. If he could carry her there—if she could hold on just a little longer—maybe, just maybe, he could save her.
He gathered what little strength he had left. The car wouldn’t make it across the rough terrain, not with the heavy rains from earlier in the week. So he’d go on foot.
He soaked her with cool water, trying to ease her fever, but her lips barely parted. Most of what he gave her spilled down her chin. Her breathing was shallow. Rattling. She was burning up.
He tied her to his back, with the help of a friend. Her limbs were bound to his shoulders and waist with old cloths. She was far too light—a weightless ghost of the woman who raised him.
Others came to join him. They, too, had family left alive—barely—and no more patience for helpless waiting. Watching loved ones wither in shuttered cottages was no longer an option.
So, they set out just before midnight.
No fanfare. No guarantees. Only the sound of boots in wet grass and the low groans of the dying behind them. A small band of broken people walking into the dark, carrying what little hope they had left.
A journey of life or death.
____________________________________________________________________________
What was taking so long?
Lucas sat curled inside his bivouac, warm but restless. Boredom clung to him like a second skin. No sign of the skinless horseman. No signs of anything, really. At least if he were back with Blair, he could be having s—
A sudden, shrill neigh split the silence.
It wasn’t the cry of a horse. It was wrong—like metal screeching across bone. Ghostly, guttural, and cracked with pain. A scream dredged up from the belly of some ancient nightmare.
Lucas froze. A shudder traced his spine, and before he could help it, a thin stream of urine warmed his leg.
“Well... crap,” he whispered, heart hammering. It wasn’t meant to be funny, but the sound of his own voice, small and shaking, made the moment feel even worse. For a heartbeat, he forgot where he was; forgot why he was here.
Then instinct snapped back into place.
He scrambled for his camera, fingers clumsy and cold despite his gloves. He scanned the dark horizon. Off to the east—movement.
Something was there.
Fast. Too fast for anything natural. Lucas fumbled to adjust the zoom, breath catching in his throat.
____________________________________________________________________________
They heard it long before they ever saw it.
First came the neigh—low and guttural, like something dragged from a dying throat. It rippled across the hills, setting every hair on edge. Then came the hoofbeats: thunderous, relentless, drawing closer with every heartbeat.
Panic surged through the group like a wave.
They began to run.
The uneven ground was slick with mud, and the hills turned every step into a fight. Behind them, the thing was gaining. Fast.
Then… a scream. High and raw and full of terror.
Colin’s breath caught. A moment later came the wet thud of something heavy hitting the ground. The air filled with the thick, metallic stench of blood.
He didn’t look back. He couldn’t.
He ran, legs burning, heart thundering, lungs screaming for air. More screams tore through the darkness. More thuds. One after another.
The scent of blood choked him now; thick and coppery, clinging to the wind.
The others were behind him, or gone. He didn’t know. Couldn’t know.
All Colin could see was the hilltop ahead.
All he could hear: the hooves.
Pounding.
Relentless.
Closer.
____________________________________________________________________________
Lucas tracked the massacre through his camera, recording every second in crisp, unflinching 4K.
From seemingly nowhere, a group of villagers had come scrambling over the distant hills—desperate, ragged, and far too late. The Nuckelavee gave them no pause. No mercy.
It began at the rear, carving through the stragglers like a farmer reaping grain. Heads flew from shoulders with sickening ease, arcing through the air before thudding into the mud. The sick who stumbled alongside them were crushed beneath its hooves—limbs shattered, torsos flattened, bodies broken beyond recognition.
Lucas felt bile rise in his throat. Fifteen lives gone in under a minute. Gone in splashes of red and screams cut short.
But he didn’t look away.
From the corner of his eye, he caught a glint—one of the sniper scopes aimed and ready. The team was waiting for his signal. He was in charge.
And he said nothing.
Not enough data. Not close enough.
The footage wasn’t good enough yet.
The lives are worth it, he told himself, fingers clenched tight around the camera rig.
If it meant capturing the creature in detail.
If it meant understanding it.
If it meant answers.
He felt no fear. It wouldn’t cross the creek.
It couldn’t.
This was field research. And sacrifices were part of it.
Ahead, a trio of young men surged over the final hill, the only ones left standing. The Nuckelavee was nearly on them—muscles rippling beneath its skinless frame, black ichor steaming off blood-soaked bone.
And still, Lucas filmed.
____________________________________________________________________________
They had crossed the final hill. On either side of him, Colin’s childhood friends clutched their loved ones, sprinting for the creek in a frantic, stumbling charge. Behind them, the thunder of hooves and heavy, rasping breaths drew closer—closer than they could afford.
The Nuckelavee was upon them.
Callum went first. He was carrying his sister the same way Colin carried his mother—tied across his back like a lifeline. Colin caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye, then a sickening crack as the blade carved through both their necks in one clean, ruthless arc.
Blood sprayed across Colin’s face. He staggered, instinctively pitching forward—just as the blade hissed through the air above him, narrowly missing his skull. He felt the bite of wind, the warmth of blood not his own trickling down his neck.
To his left, Rory screamed—and then stopped. The demon trampled him mid-stride, its hooves pulverizing bone and flesh as though he were no more than a sack of wet rags. His fiancée's limp body was wrenched from his arms and cast aside like refuse.
Only then did Colin get a clear look at the nightmare chasing them.
It was skinless. Entirely, grotesquely skinless. Black ichor slicked its glistening musculature, steaming in the cool night air. Sickly yellow veins bulged across its exposed form, pulsing with dark, tar-like blood. Its face—if it could be called that—was stretched taut over raw sinew, featureless save for the single, fiery eye blazing in the center of its forehead.
That eye locked onto him.
It burned into Colin’s soul as he ran, legs pumping, lungs screaming. And then—his foot struck something solid. A rock? A root? He never saw.
He went sprawling, head over heels—straight into the creek.
Cold. Crisp. Icy. The water shocked him to his core.
And for the first time in what felt like hours, Colin could breathe.
____________________________________________________________________________
The kid made it to the creek. Good for him. Lucas signaled the snipers and shots rang out.
They weren’t meant to be lethal. The first round had been tranquilizers and limb shots that would hopefully cripple the beast.
An unholy scream ripped through the hills, causing Lucas to push his hands flat against his ears in an attempt to stop the sound. He watched through the camera lens as the thing collapsed near the water’s edge. It seemed to be subdued.
Lucas made another motion, and the Sentinels moved to secure the demon.
Lucas moved towards the boy and the bundle on his back.
____________________________________________________________________________
Colin was laughing. Hysterically. The kind of laughter that cracked under its own weight — half relief, half madness. He had made it. Against every impossible odd, he had made it.
With shaking hands, he fumbled for his pocketknife and cut the bindings that held his mother to his back. Her body slipped away from him, crumpling into the shallow stream like a discarded coat.
He turned to face her, breath fogging in the cold night air, a flicker of hope fluttering in his chest. Maybe it had worked. Maybe the water was enough.
But something was wrong.
The water around her head darkened, blooming outward in a slow, crimson halo.
His stomach turned cold. “Mum…?”
He moved to her side and gently rolled her over, heart thudding in his chest.
And then he saw.
The sword hadn’t missed. It had found its mark—just not in him. The back of her skull was gone, split wide open. He let her go, and she fell into place on her back. Her face, slack and still, stared up at nothing. She must have died instantly.
Colin knelt there, frozen. His knees soaked in the stream, his mind hollowing out. The cold crept up his legs, numbing him. The numbness inside was worse.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t scream. There wasn’t anything left in him to do either.
A presence approached—boots crunching over the rocks, water sloshing gently. A figure knelt beside him and placed a cautious hand on his shoulder.
“Hey… uh… sorry about—whoever that was. Are you okay?” the stranger asked, his accent American. Gentle, but unsure. Like someone who’d practiced the words in a mirror and hoped they sounded human enough.
Colin didn’t look up. “No.”
All around them, black-clad figures moved like shadows. Tactical gear. Rifles. Technology far beyond anything his village had ever seen. They worked with silent urgency, wrapping the Nuckelavee in a thick, shimmering shroud. It tightened unnaturally around the beast’s limp body, muffling its grotesque form before hoisting it into a steel container.
The village was gone. Everyone he’d ever loved—gone. And they were packing the horror responsible into a box, as if it were just a sample to file away.
“It won’t hurt anyone else,” the man murmured. “I’m sorry about your people. The ones who came over the hill with you—were they the only survivors?”
Colin gave a small, jerky nod. He couldn’t trust his voice.
Another voice spoke—this one calm, steady, and unmistakably in charge. A woman. Older than the man, maybe. Softer in tone, but colder in certainty.
“Come with us,” she said. “We can’t bring them back. But you can help make sure this never happens again.”
Colin blinked slowly. The stream bubbled on around him, as if nothing had happened. As if it hadn’t been painted in the blood of a mother he’d failed to save.
He held out a hand without looking. “Aye… just help me up.”
Two pairs of hands lifted him. The American man wrapped a blanket around his shoulders before jogging back up the hill. The woman stayed beside him, guiding him toward a waiting vehicle.
Behind them, the steel container was locked shut with a final hiss.
And just like that, it was over.
____________________________________________________________________________
Lucas tramped back up the hill, his gear clinking softly with each step. He packed it quickly, efficiently—just as he’d been trained. Less than a minute later, he was back at the jeep, meeting up with the lieutenant. He didn’t bother saying goodbye to the local kid.
Too much work. Helping people wasn’t his job. He had done what he came to do. Collected the data. Captured the footage. Confirmed the kill—or rather, the containment.
So why did he feel so… off?
The promotion was all but guaranteed. No one else in the organization had ever managed to record a Nuckelavee in action, let alone secure one. The creatures were rare. Unpredictable. And now they had one boxed up in steel and silver, thanks to him.
Still, something gnawed at his gut as they drove through the night. He stared out the window, but couldn’t stop hearing the screams. Couldn’t stop seeing the blood on the grass. The broken bodies.
The faces.
By the time he knocked on Blair’s door, the weight in his chest had dulled to a low ache. Her smile helped ease it. Her warmth, even more so. And by morning, when the light streamed in and her legs were tangled with his beneath the sheets, the memories had mostly slipped away.
They were leaving today.
He sat on the edge of the bed, tugging on his boots. Time to write up the final report. More than a few people would be hungry for details.
As he stepped onto the boat, duffel over his shoulder, he stared out at the cold grey sea. The wind tugged at his coat, and for just a moment, he wondered what the next field mission would hold.
Then he shrugged the thought away.
Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be his problem—not until he got the assignment.
____________________________________________________________________________
INTERNAL DOSSIER – INCIDENT REPORT
Classification: Alpha-Level Clearance Required
Date of Event: [Redacted]
Location: Cóig Peighinnean Region, Northern Scotland
Subject Class: Beta-Class Entity
Designation: Nuckelavee
Overview:
A Beta-Class Entity, designated Nuckelavee, was successfully captured in a joint operation involving embedded operatives and local assets. The event followed an outbreak of anomalous symptoms and mass fatalities within the remote Scottish village of Cóig Peighinnean, correlating with folklore surrounding a skinless, plague-bearing horseman. The capture marks the first successful containment of this type of entity.
Summary of Events:
Initial symptoms began within 24 hours of the village’s autumn festival. Villagers reported sightings of a figure resembling the folkloric Nuckelavee, followed by widespread illness and death. 90% of the afflicted perished within the first week.
Researcher 276 (Lucas) was deployed under the guise of a cultural documentarian to investigate potential anomalous activity. Field footage captured by Researcher 276 confirmed the entity’s presence and capabilities, including its aversion to fresh water and preference for plague zones. Notably, the entity was observed systematically pursuing and eliminating villagers attempting escape.
The final confrontation occurred at a freshwater creek below a large hill outside the village. Survivors attempted to carry afflicted family members to the water in a last-ditch effort to purge the sickness. The entity followed and engaged. Most did not survive the crossing.
The entity was neutralized using an experimental deployment shroud and was secured in a reinforced container for extraction.
Casualties:
- Civilian Fatalities: 38 confirmed
- Survivors: 3 local residents, including Colin [Last Name Redacted], who directly interacted with the entity and has since been recruited into the Organization as a local operative.
Notes:
This incident reinforces existing theories regarding Beta-Class entities manifesting in regions of high folkloric density and emotional trauma. The Nuckelavee’s observed behavior suggests partial sentience, territorial predation, and pathogen-enhancing abilities.
Researcher 276’s field work and real-time documentation were instrumental in the successful capture. Recommend commendation and continued deployment for future high-risk mythos manifestations.
Prepared by:
Operative Liandra M.
Department of Occult Biology & Acquisition
Internal Reference Code: 276-NVK-05