[ WP ] A squad of soldier was sent to invade and capture a one-man country , they returned with everyone but mission was a failure , and they begin to speak of the horror they saw .

`` You do n't understand. You ca n't understand.'' the soldier's eyes were wild, and he began to cackle while trying to tear himself out of the restraints. He was quickly sedated as his struggles started dislocating his shoulders. A feral smile remained on his face even as he lost consciousness. 
 
 -- - 
 
 *Day 1: * 
 
 
 It was supposed to be another easy mission. Insert, grab, and get out. A thick jungle on island with just one resident, no houses, no technology... it seemed like such overkill to send in a squad of SEALs, armed to the teeth. The hallucinations started within hours, mild at first, just noises, shadows in the periphery of their vision, a feeling of being stalked. 
 
 Maybe those were n't hallucinations, they thought... until their stories did n't add up. One man could n't be in so many places at once. The stories became more outlandish in the second day. They set up mines, defenses, a rotating guard schedule. But the shadows started stretching. A man with a wolf's head, or maybe snakes as arms... noises that could n't be made by a human. 
 
 The natives of the mainland claimed a demon lived there. But it was just one man, not even a military one. There was talk about rituals involving the blood of the captured, of how he would tear out their souls and feast upon them under the light of the stars. The legend of Demon's Isle grew with each fishing boat or tourist that vanished when they neared it. Until one day, a Senator's daughter was one of those to never come back. 
 
 And now they were there. It was obviously hallucinations now. Was it the mold, whose stench pervaded everything? The thorns bristling from the underbrush? The thick sap of trees? The insects biting every inch of exposed skin? It did n't matter. The trees seemed to move, whispers in the wind just barely unintelligible, as if their meaning was hidden. 
 
 And then the first soldier disappeared. 
 
 -- - 
 *Day 2: * 
 
 When they woke up, another two of their group could not be found. They were fourteen at the start, and the two empty sleeping bags just lay there undisturbed as were their weapons. All they heard at night were the whispers, growing louder as time stretched on. It seemed almost like chanting in some ancient and long lost language. The sun could barely make it through the thick growth. 
 
 And the humidity was everywhere. They were sweating, saturated by the filth. It was n't a conscious decision by anyone to stop wearing the long sleeves of their uniforms... but the way their clothes clung to their bodies, making it feel as if they were caked in mud was too disconcerting. Three people had developed fevers. A sound of a branch snapping had everyone turning around towards it. 
 
 Someone fired. Then everyone did, manically seeking shadows with lead. The commander could only get them to stop after everyone emptied a magazine after magazine into the nothingness. They found a dead deer... and were now dangerously low on ammunition. All they had was what the three who were n't with them anymore left. 
 
 When the commander started distributing what was left, they found one more of their number was gone. The whispers went silent, as did the woods. One soldier was mumbling about the demon. Everyone was uncomfortable, but no one silenced him, or stopped him from scratching at his arms until he started bleeding. 
 
 -- - 
 *Day 3: * 
 
 By morning, they were only six left. Everyone had a fever, two were so delirious that they could n't stand. One soldier had taken a knife and drove it through the palm of his hand, all the way through... but at least he could join two more to continue their systematic search. It would only be one more day until they would cover everything there. 
 
 The whispers returned with a vengeance. A litany of unintelligible consonants and vowels, rising in volume. No one knew if anyone else was hearing the same thing. They all understood that whatever grasp they had on what people consider normal thought was slipping. Yet still, their training kicked in. 
 
 That's when they started feeling like they were being prodded. One of the soldiers started repeating `` oh god, I'm next'' over and over. His pupils were dilated, and his sweat stunk of rotting trees... more so than his two comrades. 
 
 By the fifth hour, all three were twitching nervously. The pervading feeling of being hunted was overwhelming everything. Only their training kept them moving in formation. They spent as much time looking at each other as they did outwards. Was it one of them that had been doing this? 
 
 They returned to the camp to find it completely abandoned. No signs of struggle, nothing taken, not a footprint on the ground, no mine triggered. 
 
 -- - 
 *Day 4: * 
 
 The commander woke up alone, a lone beam of sun that made it through the trees hitting his face. There was only one last route to complete the search of the island. Whatever had been doing this had to be there. 
 
 He walked slowly, moving in the shadows, always with his back covered by a tree, his rifle aimed at where he was looking. That was when he saw it. The cave. Whispers came out of it, and as he closed in, he could not fathom their meaning. Inside was dark, so he turned on his flashlight and stepped in. He fell to the ground as something hit the back of his head... and then everything went black. 
 
... when he woke, he was bound to the wall in a circular room. Everyone was there, a prisoner just as he was. A young woman and a man in his forties entered, both nude, with some sort of scribbling, perhaps writing in some ancient language, all over their skins. It was red, and as his eyes regained focus, he saw the cuts made on all the soldiers. The young woman took a knife and started carving on his chest. The pain did n't focus him, but rather made him feel more detached with each slice. 
 
 The two started dancing around the fire in center of the room, chanting in rising, visceral tones. That's when he saw it. A white smoke started exuding from the cuts in him and his fellows. It surrounded the two, as they became more animalistic, starting to grab, scratch and attack each other as the smoke started surrounding them like an armor. They started fucking, violently, as the smoke began to pull out of him tearing apart his reason. 
 
 The woman was laughing, the man growling. The smoke around them gave them wolf's heads, sprouting snakes from their back... one of which slithered towards him, and suddenly bite his head. 
 
 He woke up on a helicopter, not able to talk, not able to move. He heard someone talking about high doses of hallucinogens, unknown substances, delirium. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw them. Ripping away at one another, becoming one, a monster ripping away his soul. That was what the smoke had been. It had to have been. 
 
 The demons ate his soul and let him back into the world. He started laughing. He shook from the force of it, the cuts on his body opening. He laughed as the blood poured out, and he did n't know if it was loss of blood, exhaustion, or whatever the medic injected that knocked him out. 
 
 -- - 
 *Aftermath: * 
 
 `` All of them are like this sir. Whatever those substances did to them, I think it's permanent.'' The doctor said, when they were looking down at the restrained soldier. 
 
 The general looked grim. The senator's daughter had not been found, and the incoherent accounts of her made no sense. It could n't have been her, he knew her since she was twelve. Their information had to be wrong. She was somewhere else. 
 
 *Demons* he thought to himself, and scoffed. *Just some poisonous plants*. He walked away, readying a report in his head, recommending they look elsewhere.
