[ WP ] Magic is viewed as a curse . It 's unpredictable , hard to control , and dangerous . Those few who find a way to wield it risk losing themselves in the process .

Weirdly, I wrote this story about a year and a half ago and forgot about it until I saw this WP. It took me a while to find where I'd saved it and edit it a little. Parts 2 and 3 in the comments. 
 
 `` No! Please!'' The once human held pleading hands out towards us, it's features perfectly mimicking desperation, fear, the barest hint of hope. 
 
 It did n't matter. It never did. The desperation, the fear? That was valid. The hope was pointless. 
 
 I watched as Sergeant Fowle, the man who had welcomed me to the team that could have been months but was probably years before, back when it all started, stalked forwards, his expression grim as he slung his rifle and drew the knife that was always used for this job. That nine inches of ancient, scratched steel, stained with more blood than I care to imagine, was worth more than all of us: training, experience, immortal soul, whatever else you placed value on that makes up a human being, combined. 
 
 `` I can expl - `` 
 
 It was quick. It always was, at least now. It took us longer when we first started. 
 
 I tried to work up a feeling of sympathy as the light faded from its eyes with the not-really-real-life and definitely-real-infection, the blood that leaked out turning the forest floor to a muddy puddle beneath the corpse that had stopped being a person several months ago. Maybe I've been doing this job too long and it's warped me, or maybe I was broken before it even started, but the only thing I feel is tired. It's been a long hunt. 
 
 The whole thing started when I was seven. Someone once told me it was a science experiment gone wrong, an attempt to reach the next stage of evolution that backfired. Someone else said it was nature fighting back against the swarm of humanity, a desperate attempt to stop us destroying the world we call home. All I know is it cost us pretty much everything that defined society as we knew it. 
 
 The first instances were dismissed as terror attacks or natural disasters. There would be an explosion or a flood, perhaps an earthquake... whatever. It always ended up the same: corpses where there had once been a sister or brother, a friend, parent, vague acquaintance. Child. That was the worst. Those damn black body bags. A kick in the gut that just got worse as they got smaller. 
 
 I ca n't remember who, but someone once said that there is no greater agony than a parent who has outlived their child. I always agreed in an abstract kind of way, offering sympathy but not really comprehending the pain. Right up until my daughter died. 
 
 A broken childhood, three war zones and a marriage that I thought was perfect up until I walked in on my wife with another man - I figured I'm a pretty tough guy, familiar with pain and ready to bounce back from pretty much anything. Trying to weep the life back into my little girl though... that was a curse I would n't wish on anyone. 
 
 Where was I? 
 
 Oh yeah. The attacks. Turns out it was n't terrorists, or the asymmetric threat we were trained to look for in the shape of suicide bombers or whatever other fad was going to tear the life from us this week. 
 
 Some people tried to argue it was a talent, magic or some shit like that. Other people said it was a disease that warped the way they thought and interacted with the world around them. I just saw another way for people to kill each other, pretty much the same way they have been since we first crawled out of that god-forsaken swamp and learned to smash rocks together to make fire or sharpen a stick that would better poke holes in whoever was disagreeing with us this week. Whatever it was, it spread fast, the isolated events becoming less isolated, until there was n't anyone who did n't know someone who had been killed or hurt in an attack or seen one themselves. 
 
 Katie died in my arms. She dragged her mum towards me across the zebra crossing, the arsehole I had walked in on Beth with replaced with some new guy who I also did n't like but seemed to treat my little girl ok, so I tolerated him. I had n't even noticed the cops trying to contain some guy who had been infected behind me - it was still early on enough that I dismissed it as a shoplifter being caught or something else that was n't worth my attention. 
 
 Turns out the infection had hit this guy and he was screaming that he was still human, needed treatment. I think the cops might even had agreed with him at this point if he had n't been such a dick about the whole thing, but he was, so they tried to cuff him. 
 
 First I knew about it, the patrol car was skidding sideways across the street - side swiped my charmer of an ex and her next mistake. Could n't have happened to a nicer girl. Like I said, I'm kinda neutral about her new fella, but he died before I got a chance to really know him. Maybe he did n't deserve it. Regardless, I was distracted by the fact that my little girl had been clipped too. The force span her into the window of the shop next to me so hard it broke the glass. 
 
 Most of that day is still pretty blurry to me but it's the little things that stick with you. The green sticker on Katie's dress that happily pronounced she had been to the dentists that morning and encouraged her friends to get their teeth checked too. The earrings that her mum had gotten her that I had argued against and Katie had been so proud of I had struggled to get angry over them when she showed me. Still struggle to remember what her voice sounded like on any other day though. 
 
 Six years old and speaking at sixteen months and still the only thing I can hear her saying is `` It hurts daddy, what's happened?'' 
 
 Those cold, lifeless eyes stare back at me every time I shut my own. 
 
 I found the guy responsible about an unknown amount of time later. Unsurprisingly he got away from the cops, but killing them and nearly two dozen civilians tends to draw the bad kind of attention and I suppose it was inevitable that people in my trade would end up drafted in to deal with situations like this. 
 
 I've been rambling, not making sense. Guess I should introduce myself. Simon Carwell. Ex-soldier, ex-husband, ex-father, hunter. Whatever you call these things, whatever you think of them, just know that whatever they are, they do n't deserve your pity. They are n't even human anymore. That was the first lesson that Sergeant Tom Fowle taught me - might even be true. Certainly makes the job easier, even if it fucks me over now. 
 
 After Katie, I was recruited direct from my unit. Some suit showed up, explained what was going on - talked about people with some supernatural ability that also drove them nuts, told me how they were recruiting a response force. Of course I jumped at the chance. Guess they knew I'd do that. Then again, who would n't? Give a soldier a chance to strike against the bastards who killed his family? Where do I sign? 
 
 They were damn near impossible to kill though, at least after the first few. Bullets worked to begin with, but then one of the damn things worked out how to stop them and passed the secret on before we could take it out. Do n't get me wrong, a supersonic slug will still slow them down, knock'em on their ass, as the Yanks are wont to say, but it does n't kill them. Some sort of force field shit that stops it penetrating the skin. That's why the knife is so important: it beats the shield and cuts skin too, makes them bleed like the rest of us.
