The D train was almost entirely empty at this time of night, most cars had about one or two other people on them, some had none. Sasha considered taking one of the empty cars and continuing to record, but decided that'd be better to do on their way back home. So when the train pulled in, they just took the car in front of them. There were two other people in it. One of them was sitting, leaning into the corner of the train car - asleep. The other was standing against the closed doors, face illuminated by their phone screen.
Sasha picked an interesting piece of trash on the floor and stared as it as the train slowly took off towards Manhattan, and their current hunt. Their lead was in Tribeca, one of their colleagues who was currently in college had heard from one of their friends about a rumor going around Stuy (Stuyvesant high school) that a number of people had had their stuff mysteriously stolen and thrown into the river. Of course, the student body had come to their own conclusions, that the nearby Rockefeller Park was cursed, because everyone who'd had their stuff stolen had been taking their lunches there.
Places being "Cursed" was a very popular accusation currently, but Sasha felt that it was the right thing to take these kids concerns seriously. Not just because there was a chance that they were right, also because they thought kids deserved to be taken seriously in general. The stops continued to pass by, and suddenly the train dived below ground as it passed Greenwood Heights cemetery, making an awful rattle as it descended into the tunnel. Sasha just stared at the empty bag of potato chips, thinking about what could possibly be the issue.
After a few more minutes of just spacing, they brought their hand to their face, rubbing at their upper lip with their thumb. They needed to come up with a plan that was better than just. "Walk around a park at night." Because stomping around a grassy field waiting for something to happen probably wasn't the best idea. Just as the train was pulling into the Atlantic Av station, they realized that their bet bet was probably just to make themself a target. If people who'd been eating in the park were getting attacked, then they'd grab some hot food from a bodega along the way.
This was only a start though, they thought, as they walked the underground passage between train lines. If it was everyone who ate in the park at all, then there'd be a lot more stories, so there must be another factor at play. What it was, they weren't sure, and the process of figuring it out could take anywhere from one rather long night to weeks of effort. They were hoping for the former, especially with their work schedule. Their knees popped noisily as they took a set of stairs. Their phone buzzed in their pocket. Of course, they could always pass the job off to one of their work buddies. New York City had eighteen Hunters that Sasha knew about (including themself). Only six of those eighteen had been working for more than two years, ten had been working more than a year, and two had started in the time since magic went public.
To make matters even more complicated—
A train rattled into the station, the doors to the 3 opened, and they stepped on, this one was empty.
—Sasha was third most experienced in their group, having been at this for a little under seven years now. Alex and her partner Rachel had been working together in Manhattan for about fifteen years. Sasha had met them four years ago now while on a hunt, and had joined up with them. Apparently, not too long before Sasha joined the NYC Monster Hunters Association the oldest member of the group had passed. Which left the Manhattan couple in charge of keeping things running.
To their credit, they were doing a good job of it at the time. The problem though, was that while there were a lot of people enthusiastic about being hunters, and even more now, few of them were able to stay in the line of work long term.
Rarely, tragically, sometimes people died. Those were the worst to Sasha. Sometimes, it just happened, a sharp reminder of the inherent danger in the profession. Worse though, were the people who died recklessly, lots of people came into the work because they cared a whole lot. Some of them burnt out and never came back, leaving the association even more disillusioned than when they entered. Some, like Sasha, wound up working long term. And some died, a sad mix of low self-preservation, high desire to do right, and a lack of understanding of what 'right' actually meant. Whether it was due to the job not living up to some ideal, the strain it put on the rest of their life, the monetary cost, or death. Most apprentices didn't make it past two years.
This was the reason that Sasha, Alex, and Rachel had agreed to start specifically trying to vet prospective hunters. Sasha hoped that it meant that their current candidates would make it longer, that they'd stop having to split five city boroughs between six people, that they could make things easier for their colleagues, and maybe the Kelter too.
Finally, the train pulled into the Chambers St station, Sasha stood, and shuffled out the train car. After a few stairways to streetlevel, they started west along Chambers street. The midnight air was cool this time of year, and the trees were starting to shed for the upcoming winter. Of course, not as cool as it used to be. They pulled the recorder from their pocket and started, once more, to speak.
"So. I'm about to go try and get the attention of an Entrope, this can be, depending on what I'm dealing with, an extremely dangerous thing to do. Or there could be no danger involved, it's sort of like sticking a fork into an electrical socket that might be on." Sasha exhaled sharply out of their nose. "But I wouldn't have made it seven years working if I just left my safety solely up to chance."
Even being as careful as they could, they'd gotten hurt rather badly before. "There's a number of factors that make me feel confident enough to do this. Assuming it's an Entrope. One, there haven't been any reported disappearances in the area lately. Two, there's no rumors of anyone, or any living thing, getting hurt. Three, with magic being widely known about now, cryptozoology is a booming field, and none of the blogs I follow have posted anything regarding this. And Four, the Entrope is acting territorial."
Sasha took a deep breath in, keeping this train of thought going was hard, it was much easier to just auotpilot, actually explaining the logic their head was working under was proving to be rather difficult. "There's a few ways it could be, if it's an Entrope. If an entrope isn't being territorial, then you're probably not aware of it. For the most part, Entropes don't antagonize other living things just because. If an Entrope is acting territorial, then it's probably doing all that it can to get rid of whatever is encroaching on its territory. For some entropes, this can mean injuring, or even killing, people who come too close, or violate some personal rule. However, if an Entrope is trying to protect its territory, and is doing so in a non harmful way, this means one of two things."
They paused the recording to step into a bodega, which was considerably warmer than the outside, and had the noise of a sizzling flattop coming from the back. One of the staff was sitting in a stool near the checkout desk, seemingly half asleep. They shuffled towards the back of the thin, but long store. Past shelves of flavored chips and cheese puffs, past cans of chili and plastic-packaged servings of ramen. Past a refrigerator with iced tea, beer, milk, and soda. To a glass deli-case full of meats and cheeses, a tall man with pale skin and earbuds dangling around his neck. He nodded at Sasha, the only acknowledgement they got. They nodded back, then shifted their eyes to the board with items and prices about his head.
"Yeah, uh..." They started, getting the man's attention.
"What's up?"
"Lemme get uh, mozzarella sticks, and some fries."
"Sticks and fries, you got it."
He turned around, and, wiping his brow with a cloth hanging from his belt, started working the fryer. First adding french fries, and then the breaded cheese sticks into the oil. Everything came out of its own large and half-transparent plastic bag. They watched the man work for a few moments, seeing him rock from foot to foot, nodding along to music that was playing from the earbuds hanging next to his ears, rather than in them. The corner store was lit white-yellow, linoleum floors with cutouts for the various shelves, edges uneven.
Sasha appraised the refrigerator, a five years out of date add for a pepsicola brand "crypto currency". Which, of course, wasn't actually a crypto currency at all and was just some promotional sale thing. The advertisement was uniquely weird in the way that only advertising campaigns from the short time period when crypto-currency became widely known, and before everyone had figured out what it was and what to think about it. They supposed that right now, a lot of people were going through something similar.
At least magic didn't seem to have a massive ecological impact. Or be driven by an endless pursuit of money. So, in some ways it was still very different.
After a few more moments of deliberation, Sasha yanked open the refrigerator and grabbed a can of Arizona lemonade-iced tea. Even with everything up in the air, there were some things they could count on. And this can of sugar and flavor being a dollar was one of them, they liked that, it felt comfortable, when nothing else did. They stepped back from the refrigerator, closed the door, and fiddled with the can in their hand.
They weren't opposed to change itself, but a lot of the ways things were changing was scary. For one thing, there were more Entropes than when they started hunting. And according to Rachel there were even fewer when they'd started twenty years ago, still living in New Jersey at the time. For another, the world was getting more and more hostile to people who wanted to exist in public. City parks were getting more and more aggressive hours and policing, outside the city, malls had been closing down (and banning teens) for almost a decade now. There wasn't anywhere for anyone to go.
That was what Sasha missed the most, going places, doing things, maybe that's part of why they started hunting in the first place.
And the empty malls and un-trafficked parks posed their own problem. Entropes preferred to initially roost in relatively secluded locations, places that didn't get much foot traffic, where they wouldn't be discovered by people. And so the shuttering of public spaces led to perfect nesting grounds for Entropes to settle in. This wouldn't really be a problem, if they didn't so violently attempt to defend and expand what they saw as their territory.
"'Ey boss, here you go."
Sasha looked up, and grabbed the plastic bag from the man behind the deli case.
"Thank you!" They said. "Have a good night."
"You too."
Sasha paid quietly, and got back onto the street.
Once they crossed the street, they started the recording again. "Where was I. Uh. Right, If an Entrope is protecting it's territory and not injuring people in doing so, that's either because it's unable to, or because it's holding back. I'm hoping it's the first one, handling Entropes before they get powerful enough to hurt people is good. There is the always the possibility of it being the second one, though. Which brings us to the most important skill that any monster hunter can have. Running away."
They climbed up the staircase to the foot bridge that ran over the west side highway, the bridge was lit brightly by white florescent, and Sasha paused a moment to watch the cars go by beneath them as they spoke into the recorder.
"I also should mention that Entropes do sometimes attack outside their territory and unprovoked, this is exceedingly rare, but it can happen and you should know that. All the more reason why knowing when you're in over your head is important. There's no shame in running from danger. Staying alive is always better than the alternative. Dying while fighting an Entrope doesn't make you a hero, it just makes you dead. I'm almost to the park now, so, we'll see how this goes." recorder off.
They got back on their way, crossing the remaining half of the bridge, and descending back to street level. As they walked past the yellow-bricked high school, they pulled their jacket tighter. They were close enough to the water now to have cold wind whipping off the river. Many of the trees had already lost their leaves, and the leaves that had yet to fall had turned a yellow-orange. Gusts of wind shook their branches, causing the leaves to flutter aggressively. Sasha took three sets of steps down, then turned right and walked until they were against a guard-rail that overlooked the Hudson, across from them was Pier 25, boats docked by the park and soccer field.
"Here we are..." a quiet mumble slipped their lips as they paced the corners, a couple of gulls were sleeping under one of the park benches. They picked a tree to sit under, stepped onto the grass, and retrieved the food they'd purchased earlier. A few mozzarella sticks later and a half can of tea later, yet nothing had happened.
They still had a thing of fries and six more sticks, so with the last sticks, they decided to experiment, and clicked the recorder back on. "Oh, another thing." They said between bites of food, as they paced up and down the park, slowly eating. "Sometimes monster hunting." Pause, chew, swallow. "Involves doing things that kinda make you look very silly." Pause, chew swallow. "Like me, slowly eating six mozzarella sticks." Again. "As I wander around a city park."
Each mozzarella stick was colder than the last, and by the time Sasha had swept the park the final two were almost entirely cold bread and solid cheese, much less pleasant than when they had started. They washed them down with the last of the tea, and returned to the tree they'd originally sat under. "So, my first guess was that it was locational, people eating in a specific spot in the park. Now, either that's wrong, or I didn't spend enough time with the food in the right spot. I'm going to discount the second possibility, since it's not viable for me to check right now. Maybe it's also time of day based. I can come back tomorrow and do it again."
Sasha paused, thinking about what they knew. "The rumor was, 'people who eat in the park mysteriously having their things thrown into the river', this means there must be some delay to it, or the entrope has some effect that is making it harder to perceive. Because if something was coming up to these people and taking their things out of their hands then the story would be different." They started working on their fries. "There's a lot of variables at play, and it's always hard to figure out exactly what's going on."
The Hunter sighed, and leaned back against the tree, unslung their shoulder bag and stared up at the cloudy sky. The mass of light from the city bouncing off of the cloud cover and leaving it uncomfortably bright for the time of day gleamed back at them. Well, even if tonight was going to be unproductive, they figured the snack they got would make up for it a bit. Then they could get home, sleep, and talk to the IRC in the morning. Hopefully someone would have a plan. They pulled their phone from their pocket and checked the time. 2AM, October 29th. Halloween was in two days, they wondered how the state of things was going to affect the holiday. All of the different candy makers and halloween advertisements hadn't so much as acknowledged the fact that witches were real now, but there must have been some number of kids asking their parents if they could dress up like kelter.
Sasha closed their eyes, they didn't want to think about it.
The fries were finished, and they were sitting under a tree staring off into space worrying about problems other than the one they'd came here to address, they didn't really feel all that good at this monster hunting thing. "Alright, I'm calling it here, I'll come back out tomorrow for more research." They grunted into the recorder, before switching it off. They gathered their trash, and then reached down to pick up their shoulder bag before heading home.
The bag was gone.
From over the railing, there was a distant splash of water.
-
A/N
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Second update! Also, some expectation setting about my update schedule.
I'm going to be following a biweekly update minimum (once every two weeks), with more frequent updates likely.
This means there won't be more than two weeks between the two most recent updates, but if I finish the next update sooner than two weeks, it will release sooner.
Thanks for reading 
-Flux
