A group of people in American revolutionary war military uniforms were standing around a war table arguing, one of the men, relatively low in rank, was shouting at a general. “You can't really expect me to fight and march alongside a platoon of savages, do you, General?”

  The general pinched the bridge of his nose. “Those savages damn near whipped out an entire platoon of men with nothing but sharp sticks with rocks tied to them and wooden bows despite us having a clear technological advantage. Clearly they know something we don't. Besides, the loyalists know all the same military strategies we do, and we are outnumbered. If we want an independent United States, we are going to have to do things that are unconventional and unexpected. I don't care if you don't like it, you'll follow orders and do what it takes to win. That is unless you want this choke hold parliament has over the colonies to get worse.”

  The man grumbled. “Fine, as you order General Washington.” The man salutes. “But I want it on record that I object to this on a personal level.” Washington nodded. “Consider it noted, now take your men and move out leftenant Hawkes.” The Hawks does an about face and gathers his men.

  “Alright men, I've received orders directly from General Washington himself and we'll be training alongside and even deploying alongside a platoon of American Indians of a local tribe. General Washington is hoping to catch the loyalists off guard by using tactics they aren't familiar with.” Several of his men groan. “Yeah stow it, orders are orders.”

  The group spent the next several months training in the ways of the local tribe, and when the time came they finally deployed. In just moments an entire platoon had been whipped out, not only without casualty but the enemy barely caught on to the fact anyone was even there. Hawkes whisked as he looked at all the bodies they had stashed in the brush. “By the Lord, this almost seems unfair.” Hawkes then freezes when he hears a branch snap.

  A second snap happened followed by one of his men being grabbed from behind by a pale clawed hand and pulled into the brush. Shots are fired but the creature gets away coming back for a second attack grabbing a second, then later a third person. When it comes in for a fourth attack it dimed for the native war chief. This time Hawkes moves quickly, stabbing it with his bayonet and pinning it into the dirt. Writhing under his gun was a pale gray skinned humanoid with clawed hands and a decented belly wearing no clothes and looking more beast than man. “Jesus Christ!” He exclaimed before the war chief tossed a knife into its skull causing it to stop moving.

  “What in God's name is that thing?!” Hawkes pointed at the creature.” A word was uttered in native followed by a translation. “The unnatural hunger, devourer of men.” One of the soldiers sketches the monster and the platoon returns to base to report to Washington.

  Washington looked at the drawing, eyebrow raised. “Craine, have you seen anything like this in your occult books?” He handed the paper to a tall and slender man in glasses. He looked at it. “In folklore around Europe. In Greece it's called a Vrykolaka, in another region it's called a Ghoul. Twisted by a cannibalistic hunger into an inhuman shape.” Hawkes nods. “That's what the tribesman said, but they had a different name for it.”

  Washington rubbed his face in exasperation. “Monsters are real… Here we are about to form a new nation and I learn monsters are real. How do we protect our people from these sorts of threats? Knowledge of monsters would cause a panic so it might be best to keep them in the dark. Hawkes, I want you and what's left of your joined platoons to form a special unit, one that'll be built to protect against the unseen. And you'll take Craine as logistical support.”

  Craine fixes his glasses. “I remember hearing rumors of a sect of special combat exorcists with the church called the Black Scripture that was said to fight monsters.” Washington nodded. “Then well for a secret military group for just that as well, Well call it Black Flag. God's speed Leftenint Hawkes.” With money last salute Eathan Hawkes went to firm the Black Flag Military group.

  So even when America was formally formed and Washington voted the first president of the new nation Eathan Hawkes and his black Flag group tracked down and hunted monsters whatever they found them. Eathan eventually settled down with a female warrior of the native group and had a son, that son was then raised to be the next leader of Black Flag.

  It was the dawn of the industrial revolution and the world was changing quickly around young Franklin, with the implementation of electricity into the life of the Everyman. Taught and inspired by what seemed to be a world of infinite tomorrows. He didn't just want to live in this brave new furniture, he wanted to carve his name into the history of this electrical renaissance. He worked hard, studied among the best, and tinkered at home whenever he had the chance. Franklin wasn't satisfied with simply working for the rising star that was Thomas Edison.

  After lots of study and testing with electricity and magnets he noticed a few strange reactions. Times when the traditional math didn't add up. After years of testing, writing, and playing around a now more mature Franklin could only think of one solution. There was a second place that us humans couldn't see that some of this lost energy was going to. He decided to show his work to his contemporaries, his fellow scientists in the field.

  He frantically pointed at the white board and excitedly exclaimed. “And thus I've come to the conclusion that there must be another world, one that mirrors ours, right on top of it but just out of reach. That some of the strange energy losses and gains are the result of that energy slipping through some sort of veil and into this unseen other-earth.” The other men in the room sat in silence before an older gentleman, Thomas Edison, stood up. “I took time off my busy schedule for this?” He gestured at the board. “The inane ramblings of someone who can't even do basic arithmetic right? That equation is nonsensical.”

  Another gentleman, Nikola Tesla, poked his head from his own work and looked at the equation, tilting his head back and forth. “I don't know Edison, there's an order to all that chaos. Besides, how else would one explain the loss of energy? It has to go somewhere. There has to be some variable at play otherwise the amount of loss would be consistent. Though this is a more… unconventional solution. There's a wavelength of visual light, so invisible and intangible things right under our nose isn't impossible. Just… highly unlikely. Finkton, when was the last time you had a good night's rest?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Franklin fixed his wild hair a few times. “I don't know Tesla, when was the last time you had a good night's rest?” Tesla shrugged. “Valid.” Because returning to the paper he was drawing on. “You've got a hypothesis, now find a way to test it.” Edison started to leave the room. “I think you're wasting your time and money, Finkton, but it's yours to waste.” He then exits the room. Tesla then gets up. “I've got things to test and build, just don't go killing yourself chasing a dream, yeah?” He then stumbled out of the room.

  Franklin began to pull at his hair. “They… they practically laughed at me… I'll show them, I'll prove them all wrong. Not only am I going to prove other-earth is real, I'm going to be the first human to go there.” Franklin Finkton then began working on building his contraption, using a bunch of ideas that to others wouldn't have made any sense. He grabbed himself a large vintage mirror and hooked it up to various devices. The mirror would be bombarded with light, sound, and electrical currents or pulses trying to find the right frequency.

  Day and night Franklin worked tirelessly, keeping notes at slowly slipping into further and further desperation. His hair got wilder and gray as others told him to simply give it up but he couldn't let go of his obsession. Even as Tesla and Edison moved on, as Edison built a legacy and an empire and Tesla went bankrupt chasing his own obsession Franklin couldn't let it go. Ranting and having to himself as he tried different combinations of sound, light, and electrical frequency.

  Eventually while tweaking the various jobs on his device he started to hear a hum from the mirror that was different then normal, focusing on eventually the mirror began to glow with an intense light as a high pitch sound hurt Franklin’s ears. The light moved to just the edge and he could no longer see his own reflection. He could see the reflection of the room in a dilapidated state but he wasn't in the reflection anymore. He walked up to the mirror slowly and slowly reached his hand out to it. When his hand passed through what should have been a solid object it started shaking.

  “It works… It finally works! Take that Edison! Haha!” He pulled out his hand and bobbed his head back and forth trying to see something, anything else that looked out of place. “I suppose a quick exploration won't hurt.” Slowly, body shaking, he walked inside. He looked around the room, filled with all the same exact objects the one he left were. Boxes, scraps, even copies of the notes he'd made. This other-earth was a straight up reflection of the normal one without any people in it.

  “So if there are no people, who put up the buildings? Does this world simply construct itself to always reflect ours? Maybe I should look outside and see what's beyond this building.” Franklin then noticed the small clock on his desk and checked his wrist watch. “That clock, it works fine on my side but here it's broken.” Franklin watched for several seconds as the clock with both hands pointing straight up would count for a few seconds before jumping back again.

  “Or maybe it's not broken…” He went over to inspect the clock checking the gate to make sure it was still open. He picked up the clock and started opening it up. Everything was in order and it should have been working fine. Franklin scratched his head as he healed a gear from the clock when he heard a strange noise from the gate and quickly rushed through before the thing blew a fuse and shut off.

  As soon as Finkton cleaned up the mess and fixed the fuse he ran to tell everyone, anyone, but no one was answering his calls and the few that did hung up shortly after he started ranting. Eventually he tracked down Tesla who was simply letting himself rot away in a home. “Nickoli, I did it, I finally did it. Take a look at this.” Tesla slowly looked up at the gear. “That's the gear from an alarm clock, old friend.”

  Franklin got excited. “Yes, an alarm clock on other-earth. It was a reflection of our world. I mean a few things were in slightly different places then I had them but the clock that was in perfect working order was set to the wrong time being stuck at noon or midnight and only counted a few seconds before jumping back.” Tesla perked up a bit. “How many seconds?” Franklin knitted his eyebrows. “Why does that matter?” Tesla did a hand wave. “Humor me.” Franklin thought for a moment. “Thirty seconds. I must have been in there for three full minutes.”

  Tesla sat back down and slumped in his chair again. “How much do you want to bet, if you go back tomorrow the clock will be intact?” Franklin tilted his head. “I didn't see why it would. I mean…” Then he realized that the clock should not have been there to begin with unless other-earth was regularly updating its reflection of our world. He gave Tesla a nod. “I need to see what is beyond my office in the other-earth, if I'm not back in two weeks make sure my things are destroyed.” Tesla nods. “Good luck Franklin.”

  Franklin left Tesla to his sulking and ran back into his work trying to get the gate running again. After a few tries the gate hummed to life and Franklin looked into the room. He could see the clock sitting at his desk on the other desk end, intact. He pulled the gear out of his pocket and smiled, but then the gear in his hand suddenly turned to dust. “Eh? I suppose that makes about as much sense as anything else.” With a shrug the agged Franklin entered the gate once more.

  Once on the other side Franklin worked his way to the door, unable to really see anything out the windows. Franklin opened the door and went outside to see what looked like night time despite it being day on his side. The sky looked overcast and not a single star or living thing was in sight. Buildings and cars sat abandoned in a state of decay as if they had been sitting in the same spot unattended for decades as roots and vines broke out of an unkempt road.

  Franklin kept taking notes and drawing in his notebook as he looked around. He looked at the cloudy sky and saw there was a slight glow to the clouds that swirled in a way that felt unnatural. The air here felt heavier than on his side and he suddenly got the feeling he was being watched as he looked at the sky. Then the clouds parted in a small circle, like an eye opening from having been closed. Literally as an eye with a yellow iris sat in the spot where the sun should have been and stared right at him.

  Every fiber of Franklin told him to run but his body was frozen in a mix of shock and fear. Then the clouds under the eye shifted to form what looked like a smile and thunder rolled in the clouds creating a sound not unlike laughter. Not playful laughter but mischievous, maniacal laughter of something demonic. Whatever had frozen Franklin in place suddenly wore off when his wrist watch went off. Franklin took to a sprint back to his office and the gate in order to get back through but saw the instability and knew he would not make it in time. Desperate to let someone know what he saw and see his notes kicked in and he suddenly tossed a notebook with all his might through the gate just before it closed, clipping the corner off of it.

  Two weeks later the police are looking through his belongings with an aged Tesla watching over them. “I told you what happened, officer, he kept notes and everything.” He slapped the notebook. The cop scratched his head. “This is all way above my pay grade sir, if this were a normal disappearance I'd do my best but… honestly I feel like we need a new government agency just for whackadoo stuff like this.” Then some men in suits walked in, led by a native American looking man. “That's exactly what the government has already done my boy, Name’s Elliot Hawks, I'm with a government group called Black Flag and we'll be taking over this investigation. Everyone except the scientist, clear out now.”

  All it took was the flash of an i.d and that room was already cleared. Elliot walked over to Tesla and put out his hand. “You'll hand over that journal and speak of this to no one, is that clear Mr Tesla?” Tesla crossed his arms. “I'm not going anywhere until Franklin is found. Whatever you're into, I want in. I'll give you what little life this old body has until I croak if that's what it takes.” Elliot rubbed his well kept beard. “You wouldn't be the first researcher to work with us. Yeah, I think we just might be able to build a safer future together Mr Tesla. Consider yourself onboard.” He then shook the old man's hand. Tesla would eventually give in to health complications a year later, and Franklin Finkton was never found.

  Black Flag continued to protect American citizens from the shadows as the ages moved on, with a division in every state protecting the nation Director Elliot Hawkes’s family line continued to protect and serve without anyone ever knowing. Another major incident would not occur until the height of the second world war.