From: Researcher 106 | Sentinel 7
To: Researcher 276
Attachment: Wendigo.MP4
Afternoon [Redacted],
Mind giving this interview a look when you get a chance? The footage features Sentinel [Redacted] Brown — she goes by Ms. Brown during the recording. She shares some compelling insight into what might be a regional evolution of the American Wendigo strain.
Would appreciate your thoughts, especially on the behavioral markers she mentions around the 14-minute mark.
Thanks,
[Redacted]
Beta Research Agent
A.P.C. – Knowledge is the first line of defense.
____________________________________________________________________________
I clicked on the attachment. The default video player on my work laptop launched automatically, the screen cutting to black before the image stabilized.
There sat Ms. Brown, the subject of today’s research review.
She looked composed—cool, calm, and collected. It was clear from the moment the video began that she was trained military. Our Sentinel teams came from varied backgrounds, but it was generally understood that the A.P.C. recruited the best of the best from global special forces and black-ops units. Ms. Brown fit that mold without question.
Her voice held no detectable accent—neutral, precise. Likely American, probably Mid-Atlantic.
“I’m prepared to give my report.”
Short. Succinct. Professional. She’d clearly done this before.
An off-camera male voice responded—likely the interviewing agent.
“Ms. Brown, please state your full name, rank, and role for the record.”
“[Redacted] Brown, Beta Sentinel, Scout. I’m the one they send in to scope out Anomalous entities and determine whether the A.P.C. needs to intervene—or if it can be handed off to a lesser agency.”
There was no arrogance in her tone. Just fact.
“Duly noted. Please state the objective of your most recent mission.”
“I was assigned to survey a large state forest in western New York, near [Redacted]. Reports came in of a possible Wendigo sighting—not the traditional Algonquian folklore version, but the mutated Americanized type. The one popularized by horror media.”
She paused briefly to clear her throat, reaching with deliberate care for a glass of water set on the table in front of her. One measured sip. Then she continued.
____________________________________________________________________________
“Shit. This isn’t good.”
Ms. Brown stood amid the scattered remains of a campsite—shredded tent fabric fluttering in the breeze, blood soaking into the forest floor beside what looked like a demolished torso.
The trees bore fresh marks—deep gouges, likely antlers—no more than a day old. Just beyond them, footprints trailed off into the woods, followed by a long drag mark. No way the victim was still alive.
Still, there were tracks. That was more than she’d had on other ops.
She rose to her feet and flipped open her GPS unit, marking the coordinates before switching it to tracking mode.
“So, by the time you arrived, there were already multiple casualties?”
The interviewer’s voice cut in—calm, clinical.
“That’s right,” Ms. Brown replied. “We’d received a call from the local park service. A group of campers had gone missing—out-of-state kids, none of them over twenty-five. Their families got worried, contacted the rangers, and the rangers escalated it to us.
“I could tell immediately it wasn’t folklore. This was one of the new strains.”
“Please continue.”
Ms. Brown had followed the trail for about six miles before it veered sharply into a dense copse of pine. She grimaced. Pine meant narrow visibility, uneven footing, poor lines of retreat. It was a kill zone.
The trail told a clear story: whatever had taken the campers hadn’t moved with caution. It had barreled through the trees, dragging bodies behind it like luggage. These things were fast. And based on the mess back at the camp, it had already fed—or worse, shared the kill.
She needed to find the nesting grounds.
Before deployment, she’d done her homework. The mutated strains of Wendigo were evolving—visibly and behaviorally. Their faces now resembled deer or elk, complete with antlers, giving them a grotesque natural camouflage that lured in curious hikers.
More disturbing than their appearance, though, was their new behavior: herding.
The American Wendigo wasn’t a solitary predator anymore. It hunted in coordinated packs, corralling prey like wolves before striking. Smarter. Faster. Still strong enough to rip her in half, but less durable than the traditional kind.
They were taller too. And the antlers weren’t just for show. More than a few Sentinels had been gored by underestimating them. She wasn't about to make the same mistake.
The pine grove made sense—secluded, quiet, remote. The kind of place where the lost would stay lost. A perfect nest.
She only hoped the creatures hadn’t picked up her scent yet. If they had, she’d be fighting her way through a full pack just to get out.
As a scout, she traveled light: GPS, map, field rations, water, and a suppressed rifle with two spare mags. Enough to document. Not enough to win a fight.
She stopped and crouched low, letting her breathing slow. Eyes closed, she tuned into the forest—letting the silence speak.
A twig snapped—sixty meters to her right. Then came the unmistakable crunch of bone.
Feeding. She was close.
If she could get up a tree, maybe she could get something on the camera—footage clean enough to help the researchers back at HQ update their dossiers.
She moved carefully, silently, toward what field operatives grimly called the “kill zone.” Her gear rendered her nearly invisible to both humans and most fauna. Scent-blocking spray helped mask her presence, but Wendigos weren’t “most fauna.”
Still, with enough gore in the air, she might blend in.
She’d just reached the base of a climbable tree when a sound stopped her cold.
A moan. Low. Guttural.
Human.
Someone was still alive.
Shitfuckshitfuckshit.
Her heart pounded. Everything changed.
____________________________________________________________________________
“There was someone still alive?” The interviewer sounded incredulous.
“That’s what I thought.” Ms. Brown’s voice was steady, but darker now. “Normally, Wendigos kill whatever they catch and feed right then and there. They're not known for leaving anything breathing. But I figured out real quick what they were doing with her.”
The timestamp hit 14:00. I leaned in toward the screen.
“They were using her… as bait.”
It was the first real crack in Ms. Brown’s armor. Her face paled. A slight green tinge crept up her throat like bile.
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“Good God…” the interviewer muttered.
“Good God…” Ms. Brown echoed under her breath.
The scene before her was grotesque.
Limbs were scattered across the forest floor like discarded toys. Blood soaked the soil, black in the moonlight. Six of the beasts huddled in a grotesque circle, ripping and shredding through the remains of the campers like wolves at a feast.
One gnawed methodically on a severed leg. Another buried its snout in a hollowed abdomen. A third was peeling skin from a head with surgical precision, chewing flesh from bone in wet, slurping motions.
Brown clenched her jaw, struggling to suppress the rising bile in her throat. She’d seen bad before. This was worse.
From her perch—twenty feet up a pine—she turned on her body cam, frozen for a moment as the lens captured the scene in chilling clarity. At this height, her scent might stay above the feeding frenzy.
But then she saw her.
The only survivor.
A girl—young, maybe nineteen—her blonde hair matted with blood, her eyes wild with terror. Her legs were gone. Amputated clean at the thigh. Cauterized. Cauterized. How the hell had she not bled out?
The girl wept, low and pitiful, while her friends were torn apart around her.
Ms. Brown’s mind raced. She couldn’t engage—not alone. It was suicide. But she couldn’t just leave her, either.
With trembling fingers, she pulled out her GPS. She made sure the volume was off before tapping the SOS beacon, sending a silent distress signal to her team at the ranger station. Ten minutes, maybe less. That was the window.
Ten minutes in hell.
She slipped the device back into her vest. Time to go. She didn’t dare wait.
Quietly, she climbed down the pine, inch by inch, boots brushing bark, breath tight in her lungs. Her boots hit the ground soft as a whisper.
The feeding hadn’t stopped. Good.
She turned, moving carefully between the trees, her gear camouflaged, her scent masked by blood and forest rot. Still, every step was a gamble.
Then—crack.
Her foot came down on a brittle branch.
The sound echoed through the woods like a gunshot.
The forest went silent.
Too silent.
Like the trees were holding their breath. Like the world itself was listening.
And then she heard it—low, rumbling… wet. A chuff of breath from something with teeth. Something that knew she didn’t belong.
____________________________________________________________________________
“I thought I was dead. I won’t lie to you.” Ms. Brown’s voice came low and steady, but the fatigue in her eyes was visible. “I looked back, and one of those... things was barreling toward me. I didn’t even have time to raise my rifle. Just barely managed to dive behind a tree to my left.”
“What happened next?” The interviewer again. Detached. Curious. Like he was logging data points, not discussing a near-death experience.
“I ran like a bat out of hell, sir.”
All she could hear was her own breathing—sharp, ragged—and the heavy, thunderous footfalls of something massive tearing through the woods behind her.
Her mind was blank. There were no tactics. No planning. Just pure survival instinct.
The only thing keeping her alive was the Wendigo’s temporary sluggishness. It had just fed. That slowed it down—a little.
But it was still faster than any human.
Luckily, she wasn’t just any human.
Olympic sprinter. One of the best. Handpicked by the A.P.C. for a reason.
She tore through the underbrush, lungs burning, vision tunneling. Minutes passed like years. She didn’t look back. She didn’t dare.
And then—salvation. She broke through the treeline and saw them.
Figures in black, weapons raised. She hadn’t even realized her comms had reconnected.
“Duck!”
She didn’t hesitate.
She hit the dirt just as the world exploded behind her—an eruption of gunfire tearing through the trees.
When she dared to look back, her ears ringing with static and adrenaline, the Wendigo was gone. Shredded. Reduced to pulp and antlers.
“The clean-up crew handled the rest,” Ms. Brown continued, voice steadier now. The chill had returned to her tone. “Took out the whole herd. All six that I’d seen. Two of them were female. Pregnant. Thank God we got them.”
The interviewer was silent. Possibly thinking. More likely typing.
“They found the girl.” She took another sip of water. Her hand didn’t shake. “Somehow... the beasts had cauterized her legs. We still don’t know how. No record of a Wendigo ever getting near fire—let alone using it.”
There was a pause. A quiet grief she didn’t voice.
“She survived, far as I know. They took her to the facility near [REDACTED]. Hit her with amnestics, like they always do. Shipped her off to a local hospital after.”
Another pause. She leaned forward slightly, as if speaking off the record.
“Story they gave?” A hollow laugh. “Fell off a cliff. Broke both legs so bad they had to amputate.”
I paused the video there.
I’d heard enough.
The girl’s fate wasn’t important—not right now. Civilian cases were someone else’s department.
What mattered was the data. The implications.
Wendigos using fire. Herding prey. Reproducing.
So many unknowns. So much new ground to cover. This was no longer just folklore made flesh. This was evolution.
The next meeting would be very interesting indeed.
____________________________________________________________________________
A.P.C. FIELD MISSION DOSSIER
Classification: LEVEL 5 — EYES ONLY
Subject: Mutated Wendigo Variant Encounter – Western New York State Forest
Field Agent: [REDACTED] Brown, Sentinel Level 5 – Scout
Mission ID: #0425-NYWEN
Agent Brown was dispatched to [REDACTED] Forest Preserve in Western New York to investigate reports of missing persons and a suspected anomalous predator. Local park rangers had escalated the case after discovering signs of predation inconsistent with local wildlife.
Upon arrival, Agent Brown discovered a heavily disturbed campsite. Blood evidence and partial remains indicated at least three casualties prior to her arrival. Track and environmental analysis confirmed presence of an anomalous pack predator, initially suspected to be a traditional Wendigo entity.
- Pack Behavior Confirmed: Six distinct entities were observed hunting, feeding, and coordinating. First officially documented case of Wendigo operating as a structured group.
- Physical Mutations Noted:
- Heightened stature (Est. 8–10 ft).
- Cervid-like facial features (elongated skulls resembling deer or elk).
- Prominent antlers used for both camouflage and gore-based attacks.
- Behavioral Deviations:
- Evidence of strategic baiting via a living survivor (victim with amputated, cauterized legs).
- Tool use or fire manipulation inferred. Victim’s limbs were cauterized with precision. Method remains unknown; Wendigo historically avoid fire.
- Enhanced Intelligence: The bait tactic, group formation, and post-mortem mutilation of corpses suggest significantly elevated cognitive function compared to standard variants.
- One civilian female, approximately 22 years old, was recovered alive.
- Legs amputated above thigh. Cauterization suggests medical or ritualistic precision.
- Subject is stable. Amnestics administered. Cover story in place: fall-related injuries and hypothermic delusion.
- Subject relocated to hospital near [REDACTED]. Monitoring recommended.
- Tactical response team neutralized the observed pack. Autopsies confirmed pregnancy in two of the six creatures. Termination confirmed before delivery.
- Ground sterilization and biological incineration completed on-site.
- A.P.C. clean-up and cover protocols executed without civilian interference.
- Threat Designation: WENDIGO-9M (“M” denoting Mutated strain)
- Containment Level Recommendation: LEVEL 6 — Pack Predator Protocols
- Status: ACTIVE THREAT — Assumed Non-Isolated Incident
- Immediate update required to Wendigo Behavioral Profile in Agency Archives.
- Investigate potential link between anomalous fire use and Wendigo evolution.
- Genetic material from terminated entities undergoing analysis. Priority sequencing approved.
- Cross-reference sightings in Great Lakes, Adirondack, and Canadian border regions for additional pack-based anomalies.
- Expand Recon Protocols in rural Northeastern forests. Sentinel Scouts to receive updated mutation training.
- Deploy Field Biologists to investigate fire-adjacent anomalies in predator behavior.
- Begin Cultural Analysis on the evolution of folklore into physical mutations. Consider psionic or memetic influence.
- Red Tag “Survivor 1” for long-term observation. Possibility of secondary exposure or anomalous trauma imprinting.
Filed by:
Dr. Elian Wroth, Lead Researcher – Cryptid Behavioral Division
Date: [REDACTED]
Authorized By: Overseer [REDACTED]