I need your advice. I found bloodied notes crumpled around a rock, in my wife’s home office. The thoughts of my wife and the notes’ owner keep me up at night. I don’t know what to do. I want to rope authorities into this, but I fear that they would make things worse. I really need some closure for my sanity’s sake. These notes arrived about two days ago.

I was sound asleep, until the sound of glass breaking rattled me awake. Next to me in our king sized bed was an empty spot. I thought my wife went to investigate the ruckus, so rushing to the scene was a priority. The jolt to the office was a quiet one. When I arrived there, I was greeted with a room of books on shelves, papers on a large oak desk in the middle of the room, four uncovered vertically long windows with one of them having a hole. I looked behind her desk and uncovered spotty, poorly written notes that were wrapped around a rock. Since I had yet to see my wife, I figured she was away at her usual late night emergency at the animal hospital. I sat at her desk and read the blue ink on the red and white paper. It reads:

‘To whom this may concern, I had been kidnapped and tortured by a group called the TSC. I’m the only one of eleven that escaped. These people are insane and need to be stopped. Unfortunately, I can’t be the one to do it. I have to find my family before they do and leave the country, or this island at least. I don’t trust anyone in the animal community. I hope this note won’t fall into any of their hands. For context this all started after my assessment at a local animal sanctuary.

‘While leaving the investigated area, my partner and I were blindfolded, and captured. They released us into an interrogation room painted dark gray and had pictures of many performing animals. Most of these pictures were dated way back in the 1900’s and may be even older. The biggest one of them all was a black and white picture of an elephant. It has a strap leading from the back of its head to the middle of its trunk. At the end of the head strap there was a chain connecting the middle of the elephant’s trunk to its chest. When they noticed us looking at it, they went on about this elephant, in their oversized trench coat and paper-mache animal skull mask.

‘They spoke very fondly about her. Like how she was a powerful, intelligent, majestic creature who could kill a man with just her nose, but she didn’t. She had a big heart. They said that the elephant was a lost creature, from a different land that had to defend herself from idiocy. But the people back then saw a murder. They made the elephant suffer in the most gruesome way. They poisoned, choked, then electrocuted her. The masked people believed that she should have been in the wild eating leaves, living blissfully. Not brought to the world of man to live and die miserably. The masked people then told us, “Even creatures that are big as she was, were bullied to death by man. We take it upon ourselves to take on the responsibility of executing the animal kingdom’s bully, wicked humans.” That was when the torture began.

‘They put a choke chain around us, questioning if we actually like animals, or do we just work with animals because the pay was good. If we took too long to answer or even look at each other, we were choked for several seconds. They questioned us about our passion and what animals meant to us. It seemed like we were saying the right thing. Then they got to ask the real questions. Do we like frogs, do you think they are important, etc. I told them we cared about all animals, and all their roles were important in the ecosystem. One of them then asked why we killed two frogs. At first we were confused, then I remembered that we both killed an invasive, poisonous frog with our poking stick. I tried to tell them that it was imperative to get rid of them. They went on about how every creature on this planet has a crucial role in the ecosystem. I tried to explain to them that we are wildlife damage management biologists. We spent years attending college to study these things, but they weren’t listening. They keep choking us, then justify their unfairness by stating that animals in human care don’t get a chance to explain themselves, so neither do we. After some time they finally let us explain that the frogs we killed were extremely dangerous and poisonous. We were given permission to kill it on site, it's an invasive species. They then told us other ways that we could’ve done to get rid of the frog, like traps, etc.

‘As I started to wonder about the frog incident, a roach crawled onto my foot. I squished it, they freaked out and shoved a gun down my throat. My partner told them that it’s just a roach and it is a pest. “Those things reproduce like crazy, you’re not going to miss one”, he said. They took the gun out of my mouth and shot him without a thought. He was my friend and is the only person I knew there. They asked how I feel, then said this is how roaches feel when you kill one of them. Next thing I knew, they put me on trial with the others. 

‘One of the masked people said that they collect people who didn’t pass the interrogation, so they could do a court style thing. The next room was filled with other people tied to an electrical chair in a large room, all with bruises on their necks, and half starved. There is a stand for the judge facing the semi circle of the tied up people, and a bunch of churchy wooden benches on both sides of the semi circle. After hooking me up, they left to find one more person to complete the line up.

‘The people and I spoke. Some have careers dealing with animals. From pet sitters to vets. The others seem to be random, other than the fact that they might have hurt an animal. Those people seemed to be beaten the worst. They shared stories of how they may have hurt an animal then they find themselves locked up in here with no food or water after being tortured. The details are gruesome. Some had it way worse than me. To spare you the details, the masked people tortured the others like how they used to torture performing animals in the 1800’s and 1900’s. 

‘They left us there for hours, in the dark. Apparently, they want to fill the semi-circle before they start judging us. Two people from the line up died due to the lack of food, and septic wounds. This expanded our time in a dark room infested with roaches. Some have repented because they believed that there is no way the masked people will be letting us go.

‘Eventually, the line up was complete. They began the trail by asking us why we did what we did to the animals, one by one. The people explained themselves. Some hurt animals by accident. Some did it because they had a bad day. Others claim that it was the only way to get around the situation. One or 2 claimed to not knowing why they were there. Most of us spoke up and stated it’s not fair that we were being tortured when we are literally working to care or protect animals. They didn’t like that, so they beat us up and strangled us with ropes while a crowd of masked people cheered on in the benches. They were aiming mostly at our faces. I can’t feel mine anymore. I feel like a headless person and can barely see.

‘The masked people removed their faces after labeling us as guilty and sentenced us to death. The masked people seem to be your fellow co-workers and friends. Everyone knows at least 2 people in this room. For me, I recognized a few co-workers, and the lady from the animal sanctuary that my partner and I just came from. They say they work for animals too, but they would never harm one like the way we ‘did’.

‘In his final attempts to justify himself, a guy said that he is vegan and one of the, no longer masked people that he knows is not. They explained that they are mostly vegans and the only meat they eat is meat from every other offspring the animal produces, or meat from an animal that died from natural causes, unless they offered a body to repay their debt. They claimed to have a cruel free farm. The vegetarian victim said they are worse than him, they eat flesh. He said you wouldn’t want any of your children to be eaten. They replied by saying that they repay those animals by feeding them the flash from our own species. They then said that they hoped we were healthy. They begin to electrocute us one by one, leaving the chair on as they go, while telling us we were guilty. By the time they got to me, they blew a fuse. I escaped from the dark room through a small hole in the corner of the room after escaping from the over used chair. 

‘I barely made it through. Bits of my flesh were left behind on the wall. I ended up in a weapon closet. I grabbed a gun and shot someone. I don’t know if it killed anyone, but it definitely hurt someone and slowed them. I escape by a doorway behind the painting. The stairs lead up to a cave that is connected to a man made tunnel in a building. The places seem like some kind of large facility. It has a strong stench of sweat and mold. I didn’t bother to look around. The metal fence gate was unlocked so I ran into the pine forest.

‘I ended up at a library in a public university after what felt like hours. I snuck in to write this. Luckily, the staff wasn’t around when I got in’

After that sentence, the writing on paper became … distressed. I could barely make out what it said. But I tried my best. This is what I decipher:

‘Watch out for professor with a pinkish-beige complexion. He wearing navy blue suit, white shirt, dark blue tie with monkeys. He wears their pin. A blue circle, with a red elephant skull with tusk piercing a basic human body shape colored black. He’s not nice. More arrived wearing that same pin. Nearly got me surrounded. I ran here to finish write these. 

‘Please help. I love all things nature, and I understand that animal abuse is wrong, but this is too much. We need a balance of mankind and nature, not just kill humans for vengeance, for animals sake. They are killing people for shoving animals and stepping on roaches. This is ridiculous. I will escape this island and hopefully this country with my family. They maybe will go after them. Tell the police and don’t show this to anyone who works with animals. They might be a part of that clan.’

This whole ordeal is overwhelming. Just the thought of a half-dead person just happens to be in our area, and the fact that there is a group of people tutoring humans in our country. That night I couldn’t sleep. I was constantly listening if they were still out there, even though my wife said she saw no one when she came in. I’m now too paranoid to interact with animals. Majority of my friends are animal lovers, even my wife. She works at the animal hospital. I told her nothing about the notes, I hid them. And for the broken window, it was caused by a rowdy teen. It took her a while to let it go. When my wife went to work this morning, I checked her office and belongings to see if she had that pin. I check every inch of her belongings, except for that locked desk drawer. I won’t bring this up to her until I know for sure she is not part of it. 

I’m not sure if it's real or not, it’s too bazaar. Eventually I stopped worrying about it, until I read it again. A professor in a navy blue suit, monkey tie, bright complexion, that sounded like my best friend. I remember getting lunch with him that day. He was bragging about his new tie. What if it was him? He and my wife are working on a case study together. What if he is trying to get my wife to join?

I’m posting this story on a website people don’t normally visit. Hopefully the right person will respond using the clues hidden. I need some answers. I am not an adventurer. I don’t want my statue to turn into my status. It looks like the hour after the highest point of the day outside. I have to go to the park, then the museum that’s nearby.

Fielken I.