They spread at night.

You can hear them, if you listen. After midnight works best. When things have quieted down.

They are out there. In crowds, in clusters, in isolated outposts, covering the vast dark fields of the republic. Thirsty, greedy - grasping - new orifices opening to extrude slimy red spaghetti-tendrils dripping caustic acid - grabbing hold of sweet decent people, glomming onto the tiniest darkness buried deep inside, the rage or grief or pain or struggle, the slightest resentment or frustration - and feeding on it - and swelling - and swallowing - until the person isn't a person anymore. It's one of them.

When I arrived in this time-space, there were so few of them. Mostly they stayed hidden. Scared of us. Outnumbered.

But now. Now they are everywhere.

Where did they come from. How did they assimilate so many of us. Can our friends and loved ones who have been swallowed up and replaced be saved. Are they still alive in there.

These are real questions. I agonize over all of them. But right now they feel academic. Beside the point.

Right now we feel outnumbered. Surrounded by shape-shifting bloodthirsty monsters in human form. Gunning us down in the streets. Stripping kids away from their parents.

This is a pretty shitty field report. I have nothing new to report, fellow covert agents. Only things you already know: that they are out there, that there a lot of them, and that even while we sleep they are spreading.