Once it was said that man's weaknesses are the source of their greatest fears. For some this is true, but not for us.

Ghost Rangers have no fears, because we are fear itself.

My first mission as a Ghost Ranger Sentinel is one I will remember for the rest of my life. It was a solo endeavor, which undoubtedly magnified the damage done to our world by the attacks, and highlighted the insanities formed by the desperation of men who intended to do whatever it took to stay alive and in power amongst the chaos. Such men, like the one in this story, genuinely scare me; their logic, their sense of problem-solving abilities, their honest belief in their insane tasks...it is all too much.

There was a sizeable church made of stone and brick, which sat in the center of a large hill just outside of the city; many members of this congregation-which numbered in the hundreds, from what I was told—had turned to Pastor Right and his family for aide during the first of the crisis following the bombs. They provided sanctuary for the refugees, food and provisions from their large storerooms underground, and I even heard that this church had escape catacombs that connected to several of our mapped subway and sewer lines beneath the ground. As the story goes, an epidemic of sorts had broken out among the congregation and began to spread at a moderate rate, and Pastor Right leaned back on his knowledge as a physician and chemist to try his own hand at curing the people.

He lost several more before he finally stumbled across a breakthrough.

A serum constructed from the blood of the immune—particularly his wife and oldest of his two sons—was administered by injections to what was left of the flock; over half of the refugees had already died, leaving about fifty cases left to attempt to save. A few days passed, and like a miracle, many of the infected began to recover and return to full strength. A couple of weeks passed, and as the story goes, one of the farmers in the church collapsed in the crop fields terraced out of the side of the hill behind the massive church; his wife was with him, and when help arrived he was dead, pale, and being chewed on by his wife, who had stripped down naked and crawled over him like an animal, gnawing on whatever she saw with her bloodshot red eyes.

That was how it began.

Rather than killing her, Pastor Right had her locked away in one of the storage rooms beneath the church as he turned to his studies to find a stronger, more effective cure; his wife and oldest son volunteered again. Time passed, more cases began to spring up faster than Pastor Right could recover, and each new patient was moved to the storage room. Desperate for success, it was said that Pastor Right allowed his wife to handle transporting the infected, since they did not show hostility or attempts to bite her whenever she was near the storage rooms. She would bring him new patients to work on, and return them to their holdings afterwards; it was an effective system, but then again, if it had worked out I would not be on my way there now. The last part of the story says that one patient had a further violent reaction than the others, and after being treated with the new serum antidote, turned and bit the wife on her right arm as she attempted to return the patient to the storage room. She hadn't turned instantly, and the pastor's oldest son helped her treat the wound, but later that night when Pastor Right realized she was not in bed, he found her in their youngest son's room, eating him. Even in his anger and disbelief, the pastor did not want his infected wife among the others teeming in the storage room downstairs, and instead locked her into one of the prayer rooms upstairs. His younger son was not spoken of, but the older son and the Pastor are still trying to find a cure, to the point they now take ventures into the city to look for refugees and offer them sanctuary, only to infect them purposely and try their inoculations out on them.

That is why I have been sent—a Sentinel, tasked with the job of neutralizing extreme threats to keep the peace in a tumultuous world.

Armed with a single-strap camel pack, a handgun, flashlight, compass, some nylon paracord rope, my personal karambit knife, and now a silvery two-edged sword about thirty-two inches in length, I set out to complete my mission—kill the father and son before they infect or sacrifice anyone else and spread the infection to the outside.

There had never been a darker night like that of my first mission on Sentinel status; sure, I had been on countless escapades under the Ghost Ranger ranks, but none were like this. The moon was pale, huge, and hidden behind ghostly grey clouds that masked its odd glow, and chilling winds passed through the open air, cutting through my black, thin, hooded jacket. The church itself sat like a massive castle monument in the center of a wide-based, steep hill, filling the top with its left and right-wing extensions; no lights could be seen inside the stone and brick structure, not even in the rectangular towers on the left and right ends. There was a cobblestone walkway leading straight up to the church, cutting between the tilled grounds and garden remains still visible around the front entrance.

The large, arched, wooden double-doors were unlocked, slightly ajar.

I strolled comfortably up to the doors with my left hand hovering over the hilt of my sword as I slightly pushed the right-hand door and slipped into the shadows within the church. The smell of dust, and the dingy glow of candles on the altar further up encompassed me as I sidled past the time-worn and silt-coated pews towards the centered pulpit, which was behind the table holding an array of single and triple candle sconces, some of which still had burning candles. My attention was drawn away by the appearance of a figure behind me, a man no older than myself holding a single candle in his right hand; he kept his face in the shadows as he held the candle out towards me and cleared his throat.

"Trimmed, low-cut hair, upkept physique and array lightly-geared—you're no refugee, have you come to seek sanctuary?" a young, rough male voice inquired calmly.

At first, I thought better of responding to the question, since if this was the son of Pastor Right, I needn't risk him alerting his father and possibly setting a trap for me. However, with my sword and gear in plain sight, bluffing would prove harder a task than remaining silent; the male spoke again.

"You come not as one who seeks refuge, but armed and geared; you are well cared for, yet you have indeed come here for a reason. My father knew this day would come—the day a reaper was sent here to end our work," the male declared.

"You have lured innocent men, women, and children to their deaths, forced a plague upon them in hopes of curing them, and then locked them away indefinitely; your father's work has led him to become a danger to society, and your actions in taking advantage of those in need of shelter have made you just as dangerous to society as the bandits and thieves enslaving innocents outside of this place—you're both obsessed, ambitious, and more importantly you're creating an epidemic that you cannot control. I have been sent to make sure that this epidemic does not escape this church, and to put an end to the research and illegal experimentation you have been carrying out on the refugees against their will," I finally stated, watching the shadowy figure behind the candle glow.

At first he didn't bother to speak, and after a few seconds I realized that the man in the shadows had nodded at me; a low, raspy laugh escaped from his mouth as the figure began to move backwards into the shadows beyond the glow of the altar candles, and my hand remained rested on my sword's hilt.

"We won't stop searching for a cure—father made a promise to mother that he would cure her, as well as everyone else, so if you want to stop us you'll have to kill us," the male stated again. By this point I was more than sure that this was Pastor Right's son, and as he retreated towards the shadows I moved forward; I could not allow him to escape and warn his father, or set any traps.

There was a last-minute flicker as the candle being held by the son was blown out, followed by the clash of the sconce hitting the floor, and footsteps racing away. I quickly took up the chase, following the echoing stomps of the son's shoes down the dark aisle and to the left, which led through an arched, open doorway and down a spiraling staircase. The sublevel corridor below the church was scarcely lit by spaced-out torches along the left and right walls, giving only a dim hint of illumination to the otherwise lucid-dark surroundings, and up ahead I could still hear the stomping steps of the son as he tried his best to put distance between himself and I, yet I persisted on my course not far behind him. The next room was filled with barrels and crates of untouched food--crops, canned provisions, and unopened wooden crates; the area was a giant square no less than forty feet wide and long. Sconces on the walls to the left and right added more of the dim, amber glow than before, and the temperature of the room felt cooler than the above-ground worship center.

The walls were made of dark-red brick, and somewhere midway the room I stepped on something wooden and semi-cylindrical.

I hadn't heard anything fall off of the son as he passed, but as I stepped back to examine what my foot had landed on, I noticed the shine of a smooth, lacquered sheath no more than twelve inches long. I removed the sheath as I slowly crouched down to pick it up, and I could see the wooden handle was connected to a well-crafted Japanese knife, with a lacquered wooden handle that matched the sheath perfectly; I did not hesitate to examine the thin, well-defined blade before placing the knife in my bag.

Up ahead, I could hear the echo of chains falling to the floor and the creaking of dry hinges squealing; what followed soon after was something that even I was not truly prepared for. Bodies, disfigured and covered in black veins and sores, eyes glowing a glassy green in the dark--monsters, who were once perfectly healthy human beings were now racing towards me. Instincts and training took over in my paralyzing fear as I watched them gurgle and scream, and hit the floor before me in pieces.

I had not realized that my sword was drawn, and that I indeed taken down these infected creatures without realizing it.

The corridor up ahead turned right, and as I passed through the brick-lined walls and ducked beneath a burning torch, my sword stayed in motion removing limbs and heads from the undead onslaught. I was trained as a Sentinel to be a master assassin, but this seemed to escape my logic as I butchered what were once men, women and children—healthy members of a society trying desperately to pull itself together after the biggest crisis we have ever known.

They were lured to their deaths, overtaken by parasitic disease, and I have become their unwitting end.

Past the corridor were several opened storage rooms, and after I reached one hundred in my head, I stopped counting the monsters and pressed onward towards a small door at the far end; I could see the beginning of an including staircase just behind the door, and toppled a burning oil lamp hanging beside one of the open storage rooms in order to make distance between myself and the hungry horde. Those who crossed into the liquid flames were incinerated and spread the fire to the others as they bumped and clamored in the bright heat, as I closed the door behind me and placed the iron bar lock across it quickly.

I removed a small rag from the inside pocket of my jacket and cleaned my blade, heading up the staircase.

There was a bluish-white glow coming from up ahead, not far from the open door atop the staircase and as I emerged, I noticed it was in fact a fluorescent work light hanging from a small hook in the ceiling; past the open door was another empty, spacious room with towering narrow windows covered with chapel glass designs. The floors were dusty, wooden and time-worn and in the center of the expansion was a single desk with a small, white lamp on it.

Behind it sat a man dressed in all-black robes, with silver-rimmed, circular reading glasses glinting in the light. The man was older, sporting a lengthy grey beard and a balding head of silvery hair, yet as I approached his table, which I could see was covered in miscellaneous paper notes and diagrams, he continued to scribble away. I had no doubts that he knew why I was there, perhaps the son had warned him and fled, seeing how his son was nowhere to be found now. I wasn't quite sure when I lost the son's trail, but it didn't matter now as I came within ten feet of the work table.

"Do you know what a 'life's work' really means?" the elder man inquired in a tired, low tone.

His question was unexpected and quite honestly caught me off guard completely; nonetheless I pondered his inquisition. I h heard the term "my life's work" used in many instances in which someone describes a task or employment in which they have devoted many hours or even years into manifesting—quite literally it was one's way of saying that they dedicated their life to this art, craft or occupation. Before I could answer, yet again, the elder man spoke up with a sigh.

"It wasn't a rhetorical question, my boy—I simply wished to know if you understood what the true meaning of a life's work is. I know who you are, what you are, and why you have come here, Ghost Sentinel—I have been expecting you.

"Before you do what you must do, I simply wished to clarify and explain that I do not intend to stop you. Truth be told, now that my work is done I am glad you are here, like a man at the end of his days welcoming the Reaper to finally reunite his weary soul with that of his family. I have completed my work and kept my promise to my family to find a cure for the epidemic that has brought a wave of darkness over what used to be my church and my home. I promised a while back not to rest, quit or die until I figured out a way to cure those who were infected, and I know that my deeds following the death of my wife were less than commendable, but for a good cause.

"In order to complete my work, we lured many to their unsuspecting volunteered service as patients and test subjects while I grinded away months of my life looking for an answer; so many died, so many new infected and imprisoned here in a place once meant to set people free. At the bitter end, only two of us managed to be saved from the plague—what was left of it I leave to you along with my every note, reference and full concordance, thesaurus, dictionary, guide and encyclopedia in this mass of pages for you to take back beyond the threshold of this place to give to your scientists. I know these are the right hands—you we sent to kill me, and more righteous hands could not be found than those. "Finally son, I wanted to say thank you for taking the mantle upon yourself to end such a despicable life as mine, but just have understanding that I did the hard job in hopes of sparing anyone else the loss of a family and labor of hell that I have endured to bring this chaotic world a ray of hope...this, son, is my life's work," Pastor Right concluded, standing directly in front of me as he removed his glasses and wiped a single tear from his right eye.

I looked at him without expression, but within me were many emotions combined together--compassion, hatred, anger, empathy—how could such a murderous individual be so caring and righteous? Hundreds died without a choice, families lost and children killed in our already hellish world.

"It is time," Pastor Right stated, and I slowly raised my sword.

The pages were small enough to fit inside of a journal and I had no issues folding them over and slipping them inside my bag. The walk back through the church was eerie at best and dark, even as flames around me began to eat away at the pews and floor. I left the church like a shadow and headed back down the cobblestone path, removing the rag to clean my blade once again before sheathing it beneath the pale moon glow.

It was as he said, I was sent to kill him, and more righteous hands couldn't be found than mine.