This happened in the spring of 1991. I was with a reconnaissance unit operating in northern Arizona. Can't say much more than that about the specifics, but we were doing nighttime training exercises in some pretty remote terrain. I'd been with the unit for maybe eight months at that point. Still relatively new, still trying to prove myself, you know what I mean? The guys I was with were solid. Professional. Seven of us total. We'd been out there for three days already, running scenarios, and everyone was getting tired. It was around 0230 hours when we took a break. My squad leader told us to rest up for twenty minutes before we moved to the next checkpoint. I was sitting against a ponderosa pine, just trying to stay alert. The forest was quiet that night. Really quiet.
I should mention I was on edge already. I'd had this feeling all day that something was off. Nothing I could point to, just that sense you get sometimes when you're in the field. Like you're being watched. My sergeant had split us into two groups earlier that evening for different approach vectors. My group had moved about half a click north while the other team circled around to the east. The plan was to converge on a target zone at 0300. So I'm sitting there in the dark, checking my gear, and I hear this sound. Not loud. Kind of a clicking. Like someone tapping two stones together, but faster. Rhythmic. I look over at Hansen, the guy closest to me, and he's looking in the same direction I am. He heard it too.
The clicking stopped. Then I heard movement. Not footsteps exactly. More like something moving through the brush, but deliberate. Controlled. Hansen signals to the rest of the squad. Everyone goes quiet. We're all watching this clearing about thirty meters ahead. There's enough moonlight that you can make out the tree line, the shapes of the rocks. And that's when I saw it step into the clearing. I don't know what else to call it. A figure. Maybe six and a half feet tall, moving in this strange way. The joints bent wrong. Like watching a praying mantis walk upright, if that makes sense. The way it moved its limbs, the angles. It wasn't human. I could see scales. That's what it looked like in the moonlight anyway. Dark scales, almost black, with this faint pattern on them. The head was elongated. Narrow. And the eyes caught the light for a second. Yellow. Reflective.
[ Story continues in the full game... ]