Mitsunari Saka was slouching in his seat, getting ready for another long, boring night. Yawning, he stretched and adjusted his police cap over his head, muttering darkly as he reached for his coffee cup.

"Why I ever became a police I'll never know..." he said to himself, glancing over at the sweeper whistling in a corner. "Even the cleaners seem to enjoy themselves more..."

He shifted his considerable bulk on the chair, trying to make himself feel more comfortable. It was then that his phone rang.

Mitsunari groaned, picking it up with an annoyed face. "Hello? Chief Mori? Yes, Saka here. Don't tell me someone's lost his cat, or is being threatened by some prank call, or is giving me -"

The harsh voice of Chief Mori, head police of Mitakihara City, drilled into Mitsunari's ears, cutting off his speech. "Enough nonsense, Saka! There's an emergency downtown near the old red flats. People living there are suddenly acting very strange, walking about like zombies and carrying fire torches, threatening to burn down the whole place, and themselves with it!"

Officer Mitsunari was dumbfounded. "What? You must be kidding me, Chief. They wouldn't do something like that..." His voice trailed off when he heard someone screaming in the background through the phone, followed by a loud crash and an unearthly wail.

Chief Mori's urgent tone came down the phone again, this time sounding panicked. "Get over here at once, Saka, and bring some weapons! Take Sanada and Otoki with you, it's an emergency! Hurry before - "

The line went dead, buzzing a monotone static. Mitsunari went silent with shock. Chief Mori would never break off his call unless something bad was happening. Hurriedly, he grabbed his coat, made sure his pistol was safely tucked in its holder and ran out of his office.

Seems like his job just got less boring.

The two officers, Rikyu Sanada and Nemu Otoki looked up from their files with bewildered faces as Mitsunari came crashing into their office. Rikyu stood up at once, demanding, "What in the world do you -"

Mitsunari interrupted him, tossing the both of them a pistol apiece. "Chief Mori's in big trouble, and if we don't go and assist him now, I doubt we'd have a chief tomorrow."

The officer's serious voice galvanised Rikyu and Nemu into action. They hastily clipped on a bulletproof vest, in which Mitsunari followed suit.

"What manner of emergency are we dealing with?" asked Nemu, buckling on a black helmet.

"Dunno, but it sounds serious," Mitsunari replied.

"There's no one else we can call?" enquired Rikyu.

"None that I can think of. Ready to go?"

The two officers nodded, and they rushed out to their car, jumping into it and starting the engine. The sirens wailed as they raced through the winding city roads in the dark of night, with Rikyu at the wheel. Their hearts thumped wildly, each secretly hoping that they would reach their chief in time.

Their dull night shift has turned into a potentially deadly situation.

***

Police Chief Hironaka Mori was up to his neck in a swarm of flies. Desperately, he tried swatting them away with his gun, but they kept coming back in endless numbers. Also, he noticed that these flies were not the ordinary house flies - they were huge and black, with razor blades for wings and a needle for a mouthpart. Their creepy compound eyes were gimlets of green and red, making them look ghastly. And worse of all, they were in 2-dimension scribbles, giving them a surreal feel, like a little child had drawn them carelessly.

The people of that neighbourhood were still acting strangely, and did not seem bothered by the flies at all. They merely brandished their torches, and the flies flew off with metallic screeches, annoyed. The chief knew then that his only hope now was to stick close to a person with a torch.

He sidled up to a middle-aged man with a blank look on his face. Chief Mori tried to communicate with him, but he merely stared right through him and said, "This world is not worth living in. We should all die together."

The veteran policeman was a hardened fellow, but now, he could barely contain his fear. The man was ashen-faced with bloodshot eyes, and a weird black mark popped and sparked at the base of his neck. Everyone crowded in around him, swatting at the flies aimlessly, walking towards the flats with torches blazing in their hands. They all had the black pattern on their necks.

"Burn down this useless place! We are all failures, only destined for death!" They chanted in unison.

Chief Mori found himself propelled along with the masses as they trudged towards the flats, the night air bristling with fiery torches and scribbled flies.

***

Mitsunari, Rikyu and Nemu reached the scene around ten minutes later, all due to Rikyu's superb driving skills. They stopped their car right in front of the flaming mob in an effort to stop the procession, but it did nothing to hinder their movement.

"Heck, look at the sheer numbers of these people! I didn't expect it to be so many," exclaimed Mitsunari, pulling out his gun. "Nemu, try calling for the Special Forces. Rikyu, stay in the car with Nemu while I hop out to look for the chief."

"Roger!" Both officers gave a swift salute to Mistsunari as he dashed out of the car and into the horde of bodies, his heart heavy with dread.

***

A weird feeling was beginning to take over Chief Mori. He was panting heavily, as if he had just run a ten mile marathon. His steps slowed down to match those around him, and very soon, he was moaning along with them, cursing all his years of life - wasted and gone, spent on doing something that did not benefit himself at all. Selfish thoughts swirled in his head as he crawled along with the herd, oblivious to the fact that a huge myriad of whirling patterns had formed above the gathering people like a dome of doom.

***

Mitsunari rushed into the mob, shoving the zombie-like people left and right in a bid to search for his chief. Finally, he saw Hironaka Mori ambling along with the crowd at the far left edge. Quickly, he bulldozed himself over to the chief and called out, grabbing his shoulder, swatting at the hideous, scribbly flies.

"Chief Mori, it's me, Mitsunari Saka! I've brought reinforcements, they're on th-" Mitsunari stopped short, gaping in horror at his chief's blank expression as a black, ominous mark sparked and popped at the base of his neck.

Chief Mori gave Mitsunari an eerie smile, saying, "Oh, Saka, it's you. You're just in time to join us on a wonderful journey to another place, where selfish dreams can come true."

Mitsunari shook his head in disbelief, ignoring the pushing bodies all around them. This was not the strong, reliable and selfless chief that he knew.

"Chief, what's gotten into you?" yelled Mitsunari over the din, shaking Mori's shoulders hard. "We can't afford to waste time thinking useless thoughts, the people are gonna get themselves into big trouble if we don't act now!"

Officer Saka was beginning to panic, seeing as the sky was turning into a weird shade of muddy gray with splotches of green, red and blue. The flies were humming loudly, converging above their heads into a maelstrom of black and gray. A scary chuckle sounded from somewhere near the flats, like that of a little girl who just had her throat ripped open and was laughing, thinking about revenge on her murderer.

Chief Mori continued to stare vacantly at his officer, a dumb smile creeping over his thin lips.

"They're not worth saving. I'm not worth saving. Nothing is worth saving..." he rambled, oblivious to Mitsunari's shoutings.

"In fact, we should all just die."

***

Nemu tried calling the Special Forces for the eleventh time. Sighing exasperatedly, she hung up impatiently as the voice-mail lady's tinny voice said to her, "There is currently no service available, please leave a message after the beep."

"Well, what do we do now, Rikyu?" asked Nemu, running her fingers through her hair in vexation. "No one's answering the call. I doubt there's even a phone connection here."

She gave a scream as a big fat fly crashed against the windscreen of the car, cracking it. Rikyu pulled out his gun immediately, exclaiming, "What the hell was that?" The fly stared at them with compound eyes, its mandibles snapping a them voraciously.

More of the horrendous flies crashed into the glass, cracking it even more. Nemu took out her gun with trembling hands, crying out to Rikyu, "What should we do? They'll get into the car at this rate!"

Rikyu cursed, twisting the keys to start the engine, but was met with a lame hiss and puff from the car hood. "The monsters!" he yelled, smashing his fist onto the wheel. "They've eaten our engine!"

Nemu's eyes widened in horror. "Then... We're trapped... We're gonna die..."

***

Mitsunari tugged at his chief, urging him to get out of the blazing heat of the crowd, all the time keeping his eyes on the whirlwind of flies above. Feeling helpless, he glanced around at the dark multicoloured dome surrounding them, as if it were trapping them in its ghastly embrace of death.

"C'mon, chief! No use dying here, we've gotta help these people!" he cried, pulling at Mori's arm, although he knew it was probably too late to save the chief.

As he said that, the mass of flies doubled, merging into a huge black trash can with a spring on the bottom. The lid was pushed back forcefully, and a grotesque head popped out. Mitsunari recoiled at the sight of the creature.

The head belonged to a little girl, but looked like a mash between cat, insect and human. Its lips were sewn together carelessly, but it was wailing at the top of its voice, mouth open in a dirge of agony. It had three spindly arms which flailed around, smashing the flats into rubble and flattening some people with a sickening crunch. It seemed to be desperately swatting at the monstrous flies.

Just what is this thing? Thought Mitsunari to himself, transfixed to the spot in horrified awe. Everyone around him gave a wild cry and rushed at the building, which morphed into tall, twisted tree exuding grief and sorrow. They threw their torches at it, setting it ablaze at once. As the torch left their hands, the flies descended upon them in a flash, devouring them to the very bone.

Mitsunari was doing all he could to restrain his chief from doing the same. He wished Rikyu and Nemu would hurry up with the reinforcements, or they would certainly perish...

***

The flies had managed to shatter the hard glass of the windscreen. With an angry metallic buzz, they flew into the car, their razor wings shredding at the two police officers. Screaming and yelling, they escaped by jumping out of the car and running away blindly, blood streaming down open wounds.

But they soon regretted their choice.

Both officers barely had time to utter a last scream before a mass of flies dropped upon them like steel from the sky, tearing and eating away their flesh.

***

The trash-can creature grinned repulsively, laughing away madly as it swatted at everything and everyone. Its lips were stretched to the maximum, and the thread holding them together seemed fit to burst. The lid of the trash can snapped shut suddenly, slamming the creature in the head and making her screech non-stop inside the bin.

Immediately, Mitsunari's knees buckled at the harsh sound and he fell to the floor, incapacitated, with hands clamped over both his ears. Everyone around him also dropped, moaning and rolling on the floor.

After what seemed like an eternity of screaming, the creature managed to shift the lid off again and laughed uproariously, twig-like arms reaching out for the kneeling and prostate figures on the floor.

A good twenty people got snatched up by the scribbly fingers, but they didn't yell or kick. They simply hung limply, foolish smiles on their faces as the monster dumped them into the trash can - dumped them into her - never to be seen again.

The second arm of the creature extended slowly towards Mitsunari's group of people. Knowing that his fate was sealed - and that Nemu and Rikyu were also possibly dead already - nonetheless, he whipped out his gun and shot a few bullets at the monster. They merely bounced back harmlessly.

The long fingers were starting to curl around them, and Mitsunari could feel his body being crushed against the others. With tears in his eyes, he struggled to get his gun arm free, then promptly shot his Chief through the head. Mori died without a sound.

"Sorry, chief," said Mitsunari, a wan smile on his lips, "but it's better to die with a quick bullet than to find out what's inside that thing."

As he was lifted higher, he could see the wrecked police car, swarming with the huge flies.

Nemu and Rikyu were nowhere to be seen.

With trembling fingers, he put the gun to his head. "So much for complaining about a boring night," he muttered.

There was a gun shot, followed by a falling pistol with empty cartridges. A fly caught it in its jaws and swallowed it up, buzzing with contentment before the big hand of the creature slammed into it, exploding it in a colourful shower of scribbles.

The creature's torn lips parted in a rictus of a grin, feeling satisfied with its massacre.

It will look for more prey tomorrow.

***

Hi guys! This is my first ever fan-fic based on the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Yeah, I know, the first chapter may not sound like it yet, but the characters will be appearing the next chapter. Btw, the creature is a witch, unless you haven't figured it out already ;) I'll be doing some random witch profiles and Puella Magi profiles too, if need be.
I don't know how often I can update this, (need to study and all XD) and I've got another story to write first, but yeah, this is real fun to write XD
And I hope the first chapter isn't too horrifically horrifying. Signing off.
~SaitheVivana