Chapter 1 – The Ordinary Oddity

Dexter Quinn's apartment smelled like old coffee, wet cardboard, and the faint musk of something that might have been a taxidermied raccoon—or possibly just a very unfortunate throw pillow. It was hard to tell anymore. The walls were a collage of conspiracy: faded Bigfoot posters curled at the edges, grainy photographs of "unexplained phenomena" pinned haphazardly beside hand-drawn maps with cryptic notes like "POSSIBLE CHUPACABRA NEST?" and "JERSEY DEVIL MIGRATION ROUTE (UNCONFIRMED)."Shelves sagged under the weight of dusty binders, labeled with an optimism that bordered on delusion: Definitive Proof Vol. 1, Definitive Proof Vol. 2, and so on, up to Definitive Proof Vol. 11. None of them contained anything resembling definitive proof. Mostly blurry photos of bushes, plaster casts of what were obviously dog prints, and one particularly embarrassing entry involving a "lake monster" that turned out to be a floating log with a surprising amount of personality.Dexter himself sat hunched over his kitchen table, which doubled as his research station, investigation headquarters, and dining area—though he rarely used it for the latter. At thirty-two, he had the disheveled look of someone who had long ago stopped caring what mirrors thought of him. His brown hair stuck up at odd angles, his glasses were held together with electrical tape on one side, and his T-shirt featured a faded silhouette of the Loch Ness Monster above the words "I WANT TO BELIEVE (BUT I'LL SETTLE FOR BLURRY EVIDENCE)."He was currently staring at his laptop screen with the intensity of a man decoding alien transmissions. In reality, he was reading a forum post titled "DID ANYONE ELSE SEE THE THING IN WALMART PARKING LOT????""Yes," Dexter whispered to himself, eyes gleaming. "Yes, I did see the thing."He had not, in fact, seen the thing. But he'd been in a Walmart parking lot once, and that felt close enough.His phone buzzed. Dexter glanced at it: a text from his mother."Honey, did you remember to pay rent? Also, your cousin Brad got promoted. Again. Just thought you should know. Love you!"Dexter sighed and set the phone face-down. Brad was a corporate lawyer with a house, a fiancée, and probably a retirement plan. Brad had never spent three hours in a swamp at 2 AM waiting for a Skunk Ape to appear. Brad didn't understand."Focus, Dexter," he muttered, returning to his screen. "Tonight's the night."Tonight was, in fact, not the night. But Dexter said this to himself before every expedition, and hope—or perhaps stubbornness—was a powerful drug.By 9 PM, Dexter was suited up. This meant cargo pants with approximately fourteen pockets (only three of which he could actually reach), a windbreaker that had seen better decades, and a headlamp that flickered ominously whenever he moved too fast. Slung over his shoulder was his "field kit": a backpack containing night-vision goggles he'd bought off a questionable website, a voice recorder that occasionally picked up radio stations instead of forest sounds, a Polaroid camera, beef jerky, and a flashlight that doubled as a bludgeon in case of "aggressive cryptid encounters."He had never had an aggressive cryptid encounter. He had been chased by a territorial goose once, but that didn't count.Dexter locked his apartment and headed down the creaky stairs of his building, nodding to Mrs. Chen, who was watering her plants in the hallway."Evening, Mrs. Chen.""Evening, Dexter. Chasing ghosts again?""Cryptids, Mrs. Chen. Cryptids.""Same thing," she said, not unkindly.The location for tonight's expedition was Pinewood Trail, a stretch of forest on the edge of town that local teenagers used for parties and late-night dares. According to a post Dexter had found on CryptidWatch Forums, someone had spotted "glowing eyes" and heard "unearthly howls" near the old bridge two nights ago.Dexter's heart raced as he parked his rust-spotted sedan at the trailhead. This was it. This was finally it.He grabbed his gear, locked the car (twice, for good measure), and ventured into the darkness.The forest was alive with sound: crickets chirping, branches rustling, the distant hoot of an owl. Dexter clicked on his headlamp and consulted the map he'd printed earlier, which was already smudged with fingerprints and coffee stains."Bridge should be half a mile in," he murmured.He walked carefully, stopping every few feet to listen. Nothing yet. But that was fine. Cryptids were elusive. That was what made them cryptids.Twenty minutes later, Dexter reached the bridge—a narrow wooden structure that spanned a shallow creek. He knelt down, inspecting the ground with his flashlight."Tracks," he whispered excitedly. "Definitely tracks."They were raccoon tracks. But Dexter chose to interpret them as "inconclusive pending further analysis."He set up his Polaroid camera on a nearby stump, angling it toward the bridge, and activated his voice recorder."Field Log, Entry 247," he began in his most serious tone. "Location: Pinewood Trail. Time: 9:34 PM. Objective: Investigate reports of unidentified glowing-eyed entity. Atmospheric conditions: humid, slight breeze, moderate mosquito activity—"A branch snapped.Dexter froze. His heart hammered in his chest.Another snap. Closer this time.He slowly turned his head, flashlight beam trembling as it swept through the trees."Hello?" he called, voice cracking slightly. "If you're a cryptid, uh, no sudden movements. I'm a professional."Silence.Then, from the darkness, two glowing eyes appeared.Dexter gasped. His hands fumbled for the Polaroid. "Oh my God. Oh my God—"The eyes moved forward.A deer stepped into the clearing, blinking placidly at him.Dexter deflated like a punctured balloon. "Oh. Right. Deer."The deer stared at him for a moment, as if judging his life choices, then wandered off into the underbrush.Dexter stood there for a long moment, alone in the forest, surrounded by his gear and his dreams and the faint sound of mosquitoes."Field Log, addendum," he said quietly into the recorder. "Entity identified as… Odocoileus virginianus. White-tailed deer. Not a cryptid. Expedition concludes at 9:41 PM."He packed up his equipment slowly, trying not to think about how many times this exact scenario had played out.By the time Dexter returned to his apartment, it was nearly 11 PM. He kicked off his boots, tossed his backpack onto the couch, and collapsed into his desk chair.Another failure. Another night of nothing.He pulled up his blog—Quinn's Cryptid Chronicles—and stared at the blinking cursor in a new post draft.Title: Pinewood Trail Investigation – Inconclusive ResultsHe deleted it.Title: Still SearchingHe deleted that too.Finally, he just typed: Title: The Deer Was NiceAnd posted it without elaborating.Three people would read it. Two of them were bots. The third was his mother.Dexter sighed, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling, where a poster of Mothman gazed down at him with unblinking red eyes."One day," Dexter said to Mothman. "One day, it'll be real."Mothman, as always, did not respond.But somewhere in the back of Dexter's mind, beneath the disappointment and the self-deprecating humor, a tiny ember of hope still flickered.Because tomorrow was another day. Another chance. Another expedition.And Dexter Quinn, self-proclaimed cryptozoologist, was nothing if not persistent.End of Chapter 1