Two hundred year-old rotten wood decidedly did not make for good, stable footing.
Crimson cursed colorfully as the latest creaking beam, a too-perfect bridge from a higher level, began to give out under her. Quickly abandoning it before it could collapse fully and she could fall another fifty feet, Crimson practically threw herself with a little too much practiced skill to the towering rubble slide that had formed at the bottom of the haphazard shaft of ancient, overgrown buildings and settled earth she’d been making her way down. Keeping her center of gravity low, she skidded down the steep slope as it gave way in a more predictable, rideable manner, jogging off the last few steps as it slowed and evened out.
The distant glow of daylight barely bounced around to help see this deep into the half-buried structures she’d been exploring. The encroaching overhangs of old human architecture, either too spacious or too cramped in her opinion, didn’t particularly help, even if she came properly equipped…
… but her usual internal grousing about the finer points faded into background noise as she caught the sound of a creaking door coming from inside the dilapidated structure to her right.
“there ya are,” she grinned, sharp grin curling sharper. “‘bout time, after ya teased me this whole damn way-”
Despite her bulk and the added weight of her own gear securely buried in the bag slung from her shoulder, she moved quietly through the debris of the half-collapsed structure and past the threshold of one of those strange modular human dwellings she’d been exploring for years now. The light of her flashlight suddenly felt a lot more effective, able to bounce off of closer walls and the gleam of once-shiny human belongings. Old picture frames, metallic knick knacks, the glimmer of some shattered glass here and there…
Inside was hardly in better shape than outside, but there was something decidedly more intense in the atmosphere the moment the doorway was behind her. Darkness clung to the ceilings, the corners, just around bends both her flashlight and the light clipped to her jacket couldn’t quite reach…
The shadows were all just a little too dark, and Crimson’s bones itched with the familiar feeling of being in a place that didn’t entirely want to be found.
Ghost hunting was a messy business, one she’d been in for years now, though not a lot of monsters were too tempted to venture into the densest sites of human ruins and risk becoming the latest victim of something even their knack for magic had trouble explaining. The remnants of human society that had suddenly ceased to be an unknowable amount of time before monsters had surfaced in the world… well, they were interesting as much as dangerous. She had always been the type to appreciate a good mess, and damn if the very real specters of a species that had since vanished didn’t entice her to explore the overgrown and half-buried ruins of the society that had ended without warning.
And this particular spirit she was eyeing the entrance room for a sign of was a hell of a lot more intriguing than the usual angry remnant inclined to drop half a ceiling on her.
… For all the odd quirks of this one, though, the strangest part was that this spirit hadn’t clung to one area like most did- no, Crimson had been tracking them for a few days now. Each time she’d sworn she’d finally lost the damned trail, some little wisp of a sound had been picked up by her audio equipment, or there had been that tell-tale sharp chill that had brought icy crystals to an exhale, or her camera had caught the tail of a spectral glow slipping through some wall she hadn’t seen a crack in-
There was something to this one. Something that might just throw a damn light on the maddening mystery of what had happened to the humans.
“alright, ghostie, ya guided me this far… what is it you want me to see…?”
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