The Investigation Chronicles (Completed)

Spectre

"They didn't believe me when I told them I was dead."

Cerin -

The ground quivered under our suffocating power. We had been blessed with a new moon and I felt that this time would be different. Many spectres wandered throughout the night, giggling and cackling in the shadows of their hosts. It was possible to see their faint outlines, as if the blurred shadows had been warped to become more concrete.

Few were strong enough to break free, but those became the ghosts that haunt the night. Many were lost and looking for solace, yet there were some that were brimming with malice. The city was weirdly quiet that night, as if it knew something we didn't.

The birds were hushed, there was no breeze, the city was void of noise. I saw the humans walk as if everything was normal, but it wasn't. They didn't know, they couldn't have known. Humans couldn't see the spectres that hid in their shadows, not that any would want to. With their pits for eyes and dirty teeth, the few humans that could see them went insane.

Some spectres looked human, but on nights like this, the real demons crawling in the shadows could be seen. They reached out from their hosts, as if trying to claw their way back to the real world. Less ghosts were out, but there were more phantoms. The phantoms could barely hold a human shape, often letting their insanity from an unnatural break from a host take hold of them.

The cobblestone path began to shift from underneath my weight. The phantoms cackled in the distance, their figures shifting by the second. The ghosts began to whisper secrets amongst themselves as they backed from the path. The spectres became quiet as they waited for something.

"Hello there, Grimmy," a voice came from the shadows.

A figure came into the light, their human form hazy. They looked at me with curious eyes and a hand on the hip. A cane appeared from behind them and the figure let out a sigh of relief when the cane was under their grip. With the clacking of the cane, they stepped closer to me and with every step, they would stop, look around, then continue to move.

"Stop looking at me like that child, I ain't no blind man, unlike you, I can see that this is a beautiful staff. Yet, I assume that you are now able to comprehend who I am." The figure cracked their back and the cane molded into a staff that slithered up their arm like a vine.

"Are you Grim?" The figure looked at me for a moment before laughing, understanding the joke.

"Well, it appears my sources were correct. Your essence is waking them. Come with me." As I was about to speak, their eyes began to swirl and turn black.

I gulped and followed behind them, placing each step where they stepped last. The figure seemed to have enough of me following them and stopped. They turned around and looked down on me, raising a brow. With a hand on my face, my head was thrown to each side as they examined me.

"You may call me Orion, but," Orion whispered another name into my ear, "for emergencies only."

With a gust of wind, Orion stopped and slammed the staff into the ground. The virus grew, swallowing up everything that was in its path. The phantoms that were once a nuisance, were finally gone, put to rest. The ghosts stood there, silent and unmoving, until they were all swallowed in one go.

Placing my hand on Orion's shoulder, I was met with shining blue eyes full of tears. Once all the ghosts and phantoms were gone, Orion's shaking figure made its way to a bench. The staff unfurled itself from Orion and became a cane once more. I noticed than another white streak decorated Orion's red hair.

"I wasn't supposed to take this job, my body cannot hold the essence required for it." Orion rested on the bench, closing their eyes for a moment.

"May I be of assistance?" Orion glanced at me and shook their head with a sigh.

"There are too many of you, yet none of strong enough. I need a successor, yet there is no one. At this rate I'm going to die before the next one is born."

Orion gripped onto the cane, looking off into the distance. It wasn't late, we both knew the spirits shouldn't have been awake. The sun hadn't set, so they weren't at their strongest. There would be more that came, and they would come soon.

"You can feel that too, can't you?" The ripples in the air made it glitter as the waves were disturbed with waking death.

"They're rising," my voice quivered as the ripples became deafening.

A hand clasped around my throat gently. Until, it gripped tight and threw me back against a tree. With a groan, I grip onto the bark and steady myself as I rise. The tree swayed with the energy and I felt it move beneath me with its breath.

There weren't enough of us. The spectres were breaking free of their masters at an unprecedented rate. Orion was struggling, the spectres only replacing the ones that previously were there. The magic in the air made me sway and tingling began in my fingers.

My eyes became heavy and I began to see flickers of light float in front of me. Letting down my guard, the magic travelled through me. Channeling its energy, I felt that it had an unusual presence. Once we were ready, I released it back.

The essence winded its way through the ground, taking over the demons that crawled from the depths. They withered in my suffocating grasp and turned to ash. Working together with Orion, we were able to hold them off for awhile. Then they began to multiply, coming from nowhere.

The spirits couldn't hold shape, the essence was too strong in the air. It began to flow down into the ground, making the Earth crack at the seams. Where Orion was fighting the spirits, a sink hole had begun to form. Without a thought, I released a rope and brought Orion safely away from it as the spirits fell in.

With a silent thank you, we continued to work. It was a dance, our energies free flowing and mixing together. Orion watched my back as I did the same, protecting the land we stood upon. I wasn't sure at the time if Orion could feel it, but the ground was beginning to shake again, and the essence with malice became suffocating.

The spirits begun falling to the ground, one by one they sunk into the depths. Cracking began underneath me, the spirits around me dispersing. Without giving me time to escape, the ground gave way and I fell through the Earth. It wasn't fast, gravity didn't work the same in the other realms. I knew I was travelling to the spirit realm, feeling the life drain from me.

The darkness began to consume me, my essence unable to save me, with my last breath I screamed, "Evangelos!"