#orphanedshadow

"Keep out" signs had never really been much of a deterrent for Ellie - if anything, she'd always found them to be points of interest. An invitation, even.

The resort had been blockaded years ago. Most of the buildings were little more than collapsed, charred roofs and scorched stone walls spotted with smoke stained hollow window frames. Long abandoned cars, a couple RVs and a tour bus, or what was left of them between the fire, the fight between the infected and survivors here years before, nature reclaiming its' hold and the planned avalanche to collapse any way in and out of the valley niche peeked out here and there.

The whole place had been declared persona non grata after losing one too many people to trying to clear out the infected, even after an attempt at a control burn. Joel and a few others had done the math, and after much badgering, Ellie had convinced Joel to let her be there when they closed it off. How often was she going to get the chance to see somebody blow up a mountain?!

It'd been one of her favorite places to sneak off to since. She was supposed to be shoveling sheep shit. She'd badgered and bribed one of the younger kids in Jackson to take her shift - a common enough occurrence that she was surprised none of the adults had figured it out yet. She liked coming here. It was quiet. It was fun. It was dangerous. She'd been working her way through the shambling mushroom heads the last few months. It was good practice. Plus, there was still plenty of nooks and crannies left, under the rubble and in the bottom floors and basements of the buildings to make it worth the effort.

And where else was she going to get to practice her combat skills without someone hovering over her like she was a baby duckling?

Okay, so maybe this time she could've used another set of eyes. She wasn't expecting a two-for-one special. She'd managed to take the first shambler out, but had been caught off guard by the second sneaking up on her from behind, and she'd chosen the ungraceful route of retreat into the main resort building - she'd been through it before, enough to know a few good hiding places, ones that required shimmying that the clumsy, blind infected couldn't manage. And she'd known there wouldn't be anybody alive in there. Not with the spores and the swamp muck of rotting infected that had taken over what was left of the kitchen and root cellar.

Except, by the time she'd gathered her calm and forced her breath to steady, and flicked the flashlight on to survey her surroundings, she saw pretty much the exact opposite of what she was expecting. Sure, there was still muck and swampy mushroom people parts on the outer edges of the walls and floors of the giant kitchen ... but there was a distinctly and suspiciously clean patch around the stairs leading down. "What the fucking fuck--?"

hunters are usually one of two things when it came to a case. a hindrance or a reluctant help. especially if the hunter is against the continual existence of ghosts on the mortal plane. with how long he's been around edwin is capable of spotting one fairly easily. the familiar weaponry and look of violence in their eyes. it's rather depressing and he just hopes she falls on the kinder side of the spectrum.

not that he'd let her catch him if she didn't.

There was very little about the last few days of his life that made a great deal of logical sense to him right about now; maybe, one day, after he had the time necessary to process how he'd gone from being transported from the Halo to this once Covenant controlled world, to fighting for his life against the remnant creatures of the Flood that had somehow managed to survive and perpetuate themselves here for ... decades, centuries? to ... watching the inky shapeless entity that he'd dubbed Rex in honor of his childhood dog sink into a vat of goop and come out .....

Human shaped?

Maybe. One day, very very far from now, he might have all the pieces he needed to put the particulars of this puzzle together.

The creature had started out as little more than a shapeless entity, the feeling of eyes on him that he couldn't shake. Only after he'd winged it with a spray of bullets had it even taken any form that he could recognize as anything other than shadows and he still wasn't entirely clear as to why it hadn't retaliated and tried to eat him, and instead, settled for consuming the Flood entity that had been moments away from trying to swallow him whole, but here they were.

He'd taken to talking to it, maybe just to keep him a little more sane, maybe to convince himself that there was some kind of sentience in there for his own comfort. It hadn't taken him long to realize that maybe there actually was.

By the time they'd made it to the safety of the underground bunker of the original owners of the foundry, he'd accepted that he was stuck with it -- and it hadn't been the worst partnership he'd ever found himself in, though maybe the most unlikely.

He'd watched, equally wary and fascinated, as the entity had slurped its way out of the vat of ... nutrients, that it had consumed, fascinated by the attempt it had made to find form and function. Or at least form. The helmet that he'd removed on entering the safety of the bunker was recording everything. He expected Cortana would have much to say about this later on. "Right." His brow furrowed a little as fingers formed, and conveyed a response. "Right." Definitely not a dog.

"No biting. That seems like a good first ground rule," John said. "You don't bite me, and I won't bite you." Sounded like a good plan.

send ⛓️ to find my muse bloody, bruised and restrained

It hadn't been enough for them to simply subdue and restrain him. They'd taken their time, working him over, each of them taking their pound of flesh -- vengeance, they called it, for the members of their crew he'd taken out -- he'd called that self preservation, he saw that as common sense, but clearly, they hadn't seen it his way. Still, he hadn't begrudged them their bloodshed. He supposed they'd expect him to be grateful that they'd kept him breathing.

The prison guards had been pleased enough to seen him already tenderized. Less trouble, they'd assumed, if he was already limping when they threw him into the pit that they assumed would be his home until he drew his last breath. Another super max, with deeper and darker holes, and inescapable.

Just like the last one. And the one before that.

They hadn't bothered to take off the restraints before dumping him down the chute. They were paid for breathing bodies, and until they found him without a pulse, they could keep his name on the books. That's as far as their concern went.

The chains that draped from wrist to wrist, and ankle to ankle, had been an impediment, sure, but they'd also served as weapon enough to get the bravest of the prisoners off of him, when they'd swarmed him. He'd stripped the bodies of their shirts, and a jacket, which he'd spent the last hour tearing into strips that he'd wrapped the manacles and chains in - enough to keep them from wearing his skin raw, and more importantly, to muffle the clanks that would be the biggest giveaway of his location to anyone that wanted to hunt him.

Inevitably, there would be someone, that wanted to make a name for themselves. They'd have to find him first.

He'd managed to squirrel himself into one of the deeper, darker tunnel systems. One that not many people would be physically capable of traversing, and that almost none would have the ability to navigate without light that would give away their approach. He'd settled back, liquid silver eyes half closed, his breath and heart rate easing into a slow and steady pace as he let himself relax. Almost doze.

It was often difficult to sift fact from fiction when it came time to research the history of places that she and Ed had been asked to investigate. Time itself eroded much in the way of facts, often leaving only distorted oral histories and superstitions in place of anything concrete that might offer a lead as to who, or what, was corrupting, or haunting a house, or land leaving it, more times than not, for Lorraine to have little choice but to trust her instincts and her sight to reveal the truth when she arrived on location.

Initially, it had seemed that this would be the same. While there were plenty of rumors, and local legends about the property (a forty-odd acre expanse of land, complete with a dilapidated and barely-begun-remodeled mansion) to fuel the imagination, it hadn't taken the Warrens long to realize that whatever had taken root on the land seemed to have been present for quite some time, and had been rather well documented over the last century and a half. Crops, rotting and withered; diseased and desiccated herds; adolescents and adults, the elderly, all falling ill and into fits of madness - newspaper articles, even the occasional media news clips, in more recent decades, medical reports for some and lab results from tests run for radiation, metal or infectious diseases, fungal infections, poisons, chemical run off and more filled the boxes that were in the trunk of Lorraine's station wagon.

She suspected that this case would be unusual in more ways than just the abundance of potential proof, though why she could not explain just yet. A bedroom, most of the kitchen, one bathroom and the study had been mostly completed with the modern renovations before construction had been halted, and she had passed her first night in the house with surprising ease.