#protectisms

Scully sighed heavily despite having promised herself that she would do her best to disguise her disdain. But really, it was bad enough that people in this town were going around saying ghosts had murdered the young couple, or vengeful spirits, or even some kind of demonic possession, but there were also now so-called investigators who took all those claims seriously? 

With the amount of strange cases these two have been involved in, they could be an X-File themselves, Scully, Mulder had smirked as he’d handed her the file. She supposed she should be grateful they didn’t look like Ghostbusters. 

“ thank you. ” his voice sounded both exhausted and relieved. He sat down, a faint glimmer of hope surfacing in his enervated eyes as he looked at the couple. This was the first Buckley had ever consulted another team of investigators — he certainly wouldn’t have done so if he was confident he could handle the case on his own. But, this disturbance started to affect him similarly to how it unsettled those convinced it was no hoax.

For a while, reassuring himself that he was losing his mind as a byproduct of sleep deprivation was enough. that could very well have been the case. Phenomena followed him into his dreams. He could scarcely close his eyes for a half hour before being drawn from his body to confront an entity whose shadowy form made the environment shiver as one might when anticipating death. And so, in an effort to avoid this presence, he made every attempt to stay awake.

He soon found that loitering in diners at odd hours and drinking one coffee after the next, wasn’t enough to keep the nightmare at bay. Unlike his encounters with spirits, this force seemed to exude from everything. It was as though, from the moment he experienced a spike in activity, the world had been absorbed by a dark atmosphere.

If the Warrens couldn’t help him figure out how he’d managed to trick himself into perceiving small things like dead birds or otherwise harmless electrical malfunctions as an omen of death, he would consider consulting a psychiatrist. The existence of the paranormal was debatable. Sometimes it has a mundane explanation, other times … it’s all in your head.

Tom placed his elbows on the table and exhaled uncomfortably. His thumb brushed a fresh gauze bandage wrapped around his palm. “ so uh … where should I start ? ”

It should be in a museum.

That was the most frequent thing said about the carving, nestled on black velvet inside of an otherwise plain box. It had a hand written label on the top that simply read Netsilik amulet - walrus tusk. The carving itself appeared to be a polar bear with a long, outstretched, neck and its limbs held close to its body.

The sentiment that it should have been in a museum was repeated far more frequently than the more truer one: that it should be returned to the people who made it. What was undoubtedly true, regardless, was the fact that it shouldn't have been up for private sale. And it most certainly shouldn't have made its way to the Eastern United States, in the suburban home of Jeremy Baker.

Jeremy justified the purchase with his fascination with the Arctic, and the doomed Franklin Expedition. Apparently, the amulet had been discovered on King William Island, in an area the expedition was rumored to have crossed. It had been an incredible find, both for the world, and for Jeremy -- who couldn't believe that it was available for private sale. There was a good chance that it was a fake, but he couldn't risk it being real and him missing out. He bought a few scraps of worn paper along with it that were equally as suspect. Maybe he'd get them appraised in the future, but for now... he'd put them in his display case.

It was smaller than he had expected, but heavy in his hand. It felt good to rub his thumb over all of the grooves carved into the walrus bone, but it always made something in his hand kind of...ache.

The dreams didn't start immediately and he really wouldn't have thought much about them. He'd been fascinated with the Arctic since he was a child, and that lead to him dreaming about it often. What made the dreams different was the pervasive sense that he was being followed. Watched.

It bled over into the waking world. Every once in awhile, he would feel the hair go up on the back of his neck -- like a prey animal in the sights of a predator. But there was nothing there. Nothing to trigger the alarm bells.

Then his wife and daughter started to complain about weird dreams. Dreams of desolation and ice, dreams of a frozen sea. His daughter woke the whole household up screaming that there was a bear with human eyes looking at her through her window.

Things only got worse from there.