Ghost Story

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TRANSCRIPT OF WITNESS RECOUNT OF THE MURDER OF Matthew Murdock. LOCATION: TERRA INTERROGATION CELLS, NOVA YORKA DATE: 223.M41 I’m afraid I can tell you little more than I have done so already. I have sufficient knowledge of the extent your Law [Expletive Deleted] are willing to go to not attempt to mislead you. If you are unwilling to believe that which I have told you multiple times before it is simply due to the unwillingness of the majority of humanity to accept that which lies beyond the scope of their normal experience. I say again I did not murder Matthew Murdock. I will not deny that I was the last human to see him alive, nor will I deny my presence with him at the entrance to the deeper cities. The Nova Yorka Catacombs(mazes of the cities beneath Terra proper), upon which the metropoli of the planet where built, and beneath which the inhabitants of the dark times were trapped, those pitiable souls who were incapable of securing transport to the newer cities were trapped. Into these mazes, I will not deny, me and my friend, Murdock, descended. That fact is not in dispute, but what occurred beneath the metropoli of terra you seem unwilling to accept. I say again, we entered those dark catacombs, remnants of the barbaric times scattered around us. There was no light that filtered through the cracks of the world above to allow us to see in that place, although our other senses were not thus impaired. The area smelled of dust, and of dried up blood and rotted carcasses. The silence was broken solely by our footsteps, which echoed throughout the caverns for minutes on end. The air felt counter-intuitively thick, as much air was blocked off from the upper levels, there was no way for it to access the caverns. Despite this the air felt so thick it was a constant pressure upon my skin. Prior to entry Murdock had forbade me to speak, so he could keep count of the steps he took, with no sensory input to give him knowledge of his location. As time went on, unable to see the end of the tunnel I began to think it infinite. While Murdock gave me the occasional instruction to turn right or left, I felt myself to be utterly isolated, alone in the darkness. After a indeterminable time spent walking, I was startled by a sudden yell of surprise and a heavy thump. “STOP! Stop stop stop! We are here!” I heard my friend call, his deep, basso voice echoing in the cavernous, seemingly infinite catacombs, and he being the expert in ancient-earth archaeology, I did so. I heard a rustling, and strained, in vain, to see what was going on despite the lack of light. This area, more than others, the air seemed thick. The pressure upon my skin was almost painful here. The rustling abruptly stopped, and the eternal shadow was broken by a blinding light, the light caused me such pain that I reflexively covered my eyes with my hand, after a moment, I saw fit to remove my hand from my eye so I could see what has caused the light, and saw the light was not in fact bright, but my eyes had simply become so accustomed to the absolute darkness it seemed that by comparison. It came from a small trapdoor in the ground, runes I could not recognise nor describe lined the walls of the chute it led to, those runes let off a dim, sickly green flickering glow. “Michael,” My friend said, his voice echoing so greatly after his first few words it became difficult to differentiate between his voice and the echo. “When we venture down into this portion of the catacombs, we go down into an area long since abandoned by those whom exist solely in the world of three perceivable dimensions. Even those humans of the dark times did not venture here. You will stay with me, Michael, for if you leave my sight the mortality of humanity will most likely be shown once again. Do you understand?” Murdock was never a cowardly man, quite the opposite in fact. He frequently went into places others would simply refuse to even attempt to enter due to fear, and came out unshaken. The simple fact he seemed almost scared of what is down in those tunnels unnerved me greatly. Despite this, I was unwilling to go this far into the catacombs without completing the task I came into this place to perform. And besides, without my friend, who would never consent to returning now, was the only one who could guide me back. If I attempted to venture back alone the darkness would consume me and I would be killed by the cannibals who are reputed to inhabit here. I agreed to enter those tunnels again. We carefully climbed down the chute, the cold stone of the walls and the sickly green glow of the runes giving a feeling of death and decay, the smell of rotting corpses (Which I recognised from a trip to Calderon... Don’t ask) only served to add to that impression. As we descended down the chute the air grew ever thicker, almost smotheringly so. Eventually we reached the bottom of the chute and found ourselves in a room lit solely by the glow from the runes of the above chute. That light cast shadows everywhere, and their occasional flickering gave an impression of movement being concealed within them. The room looked like a page from a history lesson, huge, wooden rectangular containers used to house the shells of the dead lay ordered in rows, each one individually carved with the image of an ancient torture implement. The ground was made of damp biomass, and, from what we can see, so were the walls. A huge, torture implement stood laid against the wall, green rust spread all across its surface. Murdoch looked around, amazed, moving between each container to inspect it, and spending a good half minute marvelling at the torture implement against the wall. “I’ve got to see the inside of one of these things!” He exclaimed, taking from his pack a large crowbar. He picked a container, which upon closer inspection had runes carved below the image of the instrument of torture, shapes which were faded into illegibility. At its base and across some of its side grew small fungi, most likely poisonous, I decided. With the care of a medical man, Murdoch used the crowbar to open one container. It opened with a loud, slow creak. The smell of a rotting cadaver rose from it, and suddenly an explosion of dust erupted from its interior. I stepped back, startled at the sudden eruption, and clumsily toppled over a container behind me. I blinked no small amount of dust from my eyes and covered my mouth with my sleeve so as to not inhale any. The dust in addition to the pressure of the thick air was most uncomfortable, as particles of grit played across my already smothered skin. FURTHER ACCESS DENIED TO CURRENT AUTHORITY LEVEL BY Senator Utaron •••••••••••••• Please enter the relevant exceptions code

Validating... You may proceed The dust made seeing anything beyond a foot before me nigh impossible, but I could quite clearly make out a form in front of me, Murdoch I reasoned. I called out to him, asking why the dust was so thick. No reply, and the form moved, no, nigh glided through the dust. I called out again, this time asking why the dust had not now settled as it logically should have. The form did not reply this time either, but it suddenly stopped, inhumanly frozen. Humans do not stop like that, they still move, still breathe. This form just stopped, as a statue would. A voice called out from behind me, “Michael, where are you?”. Murdoch. The form in front of me was not my friend, but another entity entirely. The form glided through the dust towards me, and I froze, realising that this entity must be millennia old. I watched it, unable to move for fear that it would incite hostility in it, as it glided inhumanly, steadily, towards me. Murdoch called to me again, asking my location. The entity must have been not thirty centimetres in front of me, and I could from this distance see no substance within it. As if it were not something within the vision-obscuring dust, but the dust itself formed into an anthropomorphic form. Every instinct I had told me to bolt, but I could not move my legs to do so. It reached out what appeared to be a hand to touch me, and my instincts screamed at me to run. But frozen by terror I remained. I heard a yell of frantic warning from Murdoch, and a yell of agony, nigh-unrecognisable as having come from a human throat, and that sudden sound spurred me to action. I finally turned to move away from the entity, to run. I felt a rough surface brush against my back, and from there I have only fractions of memories to tell me what occurred. My mind twisted, and my legs must have buckled because I felt myself colliding with the floor. I recall a voice calling out, but I do not recall or could not make out what was said, I recall being dragged to the ladder and up the chute, and of walking through the blackness for another indeterminate amount of time. And I recall being here, in hospital treated for radiation burns. But despite this fracture of my memory, I know full well what occurred down here. We inadvertently released a creature from the ancient times. A creature laid dormant for millennia, and a creature not bound by the three dimensions humanity can perceive, and a creature that most certainly killed my friend. DOCUMENT SEALED TO PUBLIC ACCEDD BY Senator Utaron DESTROY ALL RELATED DOCUMENTS ELIMINATE ALL RELATED PERSONNEL ELIMINATE WITNESS SANITISE THE NOVA YORKA CATACOMBS