The darkness was pierced by a brief flicker of light and then the next slide appeared before the gathered throng.

The darkness was pierced by a brief flicker of light and then the next slide appeared before the gathered throng. It was an unusual image. It depicted what appeared, at first glance, to be a young girl of indeterminate age with long blue-black locks. Just about the time that thought registered, however, the realization that this was anything but a young girl hit us like a ton of bricks.

“Is this what I think it is?” Matt asked, leaning forward, his elbows on the table like a hungry man getting ready for the turkey to be sliced at Thanksgiving.

Carter, the fellow in control of this little presentation, said nothing. The slight twitch of the end of an eyebrow was telling, however.

“This has got to be ‘shopped, folks. I would not get all worked up about it.” Thomas (true to his name-sake) poo-pooed the whole thing outright and immediately. He’d barely even looked at it, of course.

“I don’t know, it looks legit to me,” Ginger sounded off. She was the newest member of the Observer; that fact, and that she self-identified as a “workplace oppressed female” made her desperate to have her opinions heard and validated.

Matt Olsen, senior reporter of the yellow rag known as The Orbis Observer, stared intently at the image for a long time. His eyes roved over every fragment of the picture, like a ravenous scavenger picking clean the bones of a carcass.

If the image was real, it was a doozy. What had appeared to be a girl was actually some form of free-ranging specter. The thing had no legs—its lower form vanishing beneath tendrils of floating ethereal cloth—and her visage was lacking some major anatomical features, namely a nose and eyeballs with irises and pupils installed. The thing—we referred to it as a she—had hands, but they were blunted and ended in oddly glowing orangey-yellow fingernails that were a matched set to her blocky, donkey-like teeth.

She wore one of those unusual oriental necklaces that appear to be made of giant spheres (no one knew the name of them) but these seemed to be crafted of jade, or some other exotic-looking green stone. Beneath the billowy, gauzy robe, her torso seemed to be covered in old yellowed funereal wrappings from the base of her skull all the way down to…well, nothingness.

The picture had been snapped at night, and there were three strange orbs of yellow-white fire floating in the air around her. The orbs were in no way supported by anything that could be discerned with the naked eye.

Carter let the fuzzy whirr of the projector fill the room for a few moments and then cleared his throat. “I can see you’re all stumped. Well, this is what I pay you Journalism School Drop-Outs for, ain’t it? This picture was taken last night in Chinatown at eleven fifty-six in th’ PM in an alleyway between a Chinese takeout joint called Hong-Fong’s Happy Tummy and a Buddhist Temple whose name I’m not even going to try and pronounce. Get out there and see what’s what, people. MOOVE!”

The room was empty before “MOO”.

Art Source: "Ghost" (c)/by Vaejoun
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #tenetstales, #Tenet, #TheOrbisObserver, #MattOlsen, #Sector7, #ghoststory, #ghost, #paranormal, #investigator

"There is nothing for us here."

"There is nothing for us here."

My voice echoed flatly, dully, off the corroded cavern. When I say corroded, I mean it. This wasn't one of those lovely, well-maintained underground attractions that you see on the side of the highway. Garishly painted signs visually blare, "COME VISIT DEEPING DARK CAVERN!" or "SEE THE NINTH WONDER OF THE WORLD TODAY!" No, not this hole in the ground. It was apparently all some twisted trick.

I began to wonder just who was in charge of this place, and if I stood any chance whatsoever of getting my sixty drachmas back from the half-asleep, half-bored-out-of-his-gourd attendant. This place was filthy: there were actual bones littered around the mud-slicked floors and untold decades of trash and detritus that the living invariably leave behind. Graffiti was sprayed and splayed all across the walls and I was pretty sure that the massive grey lump in the corner was some sort of grimy, mold-covered mattress.

Yeesh.

I rubbed my thin hand over my face and worked a weary sigh out of my sunken cheeks. I could sense the build up even before it happened. My Darling Little Princess was about to unleash her wrath... "But Father! You promised that this cave would be different! You said it would be enchanting and exciting and wonderful and amazing and-"

I held up a hand and tried to stave off the mounting tirade. "Yes, yes, I know Princess. I thought it would be much nicer than this, believe me." My attempt failed and she continued to wail. A part of me, deep down, just wanted to throw in the towel. I could tell by her ever-increasing pitch that my wonderful spawn, Gloriana, was settling in for a long, screaming fit.

Princess: 1, Father: 0.

I heaved a sigh and accepted the fact that this was a battle I was doomed to lose. It was that exact moment that my wife wailed into me and things changed from the mere loss of a single battle to the decimation of the entire war. "I thought you knew where we were going, Harold! You said that this place would be a delight and is it a delight? NO! It is NOT a delight at all, Harold."

"Yes, dear." I gasped. "I'm going to go see if we can get our drachmas back." I don't even think she heard me, because I could still hear her wailing all the way at the entrance of the cavern. As I made my way out of the staggeringly disappointing hole in the ground (I mean, honestly - how hard is it to have an impressive hole in the ground, anyway?), I must admit that I was a little confused. A stiff autumn wind whipped around me, stirring the golden leaves into an eddy around my form. Everything that I expected to see before me had changed: the parking lot was deserted, the gate attendant utterly absent, and his post was little more than a mass of moldy wood. I figured that my sixty drachmas were gone too.

Figured.

A couple of kids--living kids--had replaced all that and stood before me, looks of focused curiosity plastered across their pimply, post-pubescent faces. They both held small, odd-looking devices in their hands, and they seemed to be looking through them at the world beyond. It was almost as if they were wielding two tiny windowpanes, through which they were able to glean something about their environment that their eyes alone could not covey. As they panned slowly across the mouth of the cave, their spying eyes finally fell upon me.

The looks on their faces switched from honed interest to outright fear. The girl mouthed the words, "It's...HIM" while the boy screwed up his nerve enough to stammer out a question, despite his quivering lips.

"O, gloomy and ghostly King of the Deeping Dark Cave, please tell us why you look so full of despair."

I heaved another sigh. "Kid, you have no idea...."   

Art Source: "KING OF THE DEAD" (c)/by RM73
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #ghost, #twist, #king, #queen #princess, #cave, #spooky, #ghostworld