I sped off with my newly found Charger through the fields, weaving through machine sites and small settlements until I decided to make a quick stop at a shelter to collect my thoughts. Even though I have rested enough at Plainsong, there's something feeling terribly off about this whole case that I couldn't even bring myself to get to it without procrastinating. As I trotted closer to the shelter, I spotted a figure sitting by a rock on which a sign pointing to two opposite directions glowed in a hologram image only I could see for an obvious reason.
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"You're getting close to the Haunted Ground, Outlander." I instantly halted to a stop the moment I heard the solemn voice coming from the figure. Through the dim lighting, I could see that the person who was talking to me was none other than a lone middle aged female Tenakth.
"What can you tell me about it?" I asked hoping that I wouldn't be met with the same nonsense I had received back at Plainsong. And so I have been given the info that perfectly matched with everything I have been through and heard.
"Do you believe in ghosts, Carja?"
"I don't know. Do you?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. The world is full of mysteries that are simply far beyond our reach and understanding. That doesn't mean they should be brushed off as mere folklore or scary bedtime stories. Some things don't need to be understood; but simply be accepted."
"Gotta agree to that. Who knows what else the world is hiding from us? Well, thanks for the warning." I excused myself before trotting the rest of the way to the shelter so I could sit for the moment and think. Ok, so everyone seems to think that this is the doing of spirits and ghosts. Ahmik was the only one who said it was the jinn but aren't the jinn ghosts as well? Assuming any of this was real, the... 'spirits' or 'jinn' or whatever ghostly stuff out there might have been possessing the Tenakth corpses I've seen this morning and somehow made the bodies move. They weren't brought back to life by any means – they were still pretty much dead. But some weird force is controlling those empty soul-less shells and make them cause trouble. But question is how did those Tenakth die in the first place? If they were ghosts, could they really kill a living human? If the horror videos I've seen of the Old Ones were any good reference, they weren't horribly deadly. Though they could hurt you through indirect means by pushing you, dragging you or throwing rocks and pebbles at yo – ugh, what the fuck am I thinking?
I shook my head in an attempt to shrug off all that craziness. I must have let all that talk about paranormal entities get to my head. No, it has to be a disease. Some kind of mystery illness is spreading in its own way but... no. That doesn't sound very reasonable as well. I had to remind myself that diseases are caused by bacteria and viruses. They won't do much to a dead body. I hate to admit it, but I'm beginning to feel that the notion about ghosts being the culprits is slightly more plausible than the disease theory if not downright believable. Diseases don't just reach you out of nowhere or make you giggle like a moron. But ghosts literally move through walls and reach you. My heart began to sink as I remembered that Tsulu was acting in the same way the possessed people I've seen from the videos do.
