[center] ~-~ 
[img]http://i.imgur.com/EQBkUCi.jpg[/img] 
[i]From the journal of John Cleaver [/i]
~-~ [/center]

From the brief moments that John had actually gotten a glimpse of the bird standing still, he had committed the it all to memory, compiling them all together to form a painting of the noble creature. It had been a hell of a time trying to get time to draw it, the person he seemed to be following rarely stopped for rest other than sleep and brief lulls to eat and drink. Those too had been reducing slowly, was the man running out of food? John’s own supply still had enough for a few more days, thanks to cabin’s stock and the surprise of a running well. 

He still wasn’t sure what the man looked like. He was just [b]too[/b[ damn fast of a walker. After what felt like days, John was exhausted. The only sign that stayed was the brief splash of brown that flew through the sky, the hawk following its master, and it was a man after all. The boot prints were too large to be that of a woman, and its gait was normal enough that John assumed it was no monster tricking him into walking towards doom. Then again, he was sure Doom was all he could hope for in this land. 

As he stared at the image, unsure if it felt right or not, he was startled as he ran straight into an iron wrought fence, waist high and surrounding a cemetery. Even just looking around, John could tell the eery feeling that sat over it was there for a reason. Cracked headstones covered in moss were set in basic rows, only stopped by a lone building set in the middle. An entrance to the catacombs, he supposed. Flying high above was the bird, watching over him as he climbed over the fence. It refused to come down. 

His short walk didn’t last long, there wasn’t much to the place. Nothing he could use, at least. There was just the corpses of the dead, packed tightly together. The ground here felt strange, too. Unlike the normal dry, dead dirt, this dirt felt… alive. Barely. 

John knew that the man had gone down into the crypts, but had no idea whether or not to follow. Even his dumbed down senses could tell it was a trap, intentional or not. Resting grounds for the dead weren’t places you should go, at least not in this world. The lamentations of the damned combined with deep dark places always attracted strange things. 

Death would follow him, but he knew he had to go down there, into the depths. He was frightened, but through the haze of fear, he would find [i]someone.[/i]

His lantern shone bright as he descended the steps, a veritable beacon of hope in darkness that felt ever consuming. He was extremely glad for the light, even though it was going through his limited supply of oil. Without it he would have been stumbling blind. The weapon in his hand scraped against the ground as he dragged in, greatful for the noise in the otherwise silent crypt. 

A loud crunch stopped him in his tracks as he looked around, expecting a great maw crunching the bones of the person. Nothing leaped from the shadows, it was just a skull crushed beneath his boot. John let out a great sigh while bending to examine the skull. It was old, obviously having been in the catacomb for centuries at the least. It was then he noticed a discarded lantern. 

Laying a few meters ahead was a cracked lantern, discarded as if someone had fallen and left it there. Curious, John stood up and loped forward, holding his breath as he got near. Suddenly, there was yelp of fear to his left, and then a [b]ptt-twang[/b] of a crossbow. John let out a gasp of air, pain surging in his leg as he fell forwards, rolling down the stairs and hitting the bottom with a crack, stunned and immobile as he listened to a dragging sound.