[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/FeZhZkw.png[/img] [sub]Banner credit to Nitemare Shape. Thanks Boss![/sub] [hr] [h2]Lost Haven, ME[/h2] [h3]23:45, July 2nd[/h3][/center] The tiny Korean girl leaned back in the bar stool, carefully analysing the shot glass in front of her on the worn and dirty bar top, fingers gripping tightly to the sticky edge of the surface to keep her from falling backwards off of the uneven stool she perched on.. The bartender, probably a local college student of some sort to her expert eye, stood impassively, holding the bottle of cheap vodka carefully. His beard hid the annoyed set to his mouth. “Juuuuusht a little bit more,” the girl slurred, a little too loudly. The music was some sort of standard classic rock, probably Led Zeppelin, but she was too far gone to be paying attention to much beyond the glass, which currently stood a little over full. A slight trickle of liquid left the mouth of the bottle, adding 'just a bit' to the amount already present. She motioned with one hand to stop, but quickly snatched her hand back down to the bar top to catch herself as she swayed dangerously. The man tipped the bottle back upright, quickly spinning the top back on, and nodded to her. He drifted off to replace the bottle before going back to his phone, thumbs rapid-firing over the touchscreen. His uplit face was eerie in the nearly dead bar. She had asked about how a bar could stay open with so little clientele on a weekend night when she first came in, and the answer had disturbed her. Apparently, with all the trouble in the city, fights between metahumans and terrorists, and then more attacks just this past week, no one wanted to be caught out at night. The only other customer in the place, a battered veteran of fifty or so with a missing arm, had told her later that there were whispers of even worse things stalking the streets in this area in particular, but no one had confirmed anything yet in public. She had wanted to find out more, but the thoughts the man had swirly in his head were so twisted and horrible that she had shut up and got drinking for serious a few hours ago, and thanked her lucky stars when he had left shortly after that. Now she was left with memories of [i]his[/i] memories, along with the sneering contempt from the bartender and the background noise of the city that was fading mercifully into silence as she got deeper in the bottle. She was also painfully aware that her size and outfit (a simple tight tee and jeans she could have sworn fit loosely only a few weeks ago) were not conducive to her making it back to her hotel in one piece, if she could even remember where it as from here. But then again, she hadn't planned on getting shitfaced tonight to begin with. She had started the afternoon so well. Sitting in her hotel room, she had begun sifting through the signals she was getting through the city, looking for some sort of source for the things Hannelore had called man-made and which she could not help but think of as 'zombies'. Within an hour, however, she had found the city so psychically drenched in despair that she couldn't stand it, and went looking for a dive bar to dull the ache before she could work again. Unfortunately, Courtney had forwarded pay from another job, one of the rich ones, and her bank account had swelled substantially because they had taken her advice and were happy. Which meant she had plenty of money to put on a bar tab, though her habits were never for the expensive stuff. Volume over voluptuousness, apparently. She carefully pushed herself forward with her mind, tipping back onto the counter, and expertly snatched up the shot glass and downed what felt and tasted like rubbing alcohol. Her stomach churned, and it took several moments for the burn to leave her nose capable of smelling anything again. Not that this place was anything she [i]wanted[/i] to smell. She briefly wondered how often the owner was here, and then thought it was probably better not to ask silly questions. She slammed the glass back down and looked at the boy, but he was engrossed in his phone. [i]Bah. Probably better I don't have another anyway. It's getting-[/i] A wash of fear, not hers, cascaded over her like a bucket of ice water. Shivers ran up her spine. The boy didn't seem to notice or be frightened, which meant in came from outside. She reached for her bag, drawing out the trusty taser which had seen her through several rough situations before, and muttered something probably unintelligible to him, stalking out the door in her sandals. For July, it was still a little chilly in the damp air, and she shivered a little, wishing she had brought her hoodie when she had rushed out of her room, but creature comforts would have to wait. There was....what? A mugging? Rape? She paused, head turning one way or another, eyes firmly shut. First she had to filter out the background noise. There were [i]clearly[/i] a few people in the area boning, some more enthusiastically than others. A couple of angry people, no surprise. There! The fear, shocking in its intensity, but it felt off somehow. And there was something else there, too, a darkness in the bright tapestry of thoughts and emotions. [i]Fuck, I swear if I am this drunk when the zombie apocalypse hits, my ancestors will never forgive me.[/i] She rushed off, tracking the sense with her mind while letting her feet carry her, heedless of direction. Lights breezed by, she stumbled through some sort of homeless camp in an alleyway, and was entirely and thoroughly lost by the time her phone began ringing. She stopped, leaning up against a wal, and tugged it out of her pocket, answering before even looking at the number. “Abigail Cho, Cho Investigationsh, we tell you who died.” “Are you [i]drunk again?[/i]” Abigail stared at the wall in front of her for a few moments before her brain clicked into place with her ears. “[i][b]Mother!?[/b][/i]” The voice on the other end went up an octave. “Don't you Mother me, young lady! It is past midnight, what are you doing so drunk you can barely talk?” <[i]Clearly[/i] minding my own bishness, Mother, and I am a little busy right now.> Abigail shut the phone off and shoved it back into her pocket angrily. Leave it to her family to call when actual lives were actually on the actual line. She took off again, noting that at least the pause had bought her time to catch her breath. For a brief moment, to avoid what looked like might be assholes on a corner, she ducked through the open back door of a liquor store, leaving out the front with the Indian owner yelling what were probably obscenities at her retreating back. She ducked around a corner and fairly flew down another side street, laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all even as she tracked what was turning worse and worse. Anger and pain and fear were swirling in fast and dangerous combinations, and growing closer fast. And then she turned a corner and found what she was looking for. Or, in this case, hoping to never see. As was her habit, she saw and felt the ghosts, first. For one, they were brand new, blazing with an intensity she had only seen once before. She had been called in as a joke for a detective in Davenport, FL. After that she swore to never work a fresh murder again. This brought that oath right back up to bear in her head, but that one had only been one victim, with a clear cause of death. This one was [i]seven[/i], and she wasn't sure what had happened other than it had been violence beyond the pale. The first spirit she ran across she nearly ran directly into as she spun the corner. Half of the young man's face and skull had been torn, leaving the entire right side of his head a gaping, bleeding hole. Past him Abigail could see one woman who had literally had her arms torn off of her and was just standing up from her physical body. Another young man next to her had had his face smashed in against the brick wall next to them. The rest were just as gruesome. She fought it for a second, but her stomach rebelled and she vomited, coughing and gagging on the smell of blood and the taste of bile. The bodies were spread out over a more than twenty foot circle, bright blood pools illuminated by the yellow of the streetlights above. The gutter drain sounded a dribbling echo of horror despite the dry night, and Abigail puked again as she realised that she was getting slammed with more than one layer of it all. The visceral first layer for her eyeballs and nose was bad enough, but then her eyes and ears caught the ghosts as they reacted to dying. Their emotions, both those that clung in the physical world and those echoing from them on the Astral, threatened to overwhelm her completely, until one whiff caught in her mind's eye just a bit stronger than the others. Fear, still clinging to everything, was moving [i]away[/i] from here. [i]The fuck is going on?[/i] she thought to herself, forcing her limbs to cooperate as she moved to follow. Blandly, some of her more logical thoughts caught up as she carefully side-stepped a severed limb and the associated blood. All of these people looked like street toughs, and at least two knives were on the ground. [i]So who attacked who?[/i] The trailing fear outpaced her, and trying to keep up left her winded, though the cool night air was a welcome relief from the charnel-house smell that was slowly fading from her nostrils. She leaned her thighs onto a nearby fence and breathed out, giving up on the chase, and pulled a flask of something cheap and strong out of her jacket pocket and took a swig. Only when she had taken two more did her senses, ringing alarm bells in panic, catch her attention and steer it to the property upon which her rear was currently resting. To her eyes it looked like a normal house and shop combo, but her mind had to pause and stare at the soul of the place, which poured out of the windows and door like a second sun in her Astral sight. This place was definitely good, and fairly aware of it. Either the eople here had loved the place for their entire lives or it had some sort of titanically powerful [i]angel[/i] guarding it. Regardless, her drinking had already retaken her, and with her inhibitions lowered enough, she hopped over the threshold of the fence, meandered up to the door, and knocked, not particularly caring what time it was.