Amateur Detective Files On Paranormal Encounters

A New Clue

“What, what... what is the problem?”

“What did I say?”

Panting heavily as he ran, the man struggled to catch his breath while responding to Duncan, who was giving him a fierce look that made the man want to hide in a crevice.

Not caring for the man’s feelings, though, Duncan quickly repeated himself.

“What you said just now; repeat it again.”

Pondering what he said that could make Duncan react this way, the man cautiously said, “...I found myself surrounded?”

“No, not that,” Duncan immediately denied, his temper rising; but knowing that getting worked up would not resolve anything, he forced himself to calm down before clarifying.

“Where did you say you found yourself in after appearing here?”

“Oh, that!”

Finally understanding what Duncan wanted to hear, the man quickly said, “Yeah, as soon as I suddenly appeared here, I was in a large open field with nothing but those freaking creatures in sight.”

“I swear I was completely terrified when I saw their hideous faces. I felt like I’d arrived in hell and that I would...”

Before he could continue what he was about to say, Duncan quickly interrupted the other man and said to him instead, “Are you sure it was an open area you appeared in and not somewhere else like underground or a cave or something?”

Confused by the question, the man shook his head and answered, “No, it wasn’t. I’m very sure it was out in the open because as soon as I saw those creatures I immediately bolted, which is why I wasn’t eaten.”

After speaking, the man suddenly became suspicious and asked Duncan, “What is this all about?”

“What’s so important about where I ended up in after arriving here?”

Feeling that Duncan knew something, the man questioned him, trying to get some answers out of Duncan; but he was directly ignored by the latter, who was completely lost in thought.

“How can this be? I thought that everybody who enters this realm will find themselves buried in a grave like I was, so how did he appear out in the open instead?”

“Was he just lucky, or is this also how the ghost realm operates... some people are buried when they enter while others appear outside?”

“If so, then what differentiates these two scenarios from each other... what am I missing here?”

Racking his head intensely, Duncan tried to figure out what he was missing.

When it came to the supernatural, oftentimes, every supernatural force had its own set of rules.

Like the pieces of a puzzle or an intricately designed program, understanding where each piece fits in a puzzle or what each line of code in a program means can allow you to fully solve and manipulate the entire thing.

In the same way, as long as you understand the rules of any supernatural event, then it was easy to navigate around whatever situation may crop up during a supernatural encounter.

The first rule of Supernatural 101: you must figure out the rules.

Initially, Duncan thought that he'd grasped some of the rules of this ghost realm—the realm abducted people from the real world and buried them underground to force them into despair and feed their negative emotions, which would create a perfect vessel for ghosts to possess and inhabit.

From an investigative standpoint, this looked like the core mechanism of the ghost realm that made it the perfect breeding ground for ghosts and zombies to propagate.

But now, hearing what the other man said, it now looked like Duncan didn’t entirely have everything exactly figured out as he'd thought.

This realization made Duncan immediately begin to try to make sense of everything all over again.

As for the plan he'd initially wanted to employ, that was directly thrown to the back of Duncan’s mind for now.

As for the other man, seeing Duncan not responding to him, he quickly reached out to draw his attention by grabbing him and said, “Hey, friend, you should listen when people are talking to you. You’re being very rude right now.”

Originally still annoyed that Duncan had ran away instead of helping after he had called out for help, the man, feeling completely disregarded, wanted to teach Duncan a lesson, only stopping himself from doing so because of the circumstances they were currently in.

And indeed, Duncan completely disregarded the man.

When his shoulder was grabbed by the other man, instead of responding gently, he directly spoke to the man in a completely dismissive manner.

“Don’t disturb me right now; I’m trying to think.”

“Just shut up and keep running and stay out of my way.”

After saying such rude words, Duncan ignored the other man and continued thinking, not caring how he would take it at all.

And as expected, the other man did not take it well at all and looked like he was about to blow a fuse.

But the loud roar of the zombies chasing behind him caused the man to calm down.

In the end, the man didn’t say or do anything and simply followed quietly behind Duncan.

...

“Assuming there are two ways people could find themselves in here and that each signifies a different purpose, then what is this purpose?” Duncan thought to himself while going through everything he'd learned about the ghost realm so far.

“The first way of entering is being buried in a grave. I’ve already figured out the reason for this—it is to create a vessel for ghosts to inhabit, thus creating zombies.”

“As for the second way—appearing in the open...”

“According to what this person said, aside from appearing in the open, there was also a horde of zombies waiting in the area, which is now very odd.”

“Now that I think about it, despite walking in this wilderness for several hours, I had hardly come across any zombies at all other than the one I uncovered from its resting place.”

“The most zombies I’d ever seen were these guys, so why was there an entire horde of them just waiting around in the exact place this person would appear?”

“It’s almost as if they were deliberately waiting for him to appear...”