Out of Phase: Artefact discovered

[curiously_cora]

There were several well trekked paths and one newly forged one, leading away from most of the huts created by human feet. And another created by smaller feet. There was one bunch of flowers, fourteen individual red and yellow flowers picked and left on a rock which was not particularly interesting. There was one noisy small blonde human. And then there was the boar minding its own business until something strange happened.

A pulse of bright white light came out of the jungle startling it, screeching the boar ran angrily towards the source. Crashing into something metallic, the boar grunted and gruffed at it turning as it shuffled in the dirt. The metallic thing was broken into pieces, snuffling at it the boar mouthed at pieces before swallowing a couple of smaller pieces. Making an unpleased noise it tried to cough, trampling the artefact and kicking pieces of it further away. Stumbling forward it dragged some pieces alongside with it as it carried on its grumpy journey.

The boar didn't know what it had done. And it wouldn't for long. Boars didn't tend to last very long on the island. Not with so many hungry mouths to feed.

And the small blonde human? She'd disappeared without trace.

Comments

[theyoungwolf]

"Probably," Robb says, and not only to be comforting. "Think about it logically. How many strange things have happened that have turned out to be the island's odd doings, and how many ghosts have you encountered? One seems far more likely. But we should probably mention it to someone; you'll be missed if you havent' been already."

[curiously_cora]

"Three," Coraline replied almost instantly. Even before the island Coraline had never had what some would call a normal or traditional childhood. "I've encountered three ghosts. So, I don't know I could be dead. If it was an island thing then... then wouldn't more people have become like me? No one else has not that I've seen. Not that I've been spying or anything."

[theyoungwolf]

"What, here? Other than Halloween," Robb clarifies, because that doesn't really count. All sorts of things happen then. "I honestly don't know, anyway, though in my experience dead people are rather more damaged. Bloody and missing limbs and the like." He stops himself, abruptly realising he's talking to a rather young girl. She doesn't need to hear about the bloody limbs. "I'll take this back to the IPD, in any case, and see if anyone else recognises it."

[curiously_cora]

"No, at home. You didn't say I had to see the ghosts here." Coraline replied. She hadn't seen ghosts at Halloween, she'd seen men. Bad men but still men. She had managed to avoid most of the kinder monsters. "Not the Other Mother, not her victims. They just die. They looked normal too, mostly. They could float though."

Coraline couldn't. And she was hungry but that didn't rule it out. "Okay but- but don't lose it or give it to anyone else just in case it's something bad."