word count: 521

NEOVERSE: PLANCHETTE MUN

in which planchette, ghost hunter "extrordinaire", goes out alone to find another lost spirit and finds something she wished she'd forgotten.

contains mentions of blood, ghosts, cryptids, death, general horror stuff. author's notes at the end.

It's Planchette's first time being alone in these woods for a long, long while. Normally Sunny is with her; but Sunny is out looking for aliens or something ridiculous—ghosts I can believe, but aliens? You can't be serious—and the supernatural doesn't stop for petty quarrels. So here she is, alone.

She grumbles to herself as she stumbles over rocks, mostly complaints about the stupid design of woodland paths, the lack of paving, why she ever even considered this as a profession, even though they're earning way more money than they should be between the pair of them, just for taking shitty pictures of creatures that aren't even that scary, and proving people aren't crazy when they hear things go bump in the night.

This week's priority ghost was from Dean Xie, the kid that lived right next to the main church's graveyard. He'd sounded scared on the phone, trying to quell it to make himself sound tougher as most boys that age seem to do—but there was a choked quality to his voice as he recounted the screaming woman in the forest, outside his door, bumping over gravestones and scattering pebbles across his windows (with scratches on the glass to prove it). And of course that had been the morning she and Sunny had their Argument, which brings her back to now.

The days are shortening now it's October, nights mutating into unnaturally lengthened periods of darkness that wrap tightly around the entire town of Normal. It's cold and dull, but Planchette is determined to get this done. The camera around her neck rocks and bumps as she slowly trudges her way through Pinelock, the nature reserve-slash-forest that cuts the town off from the rest of Canada. The wind screams.

Even in the dark, Planchette moves with a confidence only obtainable through years of wondering aimlessly around the same forest, finally able to navigate the tiny, unhelpful paths with signs sticking tilted from the dirt like snapped branches. The gale swirls leaves through her hair, around her crutches, the moon and the torch taped to her left stick the only light visible.

The gale shrieks again, a banshee's wail. Planchette flinches despite herself, at the human quality of its voice, the familiarity of it. She's a child again, huddled against a tree, bleeding. Frozen like the icy mist in the air, she looks around wildly, searching for the source.

Choked-off wails cut through the sharp branches of the trees for the third time, picking up speed like rapid breaths, a distraught mother screaming for her child to come back, Planchette's mother calling her name and Planchette without the strength to even whisper a reply, hidden, shadowed.

Ghost or not, she refuses to find out. The wind calls her name and she moves, fast as she can carry herself, past glades sheathed in darkness, past all the regular haunts of cryptid creatures and ghouls and rumours of dead teenagers sobbing for help. Sunny can catch it herself; she'll return the camera tomorrow, apologise, let the other take over. She doesn't notice her tears until they're frozen to her cheeks.

a super fun start to the 31 days of horror challenge!! i loved this prompt and i had a lot of ideas, plus this is actually lore relevant and technically canon to my oc universe, which is a bonus! i doubt all of the following writings will be canon or as long, but i had a lot of fun!! please leave any feedback you have, and see you tomorrow for day two <3