He licked his lips and glanced up at the sky as another bolt of light thundered across the sky, illuminating dark clouds. "So, out in the middle of the woods. If this isn't the perfect time and place for a scary story, I don't know what is."
Six pairs of eyes flashed in reflection as they followed him. He leaned his back against a large tree, a conifer-like pole that stretched two hundred feet into the sky, native to Terra Nova. Rain pattered down softly, and his listeners had crowded into the shelter of the copse of trees along with him. "Well, there was one I heard as a kid, growing up near here."
He cleared his throat. "See, there were rumors, stretching as far back as the original colonists, that the planet had been Prothean once. It was because of some strange-shaped rock formations, just over the hill, actually." He hooked a thumb in the direction, past his shoulder and the rest of the trees. "But the rumors turned into something real when I was around five.
"See, I remember when it happened, I was that old. It was just a little farming village then, before we got the spaceport put in, before they found that vein of platinum on the other side of the valley. Mostly religious folks, trying to find somewhere they didn't have to be all friendly, and could pretend like it was just them and God, no aliens, no other religions around to play nice with. Twenty families, farming and raising lots of kids."
He waved a hand down towards the slope towards the town, several kilometers distant, as another bolt of light crossed the sky. "My oldest brother and his friends used to hang out up here on the hill when they weren't in the fields. Cultivating their own crops of weed, flinging stones at the local wildlife dumb enough to get close. You know, the typical dumb things that fifteen year olds get up to.
"Anyway, one day, my brother starts talking about the rumors of the Prothean ruins over the hill. Close enough you can walk there and back in a day. So they start talking about what the great Prothean Empire might have left behind, and how they died. Which came back to the rumors.
"See, the original colonists came out here, a couple of times, to survey the area. Their conclusion was that it was just an unusual cubic rock formation, something that had started as some kind of crystal and converted into some other kind of metamorphic rock. But the geologists also said that they felt uneasy in the area, as though they were being watched. Wildlife won't go near the place, local or terran. And it's placed almost perfectly to be a fortress for the next valley over. There's even a spring in part of it, that hasn't worn down the stone at all.
"So, naturally, people started talking about how the ghosts of the Protheans must haunt the place. Angry about whatever had destroyed their empire, hanging around to punish whoever was foolish enough to trespass on the remnants of their land. And being dumb teenagers, my brother and his friends started to egg each other on, about who was braver.
"It was about a week before midsummer when it happened, the group of them decided to all go out there. So with the crops in, animals tended to, it was only an hour after dawn they all met up on the edge of town, lunches packed and water canteens filled. They walked there together, and passed right through these woods. My brother stopped to fix his shoe, get a rock out or something, and he noticed something in the dirt, something metallic. His friends kept walking as he dug a little bit, and pulled this out."
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a disc-shaped item. The metal was pitted and corroded, the edges chipped and dented. But across one side was a thumbprint-sized etching, vaguely resembling an Earth trilobite, and he held it up towards the six pairs of eyes that watched. Their only light was the occasional bursts of light in the clouds, but somehow he was sure they could see it.
"My brother was sure it was a Prothean medallion of some kind. After all, aside from those geologists, no one had come to the valley in the five years until our families settled down, and no one came up in the woods until they did. No one else wanted to visit the haunted stone ruins of the Protheans. The adults just warned us to stay away from it, since we didn't know what might live there, and Terra Nova does have native predators. It's too far away for someone to get help from the village.
"So, he rubbed the dirt off, and slipped it in his pocket, and caught up to his two friends. They walked over the top of the hill, and stared at the stone ruins. You haven't been there yet, right? Five full acres, full of nothing but stone blocks from human size all the way up to as big as the church. No rhyme or reason to them, either, but gaps between them the size of a starship corridor.
"My brother, David, he laughs and starts making fun of Greg and Peter. Picks up a couple of pebbles out of the grass and tosses them down into the ruins. Peter's starting to get nervous, right? They're out of sight of the village, and a nine klick walk from any help. So he's telling David to chill, not to get the ghosts pissed off. Greg ignores them both, just starts walking down the hill. Kind of a put up or shut up, without saying anything.
"David follows after a moment, one hand in his pocket, clutching the Prothean medallion he found. Peter dithers a few more seconds before running to catch up, and get in the middle of the group. Then they've reached the blocks. You can't see more than a hundred meters in there. All the blocks are jumbled up, even with the corridors in straight lines. It's like someone took a whole box of toothpicks, dumped them out, and carefully removed every piece that didn't land at right angles to the rest of them.
"Greg's the first one in there. Stepping right into the ruins, between two of the blocks, running his fingers along them and looking around. Peter's behind him, but by a couple of steps, a little nervous but not enough to chicken out in front of his friends. And then David's bringing up the rear, a couple of steps behind Peter.
"You haven't been there, so you don't know. The blocks are all, well, they're not smooth, really, but the sides are straight. The stone is just a little rough, like a piece of lumber that hasn't been sanded down all the way. The corners aren't sharp, but they're only barely rounded off enough to say they're not sharp. And each one is a different height, based on their size, too, so even the sunlight comes and goes. There's two days in the year, in early spring and late summer, where the light from Asgard shines down at noon to leave exactly no shadow, but they were there a few weeks too early for that.
"So Greg starts just walking around, taking random corners, just getting into it. And Peter doesn't realize it, but he's getting further and further ahead, and suddenly he and David realize they haven't seen him for a couple minutes.
"David still doesn't think there's ghosts here, he thinks it's just one of those weird illusions that's you see in carnivals and theme parks. So he has Peter give him a boost, and gets up one of the shorter blocks, and starts shouting for Greg. He figures the idiot will hear them, head back towards the right place, or maybe climb up himself and they can work it out.
"But five minutes of shouting, and there's no reply. No sound from him, no sight of him. Peter's starting to get really afraid, but David's just pissed, right? Like Greg's doing it on purpose, hiding somewhere in the direction they were heading, waiting for them to get close so he can jump out and yell 'boo.'
"He jumps to another block, a little higher, and shouts at the top of his lungs. 'Greg, you jerk, if you don't come out right now we're heading back without you!' He gives it another minute, and still nothing, while Peter is freaking out.
"So David climbs back down, points them in the right direction of the outside of the ruins, and they start walking. Peter can hardly talk, aside from mumbling under his breath about the ghosts of the Protheans, and how they did something to make them angry. Which leaves David to keep talking, loudly, hoping that Greg is going to quit goofing off and come out, so they can eat lunch together, and head back to the village.
"They reach the edge of the ruins, David leading the way, and he turns around to say something when suddenly Peter screams. Something has ahold of him, dragging him back into the ruins. Only it's not a thing, all David can see is kind of a smoky outline, wrapped completely around his arm. He runs forward, trying to grab Peter, but his friend is dragged out of sight, and his screams get further away the faster David runs.
"Then they stop, completely, and David can feel it. Whatever is here, whatever made his friends vanish, it's now looking for him. He stops, turns around, and starts running back. Whatever's chasing him isn't making a sound, no footsteps or growls, no hunting cries. And when it looks down all the side passages in the ruins, he doesn't see anything, either.
"He gets back outside the ruins, and keeps running to the top of the hill. When he looks back, the whole area of the stone blocks looks like it's filled with fog, or mist, or smoke. And it's starting to ooze out of the ruins, but only on his side, the uphill side. It's not coming out the sides, and it's not going downhill like it should be, but it's creeping up the hill towards him, in streamers. Or tentacles.
"So, not wanting to end up like his friends, he turns around and keeps going down the hill. He keeps running another two kilometers, until he reaches the trees, and he absolutely has to stop. He's got a cramp in his side, and it feels like he's pulled something in his calf, so he's leaning against the first tree, panting and trying to gulp down a few mouthfuls of water, only he's shaking so bad from the fear and the exertion that he's spilling more than he's getting in his mouth, and half of that is coming back out again.
"Then he sees it, the mist or smoke, still coming after him, creeping down the hill in its streamers. He can't run right now, and it's picked up in speed, moving faster than he can walk. Panicked, he pulls the medallion out of his pocket, and screams at it, 'Leave me alone! Leave my friends alone!'"
He holds up the metal disk, one thumb over the engraving as his fist thrusts it out in the direction of his audience. "Just like that. And the streamers, they stop. Not right away, of course, they slow down, then they stop, hovering around twenty meters or so away, then slowly, they start backing away from him.
"David doesn't trust this, right? He's worried that this is some kind of trick, so he circles around the trees, backing away from the smoke, and finally when it's out of sight, he starts limping down the hill as fast as he can. It takes him another two hours, because aside from quick glances over his shoulder, he's not willing to turn his back on the hill.
"When he reaches the village, of course everyone wants to know where his friends are, and all he can tell them is that the ghosts of the Protheans took them. This gets a lot of adults pissed off, right, because they think it's some kind of dumb teenage trick, but eventually the bishop gets the whole story out of him. About Greg and Peter vanishing in the stone blocks, and the smoke that followed him over the hill.
"Most of the adults don't believe him, right? I mean, why would they? It sounds preposterous. But just to be sure, our dad gets the tractor ready. It can drive up the hill, and it goes faster, and they can get four people up there to look around. So they drive out, guns with them. Just because David didn't see anything, doesn't mean there's not some kind of wildlife we hadn't seen before. Loaded for bear, they pull up to the top of the hill.
"That's when they see them. Greg and Peter's bodies, laid out side by side, right on the edge of the ruins. They aren't breathing, no heartbeat, and they're cold, but Greg's dad is there, so he goes to try doing CPR anyway. He gets down next to his son's body, and tries to start doing compressions.
"Only nothing moves. He puts his full weight down, almost lifting his whole body off the ground, and nothing happens. I don't know if you've had training, but when a hundred-forty kilo man puts his full weight on your chest, ribs should start cracking, right?
"They don't know what's going on, so they go to pick up the bodies and get them back onto the tractor. But it takes all four of them to just lift Peter a couple of centimeters off the ground, and he's the lighter one. Now they're all really panicked, so they radio out to Scott, ask for some marines and a medical team to get out there.
"It takes an hour for the medical team to get there, with all their equipment. The marines arrive as the docs are scanning the bodies, and they're heading into the ruins, guns out, shields up, loaded up, and finding nothing. Their shuttle is overhead, scanning the whole place. That's when the medics tell the adults the bad, and freaky, news.
"Based on their scans, every atom of carbon in their bodies was turned into silicon. They were literally converted into organic stone. Greg's chest won't compress because there's no moving parts anymore, just life-sized stone pieces that used to be his organs.
"They get the bodies loaded into the shuttles, and take them off-world to some Alliance lab to study. The Marines spend the next six months combing every inch of those ruins, even bring down a frigate to turn full sensors on, but all they can find are squareish blocks of stone, laid out with regular separations. So eventually they give up.
"It's not for another year after that, when David finally works up the courage to go back. He's almost seventeen now, a couple centimeters taller and two dozen kilos of muscle heavier. He heads back up there, this time taking an omni and a pistol with him. And of course, he makes sure to keep the medallion in his pocket.
"After he wanders around the ruins for over an hour, he finally takes the medallion out of his pocket. He's standing next to the biggest block of stone, the one the size of our church, and he holds it out, not quite touching the stone. 'Show yourself!' he demands.
"And after a couple of seconds, all the passageways around him start filling up with mist, but they leave a clear area, about three meters. Roiling up, filling the corridors between the stone, all the way up to the shortest one. They just stand there for a while, in a sort of stand-off. David knows his medallion can do something to them, and they don't like it, but they don't want to risk his wrath.
"Eventually, he tells them to go away, and not to kill any more humans. Then he goes back home, and when people ask him what he found, he says nothing. He's had people, even the kids younger than him, make fun of him for what he saw. But everyone still knows that something killed Greg and Peter, even if they don't believe him about how it happened.
"It was a couple years before he told me about it, when he overheard me talking with my friend Thomas about going up there ourselves. That's when he told me the truth. And when he gave me the medallion, and how it could control the ghosts."
He swallows heavily, starting at the six glinting pairs of eyes. "So, you still want to risk following me in there?
Six howls erupt from the throats of the husks, and they surge forward, waiting no longer. He turns around, sprinting as fast as he can, ignoring the branches that smack at him as he flees the copse of trees. Then he's in the open, running for the top of the hill. Two kilometers, uphill, and another klick down until he can reach the ruins.
"Kill them!" he shouts as he runs, medallion clutched in his hand. "Kill the husks following me!" But nothing appears, nothing that he can see in the dark, even when another Reaper beam lights up the sky as it blasts away another group of Alliance marines fighting to keep the population safe.
At the top of the hill, he risks a glance backwards. The husks are right behind him, no more than a dozen meters, as he crests the top, gaining speed. And without warning, as he gasps out his instructions for the hundredth time, he's engulfed in thick fog, swirling around him.
Behind him, the husks shriek. He's heard that sound, the noise they make when a shot hits them, enough to hurt but not enough to kill. The fog eases away from him a little, and he can make out the jagged shape of the ruins ahead of him. Just another three quarter kilometers, and I'm safe, he thinks.
The red blast comes without warning, the sound enough to deafen him as he's knocked to the ground. It takes several seconds before he can even attempt to sit up, let alone stand. In front of him, the stone blocks are simply gone, nothing more than a bubbling crater in their place. The fog is already vanishing, sublimating away into the heavy fall air.
Then the husks grab him, dragging him back down the hill and towards the waiting dragon's teeth now filling the streets of his home. In that last moment, as they drag him over one, he is left unsure who to be more angry at – the husks, for catching him; the ghosts, for dying so easily; or himself, for believing there was an escape after all.
A moment later, the spike punches through him, and all thoughts vanish.