Something was bothering my psychic sense. I didn't know what it was but it seemed like I was the only one that sensed it. It was something that was pulsing from afar in the direction we were taking. It pulsed as if it was calling out for anything or anyone that could hear it. It was psychic in nature, the first I had detected. It wasn't even a pushover as far as I could tell. It was powerful, not as powerful as my psychic power but close. If I were to be careless, I'd end up being badly wounded by whatever it was.
It was also concerning that the closer we seemingly got to the source of the pulse, it would get weaker until eventually, it would be virtually invisible. In the meantime, I was on high alert.
"Are you sure it's safe?"
"I don't sense any living thing down there so it's pretty safe,"
The sun had painted its orange light across the sky above. We stumbled upon the ruins of an odd stone structure that had three floors, two of which were underground. There was something radiating a minor amount of radiation at the very bottom but it was far enough to not pose a threat to anyone on the upper floor. I thought of investigating once the sisters had fallen asleep as to not alarm them.
The pulse had ceased.
The horses didn't mind staying outside under the shade of a few trees. We had no rope to tie them with but the horses weren't going to run away as far as I could tell. The upper floor of the stone structure consisted of one room with a hatch in the middle that led to the lower levels. The walls were dusty, cracked, and had signs of erosion dating back as far as a decade ago. Whatever this structure was, it had been abandoned for a long time and the forest around it had begun to reclaim it.
"You're not going to sleep again?" Nina asked as she and her little sister tucked in against the wall. I didn't realize that her robe was also a coat of sorts that extended just enough to fit the two of them.
"I don't need to, yet. Don't worry, I'll be fine," I said.
Nina smiled.
"Don't push yourself too hard, you could always wake me up if you need to switch," She said. I nodded and turned my back and faced the hatch. My eyes glowed a crimson hue as I enveloped the sisters with a multi-purpose barrier to regulate their body temperature and to protect them from any physical harm. I also gave their brains a small tap of psychic energy to make them fall asleep faster.
After two minutes, the sisters were now fast asleep.
I walked towards the hatch and opened it with my psychic grip. The hatch was made of crude metal and a deafening shriek sounded when my psychic grip pulled it open. Thankfully, the multi-purpose barrier also protected from loud sounds so they didn't hear the nightmarish screeching of metal.
The hatch opened and a small plume of smoke rushed out. I scanned the plume with my enhanced sense and sure enough, it was composed of ash and not normal ash you get from burning wood or from a volcano, no.
The ash had a slim psychic aura around it. It was from a human. The hatch must have been used in conjunction with a ladder but there was no ladder for me to climb down with. With no choice, I wrapped myself with my own psychic power and floated down the hole.
It was dark, as expected. With my enhanced sense, I basically had night vision so it wasn't a problem really. The room was full of rotten food, mainly fruits, and vegetables that were on termite-infested cabinets and some slabs of meat piled on one corner of the room. Judging by the state of decay, these rotten foodstuffs weren't exposed to enough microorganisms to fully decay. It was then I noticed that the entire room was shrouded in a toxic cloud of various chemicals that was slowly leaking out the open hatch. It was toxic enough to kill all microorganisms, explaining why the foodstuffs were as they were.
Burnt out torches, dead roots, and unsurprisingly, a charred corpse of an unidentifiable man was what I later discovered. The only reason I knew the corpse was from a man was because of the bulge of ash in the pelvic area. If only I could peer through the cosmic mirror to see what happened here. I could do so but it would take a tremendous toll on my brain and push my psychic heat over my limits.
The last floor was next. The leak of radiation I sensed a few minutes ago had grown stronger after each step I took that drew me closer to the hatch that led to it. When I walked up the hatch, the radiation was at its highest. Jokes on you, I basically fed on radiation.
"One, two.." My eyes glowed and the hatch was violently pulled open by my psychic grip, unleashing a seemingly demonic screech that bellowed from the depths of this ruin and echoed around the forest above.
A faint green glow pulsed from the open hatch. I then floated towards it and let myself down.
I was now hovering above the source of the radiation. A gemstone of unknown making in the hands of a battered, screaming corpse of a woman. Not even my psychic sense could make sense of it, it was too alien. It was an octagon of unknown material but was radiating a somewhat small amount of radiation. I then looked around the room to see if anything else of value or concern accompanied the strange gemstone.
There were corpses everywhere, hairs of different colors were spread out all over the floor. It was a grim scene of death, the consequences of something that happened long ago seemingly frozen in time. I looked over each corpse one by one, their mangled faces all screamed before their eventual demise, whatever did this to them killed them all at the same time in an instant.
I suspected the gemstone.
But I realized the pulse of its light too late.
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