| The Missing Hunter and The Missing Ghost |

[Epiale]

[thread for the missing hunter and ghost kalon competition]




Shortly after the meteor fell the nearest space agency rushed to retrieve it.

27% more than usual had survived entry, and every nation was eager to know
why. Perhaps they could make re-entry safer for those who they sent out of
earths atmosphere. Alas, within 36 hours of pickup all involved were dead or
dying. Save one, who tended the ill and attempted to sterilize the labs to no
avail. It wasn't long before they caught the sickness too, and if they survived
it would leave a permanent scar.

They just hoped whatever it was wasn't airborne.

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[Trphlthdl]

Tʜᴇ Gʜᴏsᴛ
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Nᴀᴍᴇ - Cᴀɪᴜs

Gᴇɴᴅᴇʀ - Mᴀʟᴇ

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Sᴜʀᴠɪᴠᴏʀ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ Cɪᴛʏ
A Cᴀɪʀɴ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ Dᴇᴀᴅ

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At first Caius was rather reclusive, sticking to his underground tunnels since he couldn't see in the light. He avoided people when he saw them, though that wasn't often, and set about mapping his lonely kingdom. He now longs for others companionship, but is held back from those who pass through by being excessively shy. He sticks to his tunnels, and watches people pass through the city with longing. Sometimes he'll knock things over or make noise intentionally, hoping they'll investigate, but even if they do he hides away again.

He longs for others companionship, all while being too shy to greet others, so he sticks to his tunnels and watches from afar. [113]


Backstory / / For Caius, remembering the time before the plague is difficult. It’s as if he’s only heard stories of what the world was once like instead of having lived it firsthand. He remembers his job as an underwater welder, melding bits of metal together while he reveled in the silence of the water. He remembers his small apartment, the windows opening east to let the morning’s light in and how he loved the colors the city’s glass turned as the sun rose. Now, in the same city after the plague he can no longer watch the sunrise and there is no need to weld metal together under the water.

The underground sidewalks and subways, built long before he was ever born, now served as his home instead of the gorgeous windowed apartment he’d owned before. They weren’t pretty, not that that mattered anymore, and many of them were closed due to sanitary issues and structural deterioration. It was difficult to tell which ones were structurally unstable or had been closed for sanitary issues due to outbreaks of various diseases in the early years, most signs didn’t inform the reader of any difference. Caius chose, for a multitude of reasons, to leave those tunnels alone. Partially as a reminder of those who’d lived in the city before him. Partially because any virus in those tunnels may or may not still be there, and if it is who’s to say he would be immune? The plague had left him alive, though weak, and it was his job to survive.

During his sickness, a mere cold compared to what others had, he noticed his vision began to deteriorate. He assumed it was just another symptom of the plague, and that it would go away if he survived. It was a symptom, but it would not heal anytime soon. His eyes had turned white, though they’d been a drab grey before, and bright lights made it difficult to see. Reflections off building reduced his vision to no more than shimmering shadows in shades of white, and he was forced to retreat into the underground tunnels of the city. The tunnels could not take him everywhere he needed to go, and over a period of several years Caius managed to construct an aboveground system of various unused junk crossing over roads and sidewalks in a criss-cross maze of pathways. They go everywhere in the city the sidewalks can’t get him, museums, grocery stores, even the local pharmacy.

The few residents that had stayed hadn’t known what to make of the pure white kalon building tunnels across the city, and he began to be known as Cemiterio's Ghost and was rumored to lead lost souls through his maze to trap and eat them. Others, just passing through, would hear him running or trotting through his maze of tunnels to wherever he needed to go and assume much the same, leading to widespread rumors of Cemiterio's Ghost. [489]

[Epiale]

Tʜᴇ Hᴜɴᴛᴇʀ
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Nᴀᴍᴇ - Aᴄᴛᴀᴇᴏɴ

Gᴇɴᴅᴇʀ - Fᴇᴍᴀʟᴇ

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Hᴜɴᴛᴇʀ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ Mᴏɴsᴛᴇʀs
ᴛʜᴀᴛ Pʟᴀɢᴜᴇ ᴛʜᴇ Lɪᴠɪɴɢ

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Personality//
Actaeon is a deeply paranoid kalon, constantly on edge, and watching for some ill to befall her, or those around her. She has built her life around this paranoia, training to be stronger, faster, more able to deal with any situation that may arise. This has lead to her being fairly intelligent, if still somewhat gullible in her extreme pessimism, and lead to an intense, unshakable determination, and work ethic. The intensity often leads to obsessive behaviors, and while she genuinely wants to help people she finds it very hard to get along with most of them, her own ideas of what is right too rigid and strict to lead to longer friendships.

Her more mild, preexisting distrust of the world has always made her a conspiracy theorist, taken by a deep interest in mysteries, legends, and things unknown. Chasing phantoms, researching threats, and hunting down anything she sees as the corrupt and wrong of the world is her idea of a perfect day, and the end has turned it into a lifestyle. She hunts to fulfill her own need to investigate, and conquer almost as much as she does it to help. Some part of her desperately longs to be seen as a savior, someone who can shine a light on the demons who hurt others, who make the world a darker place, and eradicate them. She knows it’s a near impossible task, fixing the world, but she can’t think up a better way to spend her life than to try with everything she has.

(256 words)

Backstory//
The end had surprised Actaeon more than she’d expected it to. She’d been telling people for years that there were things beyond their comprehension lurking in wait; monsters, and aliens, and hidden truths. Conspiracies, they’d been called, whenever she brought them up. She and her group had been passed off as crazy, chasing figments of the imagination. She’d known there were a million ways the world could end at any moment, but it still caught her off guard when it did.

Her group… They’d been kind, she remembered that much. Supportive, friendly, good people. She couldn’t remember much more than that. The disease hadn’t taken her like it had them, but it had muddied her memories. They’d been out on a hunt in a wood near her home when things started to deteriorate. Looking for a rumored spirit haunting people who walked the trail. They’d sent one of the group members back to the more populated campsite to get water, and he’d come back wrong. Coughs racked his frame as the disease took hold, boils broke out on the first person to rush to his aid, and before Actaeon knew it she was the only one left standing.

She hadn’t been more prepared than they had. She hadn’t been wearing a hazmat suit, or a gas mask, or been carrying the cure. She simply didn’t grow ill in the same way. Her mind had both blurred and sharpened, memories fading, as the dangers the world held stood out more starkly in her mind. Every movement, every new smell, every tiny hint at a possible threat stood out in her mind like bolts of lightning. It was overwhelming, and yet felt so natural she molded into it as if she'd always been this way.

She’d gotten lucky. She’d unwittingly played the genetic lottery and won, same as she had the first time she faced a real battle. Coming from a life she remembered mostly consisted of online discussion, research, and junk food, she had been ill prepared, but she won, and each subsequent victory, each successful hunt had made her stronger. She learned how to fight. She learned how to block blows, and throw swipes of her own. She’d learned what types of infection bred aggression, and how to face each different threat. Her body grew strong as her mind sharpened, and soon the scattered remnants of society came to know her as The Hunter, an unstoppable force of a kalon who could be trusted to take care of a problem, and defend those left clinging to survival.

Her travels took her far and she lived a life lost. No place to call home. Nobody to remember or return to. Just endless tracts of unfamiliar places, dotted with unfamiliar people. Wondering the wastelands of what was once the world hunting, trying to find… something. Something she’d lost long ago.

(478 words)

[Trphlthdl]

It wasn't until Actaeon was a mile and a half away from the Cemiterio that she remembered why she hated cities. It was the stench. Rotting corpses of those unlucky people that hadn't survived the Plague, and the denseness of city populations along with reflected lights making excess heat meant that when they decomposed professionally.

The smell grew as she entered the city, and she felt it covering every inch of her body. She'd never truly feel clean again she knew as her skin writhed under her fur in an attempt to shrink away from the air around her. But, now was time to focus. The blinding lights of the sun off the glass meant her visibility dropped, and the sharp corners of the city meant anything could pop out of anywhere.

The only positive of this apocalypse, she thought, was the fact that since the background noise was gone a footstep was now as loud as a firecracker once was. Or perhaps that was just another side effect.

Maybe, if the Ghost was real, he'd knock something over in an attempt to scare her. She was here to hunt him after all, though perhaps he'd heard of her like the rest of this world. Another downside. Everyone knew her now, and feared her. Not that it was entirely a bad thing, but it kept those who needed help from asking and drew those who wished her harm and could cause her serious damage. It was a rough world, this new earth.

Actaeon strolled by another street, and glinting out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. It was strange what she saw. A hodge lodge job of junk in something that might have been a pathway if it was more flat. She drew closer to inspect the rubble, and that was when it sounded. It could have just been it shifting, but she doubted that. With speed akin to an attacking prey mantis she lunged for the rubble and brought out a great iron rod before swinging it at the elongated metal pile. It came down with a mighty crash, and she found it was hollow. At the end of the tunnel she'd dropped a pale leg skated around the corner. Launching herself over the destroyed rubble she found more of the pathways. If she was fast enough, she could bring it down in front of the creature once more.

She swing again, and the tunnel fell with the same amount of volume as before. The creature skid to a halt and prepared to turn before Actaeon lunger at it again. It made an odd peeping noise as it skirted her iron rod narrowly, and she lunged at it again. It's eyes were wide, and though it had almost completely white eyes she knew it has some sense of where she was as it dodged once more.

"Gahhh!" It screamed, and she replied with one of the war cries that had given her the name of The Hunter before swinging at it's knees this time.

"What are you doing!" it said again, and Actaeon knew not to fall for this.

"I'm ridding your kind from this world, don't you know who I am?" She swing again, going for the midsection this time.

"What do you think I am?"

"A monster!"

"A wha-" It dodged again, not able to finish it's sentence this time. "I'm not a-?" It balked as she discarded her iron bar in favor of hand to hand combat. "I'm not a monster!"

The creature fared much worse in hand to hand she saw, as she landed several blows each one knocking the air out of her opponent.

"I'm not-" Another blow struck it's midsection and a whimper escaped from it's maw.

The next blow, she noted with satisfaction, drew blood. Red blood. Red... monsters didn't... she ceased her attack and stayed in a ready stance.

"What- what are you? You bleed red."

"What? Of course I bleed red I'm a-- Monsters?"

"Yes, Monsters." Actaeon said, not about to let her guard down. "Now, tell me what you are."

"I'm just a kalon, what did you think I was?"

"Ghost. Ghost of Cemiterio to be precise."

"There's a... there's a ghost here? In Cemiterio?"

"Yes. A ghost." Honestly, how thick could this kalon be?

"Well, do you need a place to stay?" Actaeon mulled it over. She knew she could beat him in a fight, if she so chose, and he seemed incredibly pacifistic, but she didn't know who he was. Of course, she didn't have any better a clue of the rest of the city. And besides, maybe he had food.

And maybe, just maybe, if she hadn't scared him too much she'd found a friend in this lonely, lonely world. [798]