Creatures in The Dark (Open. )

”..I don’t like it, there’s a stench here.. “

Magnolia’s Zanpakuto spirit murmurred as the shinigami landed on the peak of a ruined husk of a building. Once proud and peircing the sky it had been reduced to this state. Windows smashed and the interior of rooms in varying states of decay. Her golden hair was tossed by the wind, being blown about faintly before her gold gaze surveyed the scene.

What she saw was a city ruined by an alien force. The stench of corruption thick within the air to the point that it was an almost sickening presence. She slowly descended from one step to the next, rather than walking across the air she felt it’d be safer to take a different route.

As she walked forward a soft electric crackle could be heard emanating from her arms, faint arcs of electricity moving from her shoulders to her hands , cascading downwards while she steadied her breathing and crept towards what once probably had a door on it, the metal box-like opening still adorned by the hinges the door once sat on.

She inched through the opening and then walked through the hall, her head on a swivel, taking in the rooms that still remained shut, and the ones where parts of the doors had been busted open by . . something. The miasma was strong here, enough to even make her feel mildly ill for a moment until she exhaled and let her energy form a faint veil over her skin.

”..What happened here.”

She thought to herself as she then hopped down an elevator shaft, falling several stories before landing on her toes to absorb the force of impact. She was in the basement of the building which seemed to house a subway station. The subway train stopped eternally on the rails right next to the platform as if a memorial to the tragedy that had happened here.

”..I hear something. . “

Mentally she sent that message to her zanpakuto spirit, she could hear the scuttling in the darkness, the strange sounds of . . . things that may lurk there. If this was any other day she’d avoid them, she was at a disadvantage in the dark. However the sounds came in the direction she was going, so she could only grimace as she had hopped off the platform, landing next to the rail and then stepped up on it, feeling the zing as the electricity from the powered rail filled her.

That startled the shinigami slightly because she didn’t know where the charge was coming from, but soon she squelched it and walked into the dark, slowly inching forward closing her eyes because they were useless as the only source of light down here was from the elevator shaft in the broken building.

”..I can hear my own breathing.”

It was silent down here in the subway tunnel. The only sounds that punctuated the dark was the sound of something scuttling in the dark. Periodically she could hear the sounds of creatures above ground, whatever they might be, but she slowly blocked those out, diminishing the trace of her reishi until it became almost nil, the only thing that would be able to discern her would be creatures within 50 feet of her, or those that had adapted to the dark.

She knew that if she used too much force she’d end up shattering the entire tunnel complex, and then shed had to deal with whatever roamed the surface, yet the very reason she came down here was because she’d rather fight in an enclosed space, it was much easier for her.

Now she could only hope that she made a good decision.