Ghost Hunting Club

I woke to a sudden gust of wind blowing through my window. Now, that’s strange. I was certain I'd closed it. I sat up and glanced toward the corner of my room, where an eight-foot shadow stood watching me. I sighed. "Not again." I mumbled. Being able to see ghosts was a terrible inconvenience. Unfortunately, it was also hereditary. Both my parents were shamans—individuals capable of seeing and exorcising evil spirits through weapons concealed in ordinary accessories. A necklace could become a sword. A ring could become something far more dangerous. All it took was speaking the weapon's name. My parents had been among the most powerful shamans of their generation. Naturally, everyone expected me to follow in their footsteps. Then they died in a car accident, leaving me their weapons and a legacy I wanted nothing to do with. I was able to use my mother's necklace only once since their deaths. That was enough to remind me why I'd abandoned my training. I didn't want to fight monsters. I didn't want to save strangers and I certainly didn't want to become the greatest shaman in the world. I wanted a normal life. Unfortunately, the dead didn't seem interested in cooperating. That evening, I wandered through the city, ignoring the spirits drifting along the sidewalks. Acknowledging them only encouraged their attention, and I had no intention of collecting supernatural friends or whatever. At a nearby park, I noticed a child crying on a bench. Behind him, a hideous spirit repeatedly jabbed a needle into his back, inflicting pain that made the boy sob harder. The moment the creature noticed me watching, it froze. Its circular body, resembling a bloated ball of rotten flesh stretched beneath a layer of sickly gray skin. Its short, thin legs protruded awkwardly from its rounded torso, twitching and scrambling beneath its enormous weight as it moved. Its face was even worse. Two bulging, bloodshot eyes sat unevenly above a crooked mouth filled with tiny, needle-sharp teeth. The ugliest creature I’ve seen so far I guess. Before I could decide what to do, a man in a black jacket landed on the bench beside it. The spirit immediately fled. "Did that i***t seriously think I couldn't catch him?" the man muttered. "Look at those tiny legs." he added. He glanced at me. For a split second, his eyes changed color. Then he disappeared after the fleeing spirit. I’m not realy sure what color his eyes were, everythong happened so fast like it is some kind of routine. I watched him follow that hideous demon until they both disappeared from the dark shadows. He could see them, too. Interesting. I’ve never me someone likem me. I mean, not that I cared. A few blocks later, I found a cemetery. The streets were quiet, the sacred shrines nearby keeping most spirits away. It seemed like the perfect place to rest. I settled beneath a tree and gazed at the moon, grateful for the silence. Then the temperature dropped. A suffocating aura spread through the cemetery, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. I know this feeling. I’ve encountered this before, a lot. My hand slipped beneath my hoodie, closing around my mother's necklace. My mother’s weapon. I carried it everywhere, despite my promise never to use it again. Perhaps some part of me had never been foolish enough to believe I could escape this world entirely. Something is here. I tightened my grip and scanned the darkness. Before I could summon my weapon, a monstrous creature appeared directly in front of me. I stumbled backward, narrowly avoiding its attack. Pure luck. Mostly. I scrambled to my feet and ran, but the monster appeared in front of me again, blocking my path. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me." Eight crooked legs stretched from its bloated abdomen, each one ending in a cluster of hooked claws that cracked the earth with every step. Its body was covered in coarse, matted black hairs, slick with a substance that glistened beneath the moonlight. A cluster of blood-red eyes bulged from its misshapen head, shifting independently as they fixed on me. The stench hit me a second later—rotting flesh, damp soil, and something metallic that reminded me of fresh blood. Then it raised its front legs, towering over me like a grotesque nightmare brought to life. Oh, absolutely f*****g not. "Caliburn!" My necklace flashed, transforming into a magnificent silver sword adorned with ancient markings and a glowing blue sapphire. I caught the hilt and swung. The blade pierced the monster's chest. It shrieked before crumbling into ash. I dropped the sword, panting. Damn it. This is exactly why I don't use weapons. Summoning them consumed energy, and fighting was even worse. I needed to leave before anything else sensed my presence. But just as I turned toward the gates, the ground trembled. "Oh, really. What the actual hell." A black silhouette emerged between the graves before transforming into a gigantic spider. I stared at it. Of course. Because my night wasn't terrible enough already. One fight, and suddenly the entire supernatural population wants a piece of me. The spider charged and I was thrown backward, my body crashing into a row of tombstones. My sword slipped from my fingers and landed beyond my reach. I coughed, tasting blood. I squeezed my eyes shut. So this is how I die. Not in some epic battle, but as spider food in a cemetery. I tried to stand, but pain radiated through my back, and my legs refused to cooperate. My sword lay several feet away. My hand moved toward the rings on my fingers. My father's weapons. I hesitated. Summoning another weapon would consume whatever energy I had left. I couldn't even survive a single blow from this creature. Fighting it with two weapons would be suicide. The spider lowered its body, scraping its legs against the ground. I grabbed a muddy tombstone, struggling to pull myself upright. The creature lunged and stared at it as I start to accept my fate. Well, this is embarrassing. I'd spent years running from the very thing I'd been born to fight. I'd rejected my parents' legacy, abandoned my training, and convinced myself that ignoring the supernatural world would somehow make it disappear. And now I was going to die in a cemetery because I couldn't handle an ugly-ass spider. I braced myself for the impact. Instead, a sharp, sweeping sound cut through the air. A deafening shriek followed. The crushing pressure suddenly disappeared. I opened my eyes. The spider staggered backward, one of its enormous legs severed cleanly from its body. Standing between us was the man from the park. The stranger in the black jacket. He held a massive scythe in one hand, its curved silver blade gleaming beneath the moonlight. Faint runes pulsed along its dark metal shaft, radiating an odd energy. He held it effortlessly, as though the weapon were nothing more than an extension of his body. Then, with a careless movement of his wrist, he dismissed the weapon as though it had never existed. He turned toward me. I stared at him, my breath caught somewhere in my throat. I'd seen that power before. I'd grown up around it. I'd been trained to recognize it. The man looked unimpressed. "Seriously?" he muttered. "You picked a fight with someone who can barely stand?" Excuse me? I'm literally dying here. For years, I'd done everything I could to escape that world. But standing before me was someone who belonged to it as surely as I did. There was only one explanation. This man is a shaman.