“Hey, Kevin, do you have some time right now?” After trying to convince Master Liaoran to let him give them a ride but was eventually turned down, Marcus had to stand beside the sinkholes and dialed the number of none other than the only forensic technician in his precinct: “I’m at a scene here and I’d like you to take a look at it first before calling others.”

“Okay, what do you want me to bring?” Kevin asked after but a very short moment of silence.

“Do you have something to date human bones?” Marcus hesitated then asked: “I remember, you have some kind of test paper right? Would it work?”

“That is not super reliable but can serve as some initial clues. Only a few labs in the city can run clear diagnostics to date them. But we could ask Dr. Flemmings for help.” Kevin sipped on some tea and said: “I think I could call her for help, but she might be asleep at this moment. Do you want me to call her?”

“That - ” Marcus thought for a brief moment, then decided to support this idea: “That would be a great. If you could, Kevin, call her for help as well. There’s plenty for both of you. But please, just you and her for now, I’ll call for backup later. Oh, yeah, bring some talismans with you. I’ll text you the address.”

“What did you find?” Kevin asked with a curious tone.

“You’ve gotta come here to see for yourself. But it’s bad.” Marcus shook his head as he carefully stepped into one of the sinkholes and looked around with his flashlight. The bottom of the sinkhole still felt loose, there might be more bones hidden underneath, so he had to be careful. Though Master Liaoran had confirmed to him that this place would not be dangerous anymore, he would still rather be safe than sorry.

The sinkhole he was in right now had barely enough room for him to look around without much hindrance, and with just a quick sweep around, he spotted more than ten pieces of human bones around him, including three skulls. There was another thing that had been on his mind ever since the first time he encountered the spirits, and now only seemed more bizarre and ominous to him now that he had a chance to look closely at the bones: there were roots of vegetation wrapping all around the bones, and some traces of fungi on them, most disturbing of which was the fungi and roots in the skulls. Just like many of the spirits, the three skulls also had vegetation and fungi growing in their eye sockets, all of them looked like some kind of dark, round mushroom or crooked roots with a wooden texture and reflective exterior. This was a strange pattern, one that needed explanation.

There was a cracked rib cage beside Marcus’ left foot, and inside it there were once again dark, hardened roots intertwined with the rib bones. Marcus slowly knelt down and tried to pick the rib cage up. The entire rib cage was lifted off the ground for a short distance, before the three rib bones clutched by Marcus’ fingers broke off and the rest of it fell back on the ground, cracking into a few dozen paper light pieces.

Confused, Marcus took a look at the broken bones that remained in his hand - these bones were thin and brittle, and upon close inspection, full of small holes. They just remained mostly in the shape of bones, yet were already heavily weathered and weakened. This was strange to Marcus, because the exterior of these bones did not look heavily corrupted, and if not for his failed attempt at grabbing them, they would probably just stay in shape under ground for much longer.

He knelt down once again and picked the dark roots from the now crumbling rib cage. These roots, unlike the bones, were quite dense and hard. Marcus held the biggest piece of the roots closer to his eyes and pointed his flashlight right at it. The piece appeared to be semi-transparent under a bright enough close-by light source, and inside of it there appeared to be some kind of vein-like patterns. It gave off an unsettling aura after Marcus had it in his hand for a prolonged period of time. He could not tell what it was, but he somehow felt that this piece of roots had something deeply unclean and disturbing about it.

Before Kevin came, Marcus had already circled around the area - all the fighting, lightning strikes and explosions in the area seemed to have raised the alarm of no one. The houses around seemed to be in similar states of abandonment. The only house that showed signs of being recently occupied stood alone in a corner, with its backdoor dangling and some water marks and littered garbage indicating that the squatters living here had escaped, probably due to the noises of their fight or just simply the flooding spirits.

Kevin arrived at the site along with Dr. Ayer Flemmings, who seemed to be in a not-so-friendly mood but somehow agreed to come anyway.

“This’d better be good.” Dr. Ayer Flemmings yawned then stared at Marcus: “And like I told Kevin here, you’d better call in support soon. ”

“Of course, Doctor. But I’d like to show you everything first.” Marcus nodded and pointed at the sinkholes behind him: “I’m sure you’ll understand why I did this soon.”

Dr. Flemmings shrugged, then looked at Kevin, who responded also with a shrug and said: “I told you I trust Marcus. So I’m just gonna look into it here before calling anyone else.”

“Thank you Kevin.” Marcus smiled: “And Doctor, I believe you’ll agree with me. Kevin, did you bring what I asked you to bring?”

“Yeah. Here’s one for you.” Kevin took out a red cloth pouch and handed it to Marcus, but Marcus just pushed it back, while showing Kevin that he had many talismans on him.

“Doctor, do you have one?” Marcus turned to Dr. Flemmings.

“Yeah, yeah.” Dr. Flemmings turned on her flashlight and pointed it down one sinkhole that was closer to her: “Wait - are those - ?”

“Human bones, yes.” Marcus sighed: “Possibly up to hundreds of them.”

“What the - ” Dr. Flemmings was in disbelief at first, but just when her flashlight shone upon some of the skulls, rib cages and shin bones, she finally started to take things more seriously: “How could this be possible! For this many deaths, you’d think we’d at least heard about it?”

“Which is why I wanted you to come here first.” Marcus sighed: “If we have some forensic testimony or early reports, things would be harder to cover up. Sorry, Doctor, and sorry to you too, Kevin.”

“Meh, if they want they’d still cover it up.” Kevin shrugged and jumped into another sinkhole: “You’re sure you don’t want Mick to come? He seems like the righteous type. Aaaand he’s got the connections.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t feel like I could trust him with this.” Marcus shrugged. “Not yet.”

“These bones are - abnormal, to say the least.” Dr. Flemmings shook her head while looking at a piece of bone in her hand: “Their brittleness indicates to me that it has been buried for quite a while, but bones that are buried for long wouldn’t look like this. Not buried in normal earth, anyway. ”

“Can you date them? Maybe just a rough date?” Marcus asked while standing on the edge of a sinkhole.

“I’ll try. But I’ve gotta say, don’t expect too much on the accuracy.” Kevin shook his head as he grind a small piece of bone to powder and put it into a vial of clear, transparent liquid, then swirled the vial a couple of times: “Just like Dr. Flemmings said, the situation and condition of these bones are not normal, and this kind of test is far from accurate as it is.”

“Have you seen these weird roots, Kevin?” Dr. Flemmings asked while still keeping her head down in the sinkhole: “What do you think they are?”

“Seems to me like just normal roots of trees, grass and maybe some ferns. But they seemed to have somehow become ambered.” Kevin raised one piece of root up higher in an attempt to see things more clearly under the moonlight.

While Dr. Flemmings was writing things down in her personal note, Kevin took a look at the vial of liquid, the liquid seemed to have become dark, with some particles floating inside. Then he took out a strip of testing paper with some red lines on it from a small bag and dipped one end of it in the liquid.

After about five minutes, Kevin climbed out of the sinkhole with the help of Marcus and started examining the testing paper strip under the light. Doctor Flemmings also came over and waited by their side.

The lines were not equally spaced, the closer they were to the end of the testing paper the more sparse they were. A strip of pink crawled up from the dipping end of the paper, and stopped just a hair’s width under the sixth line.

“About thirty years.” Dr. Flemmings nodded: “Judging from the pigment around the line, error range could be give or take five to six years.”

“Probably 30 years then?” Marcus and Kevin asked at the same time.