"Are you sure you really know your way?" I pointed out, as we continued to walk further down into the throat of darkness.

"Quiet and follow." She snapped.

After walking a few more minutes in silence, we took a detour around a corner and entered a wide tunnel that stretched out far beyond into the darkness. This tunnel wasn't natural, it was man-made.

"What is this place?"

"The cursed hole." That peaked my curiosity.

"Why is it called that?" I asked as we turned a corner. Then I spotted the beginning of steel tracks and wooden cellars decorated with cobwebs.

"This place was a gold mine during the Shadow War. Rumoured to be the largest gold mine to ever exist. But only after a few months of digging, a dozen men have gone missing."

"Accidents?"

"If that were the truth, then it would be all simple."

"Wait, what do you mean by simple?"

"Men who worked there at the time, many would sneak back into the mine in the night to take gold for themselves. Many of them were never seen again. A few of those who did return, told stories of hearing long lost family members or friends."

My jaw was left hanging half open, as I slowly took in the chunks of information.

"Those who heard the voices, committed suicide or went insane shortly after. The mine was sealed off after only a year of operation."
Hearing Kuro explaining the horror of this place was like eating a cold pie, satisfying but doesn't quite give the right sense in the stomach at the same time.

"Then what made the noise? Is it ghosts?"

Well I personally believe in ghosts, and also in spirits and souls. And if I were to see one right in front of me, I can guarantee I will be shitting bricks all over the place.

"No. Not ghosts."

The way how she said it somehow made it all worse. I felt the temperature drop by 10 degrees as my blood ran cold, that something out in the darkness was stalking me and could be stepping on my shadow right then.

"Thenn..." I stuttered, then quickly restarted my whole sentence: "Then what is it?"

"Kuja." Kuro answered.

"Ku-ja?" I tried pronouncing it.
"A man who once went down the mine claimed to have heard the voices of his lost daughter. He followed the voice all the way to its source, and there he claimed to have seen the Kuja."

"Dang...then what does it look like?" I said, trying to keep my tone normal.

"From the sketch the man drew, the figure stands like a human, its skin was colored chalk white, but most disturbingly, its face was left blank. No ears, no mouth, no eyes, no nose, no nothing. He was unconscious when he was rescued and had no memories about the encounter. In the three months before he died, he repeated one word day and night..."

I am not a person fond of horror, but at that moment it felt as if my brain was held at knife point by my curiosity. There was no turning back.

"What was it?"

My heart drum rolled against my rib cage, accompanied by a crescendo of nightmarish thoughts flooding my mind.

"Kuja." The moment she spoke the word, the air seemed to drop by 10 degrees. As the dark space seemed to envelope us further and chocking out whatever comfort I had left.
We walked perhaps the next couple hundred of meters in silence and that's when I began to notice a dim haze of blue light waiting for us at the end. With cautious, curious steps we made it to the so called end, I couldn't help but gasp. Unlike the other parts of the cavern, such as the damp narrow path we came by. We found ourselves face to face with a giant wall of blue glowing mist, impenetrable even by my flashlight at close distance.

"This is the place." Kuro regarded her surroundings coldly.

"You mean the cursed..." my sentence was cut short as she answered:

"Indeed. Wait."

"Ok?"

I heard the sound of her taking something out of her pocket and a moment later she turned around to me and said:

"Turn your side to me."

I did as she told without hesitation, as I was once again curious of what she was planning to do.

"Don't look and stay still." She said with an edge, as I obeyed that one with pressed lips.

A moment later I felt a brief touch on my hip, followed by a fastening sound of ropes and ended with a click.

"Can I look know?" I said, sounding as if I got a really bad itch.

"Ah." She said, taking a step back.
I turned and looked over my shoulder and found this black rope dangling between us, with safety clips fastened on each end to our hips.

"It's easy to separate in the mist." She said impassively as she walked forth, then stopped in the midway of her step as her force tugged me forward which almost caused to me fall and lose balance.

"Follow, don't fall behind." Kuro eyed me.

"Alright, alright..." I sighed.

Just like that, we began to wade through the mist, but due to our unsynchronized footsteps, we constantly ended up tugging and almost tripping one another, which earned me a couple of looks from Kuro, but after several times she didn't even turn and just simply moved on.

"Kard." A light voice spoke out from the seemingly endless sea of mist. The voice felt alien, but it was what my heart had yearned for. Shards of memories gathered and formed to take jabs at my brain. The same episode of me failing, the previous failed attempt to get closer...not even a minute in, I had to detach myself from those thoughts to avoid hurting myself further. But while my brain was still flooded by emotions, I looked around frantically in the mist, looking for a face, looking for anything, and that was when I set my eyes upon it, my heart seemed to stop beating.

​That face...

​That voice...

Illyria.

"Kuro wait! Are you seeing this as well?..." I turned my cheek and looked behind, only to find a dangling rope, with nothing but a safety pin attached to her end.

Regardless of how, Kuro had just evaporated from the scene, I was once again truly on my own.

Q: Are you a fan of ghost stories?