It's been several days since I've been here, but even after the authorities had cleaned up a lot of the wreckage left by the accident, there were still bits of metal and wood scattered around, but that's not a big deal now.

I already feared this, but as I approached the accident area, I was greeted by the unpleasant sight I hoped to avoid, I don't know how other psychics feel standing in the same place as the echoes of the dead, but I hate it. It's like having your body covered in a sticky layer of fear and pain without even focusing on one of the echoes directly and unpleasant to be around them, but not even an experience I've had in the past comes close to what's in front of me.

There are several dozen echoes gathered in one place and most of them are still reliving the pain of his death, once I was close to where there was a large-scale battle and I witnessed many echoes gathered, but they were just mourning his death and not reliving them as these poor victims are, I wish I knew a way to undo these echoes.

This makes the energy I have to face several times worse, but it seems Lion and Nelson are not affected by it. I think they spoke the truth about not being mediums, which on the one hand is good since they were honest but on the other it makes me confused; wouldn't it make more sense for a medium to test another medium?

“Are you okay, Teresa? I know it must not be easy for you, but I hope you can handle the presence of so many echoes.”

"It's not pleasant, but I can handle it since we're still a good distance away from them but I think that's going to change, isn't it?"

“I would say no, but this would not be a good one for your assessment. I don't want you to waste your time with the normal echoes, but rather look for any of them that sound different. The signs of an evolving echo can be very different so it would be counterproductive for me to explain them to you now, the best way to locate and use your natural instincts Teresa, look for echoes that are different no matter the reason or if you don't even can express them in words.”

I try to ignore the unpleasant aura of the echoes, I approach them and try to look for how Lion explained before or not explained, follow your instincts and try is not exactly a detailed explanation.

Something different? They all look in pain and filled with sadness, men, women, old men and children. To echoes of all ages here, it was truly a brutal accident, but in my one of so many deaths I think I found a different echo.

A little boy, he can't be more than ten years old, when I approach him, I'm sure he's different among the echoes of the victims. He's filled with sadness, it's so big it manifests as a layer of blue shadows over his small body, but I don't see pain in him.

I'm sure he felt pain before he died, it's impossible not to, but maybe his sadness is so great that he even forgot about the pain, the more I closed the distance between us, the more my senses focused on him. He wanted his mother, this is horrible I think I'm going to throw up, he's desperate for his mother and I can't do anything.

I feel my organs getting stiff when I focus on the kid, God, isn't that damn locket supposed to protect me? Because I'm feeling like my organs are turning over, that's why I've always stayed away from so much death.

When I feel like I'm only a few steps away from drowning in the sadness that blankets the echo, a firm hand grips my shoulder. She pulled me to the surface of all this sadness that covered me like a blue ocean, I can finally breathe.

“You are fine now Teresa, to many echoes here and without being careful you will be dredged up by their disturbed feelings.”

"Damn you could have warned me sooner, I've never sunk so deeply into spirits as I am now."

“Sorry, if I had told you before you probably wouldn't want to do it, the fear of the unknown only increases with cruel truths. We had to know if you could get in sync with the echoes, but you weren't at any real risk, I was by your side the whole time, Teresa.”

Jerk.

"What did you think?"

“A different echo, he is pure sadness, I feel nothing but sadness in him and that is not common. I don't know if that's a characteristic that he's going through a transformation."

Lion doesn't answer me anymore, he looks towards Nelson, who is a little far away from both of us. I think I'm doing fine.

“Fast, but not too fast. This echo will probably turn into a parasitic ghost, they are a big problem because it is difficult to identify them without the presence of a medium, they tend to stick to a living being and drive them crazy over time, very sticky, but leave no clear traces on their victims.”

"This is horrible."

“Most ghost procession stories in reality are normal people driven mad by this type of ghost, actual ghost possession and much rarer, it takes a very enraged and strong ghost to control a living being's body completely and they leave clear signs on their victim's body, it's quite easy to track their path of destruction. Can you describe to me the characteristics of this echo?”

“It's a kid, no more than ten years old maybe eight I'm not sure, he's wearing white shorts, a brown shirt, black shoes and a simple case of a shade a little darker than his shirt. There’s nothing special about his outfit, it’s not expensive, but it’s far from cheap.”

“Clothes are good for cases where there are multiple victims, but I mainly need to know the shape of your face, eye color, hair and also ears, they are very useful to identify someone.”

"Ear?"

“Yes, after you have done more quests like this you will realize that faces are not always easy to use to find their targets, many ghosts tend to have that part of their body distorted, eyes and mouths are usually distorted first into incorporeal entities.”

“It's always good to have many characteristics of your target written down for better recognition. What does the boy look like?”

"His hair is black, but there's a hint of brown to it, his eyes are dark blue, his face is round and I don't know how to describe an ear, it looks like a normal ear."

“Very curved in or out, and big for a child or toddler, has some part missing or marks on the cartilage of the ear. These are the basic signs, if his face is very natural, the nose is also a good feature to take note of, it makes the job of identifying the ghost much easier.”

"He has a small, flat nose, his ears look normal, the right size for a child, maybe the top tip of his ear is a little bit backwards."

“The ear helix?”

"I don't know the exact name of that part of the ear, Lion."

"Okay, that's more than enough, I don't think we'll have any problem identifying the child."

“Wait a minute, after you identify the child, won't you go after her body? You will?"

"He needs to be cleansed."

"Are you really going to burn a child's corpse?!"

“That's the job, Teresa, we can't take the risk of letting the child's echo evolve into something more deadly. Without purifying the child's corpse, she will end up killing many innocent people, our job and preventing that.”

“But is it the child's family? They will notice that her body was burned.”

“It depends a bit on the situation, the best scenario is to get the body without alerting anyone, usually this is achieved by replacing the body with another one, but it is difficult to get this done as we have to find a relatively new body that looks like the target.”

“A group of alchemists tried to create a fake body to replace targets in the past, but their research did not give good results. When the body is very damaged it is much easier to replace it, but if that is impossible, we simply steal it.”

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“More to prevent people from looking for body snatchers, we blame the morgue or those responsible for the wake, you would be surprised how common it is for them to make mistakes, bodies taken to the wrong places, confuse the identity or send the body to a medical school to earn extra money.”

“Many people bury empty coffins or with the wrong person without knowing it.”

"This is horrible."

"Do you think it's horrible what we do or that coroners and gravediggers make such serious mistakes?"

"Both!"

“As I said before, it is necessary to prevent more victims, you will get used to it. But about the incompetence of those who are responsible for the dead I have to admit that it is irritating, but it still makes our job easier, which is a very important job, Teresa.”

"Okay, but you're not going to ask me to cleanse the child's body, I don't think I can do that."

“I'm not going to ask you to do this, Teresa, but in the future, you may have to do more the first time you do it shouldn't be such a fresh and childlike body, burning much older bodies are easier to deal with, you can avoid seeing the face of a living person in them.”

"Thank you."

“But we're not done yet, we've found an echo that is evolving. If there are more of them and this is just our first trip, in several days we will do it again as the echoes are in such a unique condition.”

“How many times will I have to come here to check the echoes?”

“Three or four, but the trips are going to have a long period of time between them. You'll get used to it, is this a very unusual situation, ready to work around? I will be by your side.”

“Yes, I want to quickly finish this part.”

“Ok, but remember to be calm during a job, a clear mind is more efficient and in this line of work it is always good to do the job correctly, a job poorly done and very dangerous, many hunters turned hunting than they tried destroy and failed.”

"Really?"

“Yes, it is not always easy to kill something completely, for incorporeal entities like ghosts and wraiths it is difficult or even impossible to identify them, in order to destroy their remains if you fail and it is quite natural for them to try to take revenge on you. Other supernatural creatures also tend to have vengeful personalities, many hunters and academics were killed because they didn't do a good job eliminating a supernatural entity."

For the next few hours, I wandered through the echoes, after a while I completely lost track of time, Lion and Nelson said we only spent two and a half hours at the crash site, but to me it felt like an eternity. I feel like my body is completely exhausted, it feels like I've worked like a convict a whole day without rest, sinking into so much sadness and pain and very exhausting.

I feel my eyelids get extremely heavy, leaning against the comfortable and warm seat of the car, I think I'm going to fall asleep. I hope I don't have nightmares about the dead, I really need a good sleep to recover, a dreamless sleep would be great.

“Don't sleep yet, Teresa, I know you must be feeling tired, but we're not done yet. We have to go to hospitals where you hear deaths of train victims, even though they died far from the crash site they are connected with the other echoes, and as hospitals are places of so much joy, I wouldn't be surprised to find a few more echoes evolving.”

“You did a great job finding seven echoes evolving at the crash site, but that also has a bad meaning. They are changing very quickly, we thought there would only be two or three echoes, but seven means there will be more.”

Lion, who was watching me from the passenger seat as he destroyed my sleep intentions, took a metal vial from his coat.

“Drink just a few sips, don't look at me like that. It's alcohol free, actually sweet, it's an energetic and healthy mix, after you've had to resist the influence of the echoes you need something to reignite your body and mind.”

I took the vial and drank as he instructed me, just a few sips, but this is really good. Sweet as a fruit salad, but when it hit my stomach, I felt a comforting heat filling my body, the sleep I felt gripping me magically disappeared.

“Don't drink too much, too much will be very bad for your body and mind. Moderation is extremely important when consuming something this potent, Teresa.”

“This must be really expensive to do, it’s really potent, I already feel like my body has the energy to jump.”

“Okay, I think you took a little too much of the happy juice, give it back to me. You really don't want to find out what happens when you take too much.”

I return the bottle to Lion, but I can still feel the juice working its way through my body, how long will it take for this euphoria to wear off and how am I going to feel right now?

This must be one of those secret army stimulants, there were several rumors that they were giving them to soldiers so that they would fight to stop the war, but it also went down that they would end up killing the soldiers afterwards.

“Is that drink from the army?”

“No, and you shouldn't take that kind of rumor seriously, the army doesn't secretly drug its soldiers, they do it quite shamelessly. This supplement is made by the alchemists who are part of the institute, it's not a very expensive drink, but it's not cheap either, it's a very healthy mixture unless you overdo it.”

"What happens when you drink her too much?"

“You better not know, just don't drink it too much and you'll be fine. You must be awake to talk by now, Teresa?”

This is not reassuring; I think I should have had a sip less or smaller.

"Yeah, my test shouldn't be over yet, is it?"

"Smart girl."

“Don't call her that, Nelson. She's doing really well, this not a bad accident you should pass her test, Teresa. We go to three hospitals where you hear deaths of people injured when the train derailed, you've worked in hospitals as a volunteer before so you know the air there can be a little foggy but nothing close to what you felt near the tracks just now.”

“Echoes there will be easier to find, most deaths in hospitals tend not to produce echoes. Do you have any idea why that is, Teresa?”

“No, after I awakened my powers, I was surprised that hospitals were not as horrible as cemeteries, a lot of people died in them, I was very scared when my mother had to take me to accompany her on her shift as a nurse after I woke up, but It ended up not being a bad experience but I have no idea why not so many echoes there.”

“No to an absolute answer, you will find that to many mysteries in our line of work, there are many things that we can explain, but to many that we can't anymore, it doesn't stop us from using it to our advantage. I like to believe the theory that in a hospital the 'feelings' and actions of the doctors, nurses and anyone who shows acts of kindness or fights for the lives of patients means they don't see echoes very often."

“And I know it sounds pretty wrong, and probably a better explanation, but I like to think that kindness can help echoes not exist or even disappear. In the past there were more than one group that tried to exorcise the echoes without burning their bodies, they tried to dialogue with the echoes and try to convince them to accept their death, a noble goal more extremely difficult.”

“But did it work?”

“Yes, the reports and documentation of this type of tactic work, I've never seen it happen, but I believe it's possible but I also believe it's extremely difficult to work and whoever did it isn't sure how they did it, not completely at least. All reports show enormous inconsistency in successful cases.”

“A few years ago, there was a group that tried to do this, Lion, but they completely failed and the doctor called it a failed experiment.”

"Serious? Why didn't I know about it?”

“It was a small thing done by one of the clubs, you were in that English hell at that time, but after they failed the doctor said to keep the negative results a secret, the records are there for anyone to read, but it wasn't for talking about that."

“Probably in order not to discourage other groups who want to try to deal with echoes in this way, the doctor tends to do that. But it's a shame, I wish they would succeed, Nelson, who was the leader of this project?”

“Luka Mavis, he wears those black and brown glasses, messy black hair, French boy.”

"I remember him very young; I think he's only a few years older than I am."

“Sorry, Theresa. We ended up leaving you out of the conversation, but getting back to what we're going to do in the hospitals, it won't be long so after we're done, we'll have lunch at some restaurant, after that it'll be the final part of your test and we'll take you back to your house.”

"Okay, but I don't feel ignored when you guys were talking, but it's really a shame that this Frenchman couldn't find a better method than burning the corpses of the echoes, I would love not to have to do that in the future."

“It looks like someone is already getting used to the idea of burning bodies, but even if Luka succeeded, we would still purify bodies in the old ways. This method is very convenient and useful depending on the situation, Teresa, we are approaching hospitals.”

“In case you meet an acquaintance, you should say that you are accompanying us to help us with the glasses of deceased relatives, but when we are dealing with the hospital staff, we are two government investigators, ok?”

“Yes, but what kind of investigator?”

“Safe, but in the future always try to collaborate with other hunters' lies no matter how absurd they may seem, you'll be pretty surprised what people end up believing. Also beware of names, we tend to use fake names and it's awful when you get your partner's name wrong, but try not to make fun of the name you've chosen."

"Understood."

“Don't be so serious, Lion, it's fun to make some jokes. Teresa, it's good not to exaggerate, but it's also good to find joy in my work, it helps to deal with stress.”

“I'm not trying to spoil the fun, Nelson, I just don't want her to get carried away and pick up bad habits from someone like Diana. She exaggerates too much with the identities she makes up during missions, she has already pretended to be a duchess.”

“Okay, you test right. Diana really exaggerates too much, but when was that? Did she pretend to be wave royalty?”

“Nobility, not royalty, and it was last year, she almost caused a diplomatic incident by pretending to be an English duchess in Egypt.

"That must have been fun."

"It was not!

"Okay, we're coming."

They look more normal now, even though I've been working on mine so much.