Rust

The site of horror stories always drip with a little blood afterward, no matter what happened. It leaks from holes in the walls, leaving stains as it runs it way down to saturate the ground a light crimson brown. These small stains give patterns to streets and tree trunks across the world and, removed from context, they are able to trace their own stories.

Following these trails detectives often find themselves fumbling through abandoned buildings, trekking across open fields, and hiking far into age warped forests. And within? New byways for the unwary investigator to follow deep, deep into lost places at the core of the world.

It takes time, and more than a little luck, to find these areas that wriggle inside the world like tapeworms through the gut. But, sometimes, people do stumble on them and find inside only an empty concrete room or a huge faucet dripping congealed blood into a basin. Staying awhile changes nothing, the room stays bare, or the tap continues to splat wetly again and again and again and again onto the porcelain.

These places do exist though, at the end of long trails.