Keeping his doubts in mind, Duncan continued to uncover the rest of the body buried in the earth, and in the process, examined the corpse very closely.
A few minutes later, Duncan had successfully uncovered most of the body, at which point he stopped.
Looking at the body, Duncan frowned slightly. Much to his surprise, the body was very fresh and well preserved, with no signs of decomposition, as if it hadn't been long since he had died.
But that shouldn't be possible—from what Duncan knew, the last person to be reported missing had disappeared over a week ago, so unless this body belonged to someone who had disappeared in the last few days, it shouldn't be in such pristine condition.
Not dwelling too much on this point, Duncan started taking mental notes as he continued observing the body.
"The victim is a white male of average height with a sturdy build and well-defined muscles, wearing a casual evening outfit consisting of a set of plain shirt and trousers that fit loosely on the body. The weather has been very hot lately, especially at night, so this should put his time of disappearance from the outside world at about evening time."
"Due to how excellently the body has been preserved, it is difficult to tell exactly how long the victim has been dead, but personal estimates put the time to be for about two weeks at the earliest based on the latest reports of missing people."
Speaking in a neutral tone, Duncan detachedly narrated the description of the victim loudly to himself. In doing this, he also announced his speculations based on what he saw on the body.
Finished observing the victim's body, Duncan began reaching towards his pocket while continuing to speak.
"There are no bags or accessories around the victim, so I'll have to check the pockets to see if I can find a phone or wallet that can be used to identify him."
As soon as Duncan's hands touched the victim's body, though, he immediately recoiled as if touching burning hot coals, his face tinged in confusion.
It had only been a split second, but something about the way the victim's body felt had forced him to pull his hand away in shock.
But because it had been so short, Duncan wasn't sure about what he felt, so he reached out to touch the victim once again.
This time, Duncan did not retract his hand right away. A strange expression growing on his face, he carefully touched the victim not only on his thighs but all over where his body was exposed.
The more he felt, the more Duncan's expression warped strangely, a mix of horror and confusion twisting around on his face in equal measure, showcasing the level of his disbelief in the moment.
Forgetting what his original purpose was, Duncan slowly removed his hand from the body, his mind swept up in a storm of questions, the answers to which he could not provide at the moment.
With some effort, Duncan managed to clear his thoughts, then finally spoke to himself once again.
"Well, this is unexpected. The victim's body appears to be completely dried up like a piece of wood without an ounce of fat or muscle in him at all, his skin seemingly adhering strongly to his bones like it had been fused together. And yet, the body continues to maintain its original form, with it developing a stiff, iron-like quality to it."
Pausing for a moment, Duncan continued speaking to himself: "I've never encountered something like this and can't explain what the cause of this phenomenon is. I can only speculate that this ghost realm is responsible for this change, making me wonder if all the people who went missing ended up like this eventually."
Regarding this, Duncan wasn't sure. Although he'd shown some interest in this case based on the rumors and official statements he could find from open sources, he had never actually delved deeply into investigating this case.
For reasons only Duncan knew, he never actively sought after supernatural cases to investigate, yet he always found himself running into one supernatural event or another that forced him to investigate in order to survive—which incidentally ends with him solving the mystery, leading to him developing a huge reputation as a great supernatural detective.
That is how he got into this line of work in the first place, but all of that was incidental, as his foremost goal had always been to survive; and yet, to do so required him to use all his wits and intellect to solve whatever supernatural phenomenon was endangering his life in the first place.
That is why when Duncan had learned about this case, apart from a little curiosity, he hadn't intended to investigate it at all, and yet it was this curiosity that had forced him into this situation.
If he hadn't decided to observe the crime scene, thinking that things would be fine as long as he kept his distance and didn't directly step into the area, he would have been fine.
Of course, the reality proved to be much different from what he expected, and so he was trapped in a ghost realm where those who entered seemed to turn into terracotta soldiers upon death.
"Is this going to happen to me too?" Duncan wondered.
"What are the conditions needed to become like this? Must I remain in the ground and only after dying would I become like this, or would it still happen regardless of whether I am dead or not or buried?"
This discovery caused a slight panic to rise up within Duncan, who immediately began looking for clues to help him figure everything out.
"No, I have to figure this out before it's too late."
With that, Duncan forgot about checking for the victim's identity and started observing the rest of his body closely for clues.
Starting from the head, Duncan raised the victim's head up to get a close look at him.
Despite being extremely well preserved, the body was very stiff, making it difficult to move it, but it wasn't completely impossible.
With some effort, Duncan managed to lift the victim's head, showing that although stiff, the corpse still retained some mobility.
On the victim's head, Duncan noticed a horrible scar directly on his forehead that had been covered up by a patch of dirt that Duncan hadn't cleared up earlier, which explained why Duncan hadn't noticed it before.
The scar was extremely ugly and covered the entire region on his forehead, appearing like the entire skin of the forehead had been scraped off, with cracks being visible on the skull as if something heavy had been struck against the victim's forehead repeatedly.
It was the only visible part of the victim's body that wasn't completely intact, and it had been maintained perfectly by the power of the ghost realm.
Seeing the wound, Duncan winced subconsciously, imagining just how much pain the victim must have been in, but he didn't dwell on it too much and hurriedly moved on to check the rest of the body.
Further investigation subsequently uncovered other similarly gruesome wounds on the victim's arms, particularly his fingers.
They looked like they had been through a grinder.
The tips of the victim's fingers were completely broken and mangled, torn flesh hanging loosely in shredded pieces, with most of his fingernails having broken off.
The ones that were still attached to the victim's fingers had a lot of dirt underneath them, and there were clear scratch marks on the ground below the body from where he had likely clawed at it, possibly trying to dig into the ground.
The rest of the body also showed clear signs of bruising, but it was the scratching on the ground that helped Duncan piece together what had happened to the victim.
Looking at the victim's face that seemed like he was sleeping peacefully with his eyes closed, Duncan could only imagine the horror inside those eyes that were hidden behind closed lids.
"Poor guy," Duncan whispered.
"You must've been really terrified, weren't you? Suddenly finding yourself trapped inside the earth, unable to escape... it must've been a horrible experience, wasn't it? That is why you tried so hard to dig your way out of here with your bare hands, not caring if you were injured; you continued digging and punching until your fingers bled raw and the flesh was scraped off, revealing bare bones... yet, you didn't stop for a moment. And when that didn't work, you slammed your head directly into the barrier keeping you from freedom over and over again despite the pain, until you finally passed out and died."
Indeed, this was the conclusion of Duncan's investigation, which he reached after examining all the clues he discovered and pieced together.
Without a doubt, this was the most likely scenario that happened after the victim found himself buried alive.
For some reason, unlike how it was for Duncan, the victim hadn't been able to dig himself out of his grave despite all his attempts to do so.
It was like some mysterious force existed that prevented him from doing so, which forced the victim to injure and maim himself in a panic to escape the grave.
It was a torturous experience, one that Duncan felt very chilled to think about, so in the end, he forced himself not to.
Instead, Duncan directed his thoughts to other, more pressing concerns.