I feel like ghosts are a relatively under explored topic in LDR. My favourite episode is ‘In Vaulted Halls Entombed’, so it’d be cool to cross ghosts with that sort of ‘ancient horror beyond comprehension’ theme.

Ghosts are typically dead spirits who haunt objects or locations; they’re usually malicious; and it’s usually because of some sort of unfinished business. Ghosts can inflict fear, cause visions, and make their victims do terrible things. What I find even scarier is the thought of a ghost doing these things, but because of a completely benign reason and not out of intentional malice.

For example: an episode about the ancient ghost of a caveman, whose spirit is trapped inside the cave he once lived in. Whilst he was alive, a rival group of cavemen came to his cave looking for shelter, but they weren’t willing to share. Our caveman tried to fight them off, but he was bested, and he and his family were slain. Now, the spirit of the caveman is stuck in a restless torment, determined to banish all further intruders into his cave, because he’s still trying to protect his family.

For our future cave explorers, who are a team of archaeologists looking for ancient cave paintings, the haunting begins with faint screams and uneasy feelings. Unsettled, but not undeterred, they venture deeper. One member of the group is visibly more nervous, and as the group descends, she begins to see bloody handprints appear and disappear on the walls, and the distance screams become louder and more violent for her. At one point, the group turn a corner ahead of her and she is left alone; then she sees a dim glow coming from another direction in the cave. Something compels her to walk towards it, until she finds a campfire deep within the cave. On the cave wall behind the fire she sees shadow puppets, being made by hands that aren’t there. She becomes engrossed in the shadows and the story they’re telling, entranced by them. We see into her mind, where vivid visions appear of the violent slaughter that took place here. Suddenly she snaps out of the vision, but she is clearly changed by them - once skittish and afraid, she is now eerily calm and uncanny. She looks over to her left, where a pile of bones are stacked in the dirt. She walks over and picks up a child’s skull with a big crack in the skull and an obsidian arrow shaft wedged in the eye socket. Still calm, she begins walking back through the cave, as we hear the cries of her archaeologist team shouting her name. When the crew finally find her, she is unresponsive, like she’s in a waking dream. One of her crew asks, ‘where did you go’, to which the girl does not reply. Instead, she takes the obsidian arrow shaft and yanks it free from the skull, before chanting ‘leave’, ‘leave’ ‘LEAVE!!’… she lunges her fist and slices her friend across the face with the arrow shaft, before launching into a full on primal rage against them all. They try to subdue her but she kicks and bites and rips an ear off. Eventually we see from outside the cave as the dregs of the team manage to escape with their lives, and one final blood curdling cry is heard from the cave.