Ghosts!
Morgan spent either a few bad hours, or possibly an eternity, moving through the ruins of New Brunswick. The MagTrak pushed its way through what looked like the aftermath of a modern battle; there were crashed helicopters and burned-out tanks and some truly terrible shapes burned on the ground and the walls. Night had fallen by then, and the shadows themselves seemed to flit and move when Morgan looked at them; whether from intent, or his own increasingly feverish imagination, he never knew.
And there were ghosts, perhaps? Nothing seemed to venture upon the Magtrak itself, but Morgan had a truly terrifying moment where he encountered the smashed remains of one of the maglev trains. Inside the shattered cars flickering white-grey wraiths endlessly replayed what appeared to be their last moments of life. Something about those repetitive movements unnerved Morgan, for reasons he could only feel, not articulate; or perhaps it was the fresher skeletons on the decaying carpets, some still holding swords and shields. If unwounded, Morgan might still have retreated from the scene; as it was, he was not ashamed to not stray too close to those drifting spirits’ blind gaze.
But he misjudged how close was too close; as he moved back from a visible spirit, another suddenly raised a loud keen and stopped its endless pantomime. Blind and slow it might have been, but it moved inexorably towards Morgan, who suddenly realized that navigating the passage without rousing another ghost or six might prove tricky.
What do I do? he thought as he tried to scramble away, hampered by his weakened state. The skeletons and swords bore mute witness to the potency of mundane weapons on this battlefield; or, more truthfully, their impotency. And in those first days Morgan bore no magical blade.