The sky, a wash of charcoal cloud, hung over him like a painter’s curse; its heaviness pressed down exactly as his mood did. The can in the fridge jumped into his thoughts like a burglar frozen mid-act. ‘Give me strength,’ he whispered to the empty air. ‘Stop this torture.’ Fiends clawed at his thoughts, fighting for possession of his tongue. Each second was a silent battle already half-lost. His stomach knotted; sweat crept down his neck like insect legs, a feverish itch that refused to ease.
The silence that came with the drink sat like a dreamy promise—one hiding a blade behind its back, waiting to slide cold steel into his heart. The thought lingered, a whispering dare. He marched to the black gate, shoulders drawn tight. It shrieked like a ghoul as he wrenched it open; the sound scraped his teeth and rattled down his jawbone.
He halted, hands on his hips, and let his eyes drag across the graveyard—headstones to the horizon. Thousands upon thousands of lives, each reduced to inscriptions chiselled on rock to bear witness to their once-passionate existence. Archie shook his head. A scowl flickered and stayed too long, caught between a snarl and a tremor—the face of a man at war with himself.
It was late, and the cemetery was usually his to lose himself in. The place held four hundred thousand bodies beneath its iron-ringed earth, each stone a hard prod to remember where all flesh ends.
Movement snagged the corner of his vision: mourners in grey huddled around an open grave. Despite being some distance away, their chanting drifted in the breeze. What weird cult might this be? What secret society worshipping death and all its mysteries?
He stared momentarily, straining to hear the sounds of the lamenting mourners, and drifted toward them. They were communing in a language he didn’t recognise—cadences ancient, maybe not of this earth at all. Each vowel landed heavy, like stones into dark water. A shiver crept down his arms, needling into his fingertips.
In perfect unison, they turned and stared. Their heads moved together, unnaturally exact, like marionettes tugged by one string. Did one have red eyes?
Weird—too weird. He stumbled back, pulse thumping in his ears, the hairs on his arms bristling, and hurried in the opposite direction. The way they turned… He fixed his eyes on the path ahead, though he allowed himself one tentative glance over his shoulder. The group had returned to their chanting.
‘Fuck ’em,’ he spat. The words sounded thin, unconvincing, snatched away like scraps for hungry ghosts, vanishing into drizzle.
‘Whoosh!’ A black streak whistled past his ear.
‘Shit!’ he hissed, doubling over as instinct yanked him tight. Looking up, a crow the size of an alley cat sped away from him. Momentarily transfixed by its flapping flight, he watched it settle onto a thick branch that hung like a withered arm halfway up an old tree. The bark looked diseased, and the limb jutted crookedly, as though the tree itself had been punished. The wood wept sap—old sores glistening like pus under moonlight.
It sat there and looked intently at him like a stern, black-robed judge, there to condemn him for all his self-destructive crimes. His chest tightened as though awaiting sentence. Staring back, he awaited its verdict. Nature, life, even his own breath seemed to reject him—a cursed black cloud clinging close, following like a shadow. His lips parted, waiting for words that never came.
—And we watched too, didn’t we, reader? We watched, and we judged—
A shiver ran through him, and the spell broke; reprieved for now. He rubbed his temples, forcing reason back into place. It’s not staring at you, idiot. Why would a crow be bothering you? Wait—is that the same crow from before? No, it can’t be. Get a grip. The echo of judgement still needled him, though he shook it off.
He shook his head and scowled, trudging down the main path that cut through the graves like a hallowed observer. Curiosity, though, forced a glance back towards the old tree.
It was still there.
It is looking at me—it’s a ghost—it’s my punishment. His thoughts splintered into shards of accusation. Have you been drinking? God, I’m losing it again. His throat clicked as he swallowed. The last thought snapped his attention back to the ‘real world’. With another shake of the head, he turned and planted his feet firmly along the path—resuming the walk of the damned. Before long, following his usual route along its maze of crisscrossing walkways, the trail led him deep into the cemetery’s momentary calm.
A sudden sight ripped at his attention amongst the myriads of memorials—a fresh grave for a twelve-year-old girl.
‘Christ,’ he spluttered, his hands twitching at his side. His eyes burned; the word snagged in his throat. Before he knew it, his hands clasped in a quick, awkward prayer for her deliverance. Morbid fascination gripped him as he shuffled on, a vagrant of the living.
After a tap, tap, tap on his smartphone, her image appeared on the screen in a blink.
She was tortured and murdered by her uncle.
My God, horror upon horror. His gut hollowed, the world tilting a fraction. The graves beneath him seemed to sink, as though the earth itself recoiled.
He jammed the phone into his pocket—guilty secret shut away. With a bowed head, he continued the journey along the forever-grey path. Rage rose inside him, ready to battle the maker of this blood-stained world. The rage stayed, simmering beneath his ribs, like coals glowing in a sealed furnace.
He tramped along, searching for answers in the granite tombstones as if they might murmur an answer. Each one whispered into his ear, Welcome to your fate; we look forward to greeting you in the damp, worm-infested earth that is your true home.
‘Not today,’ he growled back, snatching his attention onto the trail ahead as the grumbling road that cut through the cemetery approached. His voice cracked but held, an ember of defiance glowing through the gloom.
Cars drifted past; their occupants lost in dreams of better places. He waited for his chance and darted across the road. Death was mere feet away in the shape of soulless, petrol-spewing metal, billowing filth into the once-clean air. Each one an arrogant ‘Fuck you’ to the balance and harmony of nature’s bloody orchestra. His nostrils flared at the stench. He shook his head and forced open the creaky iron gate that took him into the older part of death’s chambers. More rows of burial places came into view, breeding like alabaster weeds in the rich soil, to cover the remnants of lives long faded.
The beauty of the place seized him for a heartbeat. Even as shadows draped across the path like dark spectres, the mature cherry blossom trees that lined the route filled his vision with their pinky-flushed foliage. The first spring flowers were also begging for attention, covering swathes of open ground in a lemon-yellow mantle. Petals brushed his shoes like fragile wings, as though trying to lift him free of the earth.
In that instant, despite his foul mood, it raised his spirit. Bleak thoughts loosened their grip, and for a heartbeat the world sang with boundless possibility. A scene from a fairy tale, almost, despite the failing light. A canopy of flamingo-feather pink swept across his vision with flowery cheerfulness. The petal-sweet fragrance filled his nostrils. The scent pulled a sigh from his chest, a sigh that felt borrowed from another life.
For a breath, hope suddenly seemed close enough to touch, life no longer a torture rack that whipped his soul. He reached out as though wanting to caress the dizzying array of potentialities that danced around him. A fragile moment held him, his hand trembling in the air.
Reality’s menace seared his sister’s face across his inner eye. The spell shattered in an instant. ‘How could she? How could she?’
He snarled and shifted his attention to the weather-worn headstones. Tens of thousands of stones drummed out life’s final tune. A mockery of ambition, each dream long since turned to fertiliser for the next ill-fated generation. His teeth ground until his jaw ached, a sound like crushed grit under boot.
He scanned the graves, lids heavy, air leaving him in a tired hiss, as he trudged down the path. Was the smell of rotting flesh filling his nostrils, or was it just earth, leaf and tree roots mesmerising his senses? The air was damp and cloying. He pulled his coat tighter. Moisture clung to his lashes, beading them like dew on thorns.
Light faded fast in the west, all brightness oozing away like honey sucked back into a jar. Shadows teased his mind, each clump of impenetrable blackness fizzing his imagination into life.
Ghosts and bogeymen were no longer foolish imaginings. Every twisted trunk and chiseled rock was a potential hiding place for any creature nursing dark intent. Archie already knew there were monsters in the world. His skin prickled as though proving it, each follicle a warning bell.
His head whipped from side to side as his walking quickened. His breath fogged in the cooling air.
A sudden ‘Caw! Caw!’ burst in his ears from a nearby grizzled oak. His eyes widened as they fell on a murky form, sitting like a black-eyed messenger on a low-hanging branch.
Was this the same crow that had flashed past his ear only moments ago?
It couldn’t be, could it?
It stared at him as though he stood guilty of a terrible crime. The gaze pressed against his chest, as if talons had already sunk into his ribs.
He tore himself away and walked ever faster down the endless pathway, the exit still some minutes away, with ‘Caw! Caw!’ following like a tolling bell.
‘Fuck you, crow,’ he hissed. ‘You don’t scare me.’ The tremor in his voice betrayed him, a crack like splintering glass.
Out of thin air, a lanky man in grey and black collided with him.
Archie recoiled as if jabbed by an electric prod; his arms flying wide, his heart punching into his throat.
‘—The hell!’
The man jolted to a stop and turned towards him, his face shaded by a tall, tatty hat. He stood like a crooked twig, draped in a Victorian-style overcoat, with a sturdy walking stick at his side.
‘Be true. Be brave,’ he rasped at Archie with a voice as croaky as any smoking devotee, pointing his metal-tipped stick. The words landed cold, like iron across his skin, etching themselves into his bones.
A silence crouched beside him, patient and predatory. The pause scratched Archie’s nerves.
‘Be true, be brave,’ he rumbled again, his frame angled towards Archie, though his eyes stayed hidden beneath the hat’s brim.
Archie glimpsed a monocle. It caught the last sparkle of daylight, shooting forth a golden beam that blinded him for an instant. Spots danced across his vision, like fireflies mocking him in the dusk.
After a pause that sent prickles up Archie’s spine, the sallow man turned with a tap of his heels and strode away at a brisk pace.
‘What?’ Archie gasped. ‘Be true? Be brave?’ His throat felt tight around the words, as though a noose tugged at his voice.
He stood open-mouthed and brow furrowed, watching the gangly man scurry along the path his steps had just taken.
Faintly, the words ‘Be true. Be brave,’ followed him like an echo.
Archie turned away with a gulp, heart hammering against his ribs. The cemetery was throwing up too much weird stuff. His head felt ready to explode. He looked back, eyes narrowed, prepared to catch up with the man and confront him. Grab him by his collar and bellow into his ear, What do you want from me?
But he’d vanished.
Archie twisted and turned. Where on earth was he? His eyes jerked from side to side, but he could see no sign of him.
‘You can’t just disappear!’ His voice cracked, shattering the silence like a dropped chalice.
All around was silent and still.
‘Right,’ he snapped at a nearby tree. With a firm stride, he headed towards the nearest exit, a few minutes away. ‘Screw this place.’ The words clung like burrs.
His pace quickened, almost a run. The cemetery stabbed impossible visions into his skull; his feet couldn’t keep pace. The darkness of his mood, which had sung such a bitter refrain, now sang with fiery adrenaline thrashing through his muscles. His legs buzzed with nervous current.
Escape, escape, his inner voice urged from the pit of his mind. Run for your worthless life.
He pushed himself faster but refused to give in to wild fear. He would be fine soon—safe behind indomitable brick and thick glass.
It was dark now, though—really dark. How had it become so dark?
Shades leapt across the path, the last light shaping them into grasping shadows and contorted apparitions.
An icy chill rushed through his veins. Gooseflesh rippled across his arms, as if the night itself had laid claim to his skin.
‘Where’s that damned exit?’ he barked into the Godless gloom.
A loud ‘Caw! Caw!’ burst above his head. The sound broke his nerve. His shoulders coiled, ready to spring.
He scrabbled in the gravel for a stone to throw. It was too dark, though.
‘Damn it!’
He broke into a staggering run down the murky path. His neck hairs bristled; every breath told him a nameless wrong was choking the air. The night itself seemed to gnash its teeth.
As he turned down the path, he entered the stretch he never enjoyed, even in daylight. The trees on both sides were vast and imposing, with branches like giant arms and skin like dragon hide, bent and twisted as though afflicted with a curse. Even in summer, they struggled to produce leaves. They seemed to lean in, ready to grab him. Every shadow looked like a reaching hand, a congregation of claws.
Head down, he pushed on. The exit was close; he’d be safe soon.
‘What the hell was that?’
He’d heard a whisper. Was it the wind?
He stopped and looked around. There’d been a voice, only a faint murmur, but definitely a voice. The hair on his scalp prickled, each strand a tuning fork for dread.
The wind, it must be the wind.
Onward he went—this time, he was sprinting.
His limbs thrashed without rhythm; control was gone.
The voice grew louder.
A pitch-black shape loomed on a nearby branch.
Recognition seared through him.
It perched as if waiting for his confession. His breath stuttered in his throat, lungs refusing to obey.
Terror surged through his veins. Run, run, run, the beast in him screamed.
He slipped on loose soil, crashed into the dirt, and struck his head on the roots of an immovable oak.
Sound vanished; for a moment he couldn’t move. The earth reeled around by him.
He forced himself upright, swaying.
‘Jesus!’ he hissed into the cold air, pressing his hand to the open wound.
He frantically rubbed the muck off his crumpled clothes. Voices were all around him; his head swirled like a deranged carnival wheel. Each whisper lived inside his skull—a hive of unseen tongues buzzing in his marrow.
‘Caw! Caw!’ split the air like tearing cloth.
He stumbled forward, blood seeping from the wound on his forehead. A sting burned as it trickled into his eye, blurring the world red.
He could start to make out words—soft, soothing, almost hypnotic.
Me eiddig stag duru, dardd an erdedd
Me am y eçyl uying uchel yn y awyr
Me is y llinteu glisg yn y haul
He flung his head from side to side but could find no source for the words. He strained his ears to catch more of the verse, though his compulsion to escape strangled his attention. The laws of nature themselves seemed ripped up and replaced with disembodied voices, vanishing pensioners, and stalking crows.
A man’s voice reverberated in his ears, deep and foreboding, like a gangster’s warning.
Me a gwybod y gyfrinachau anedigaethau maen
Pwy a wyf yn gwybod dyfodiad y misgynhennod eira.
Archie abruptly stopped and stared forward, eyes as wide as the moon. Ten feet ahead, the air rippled like a ruptured veil. He stared, horrified but transfixed, like a rabbit watching a weasel dance. His knees threatened to buckle.
‘What the fuck?’ were the only words he spat out. The curse cracked in his mouth like glass, splinters lodging on his tongue.
The world of science and logic was crashing into rubble. He touched his scalp and felt the warm stickiness of blood seeping through his hair.
‘I must be…’ he murmured, gripping his head with both hands and stepping back from the distorted air. A dreadful force surged through his body. He was being pulled.
An unseen force gripped him like a monstrous meat hook. It heaved him towards the whirling air, whose form was transforming into an unearthly doorway, intent on hauling him into an unknown realm. His heels dug furrows in the dirt, tearing through the earth’s skin.
The voice grew manic—like a priest lost to his own devil.
Me yv y lais ehen yn nosgell dwrth
Eme esat yssu desat torfenn a thrageth
Me a’r passion a losgyn am byth yn fy mewn
What was this mesmerising melody? What mystery, what malevolent spirit, held him in its grasp? His ears rang with the pull of it.
Archie fought back with every shred of strength. His face stretched into a scream, teeth bared.
‘Aah!’ he wailed into the night.
With each stretched sinew and muscle, he fought and fought. Whatever had him, he would not go without a blood-pumping battle.
He screamed as loud as his lungs could bear. The sound tore his throat raw, a cry sharp enough to scar the dark.
Surely someone would hear him.
‘Help me!’ he bellowed, eyes bulging. ‘Someone!’ Veins corded along his neck.
Something struck the back of his head.
‘Caw!’—then another, and another.
That bloody crow! This time beak struck flesh; white pain slashed, bursting stars across his vision.
He fell forward—in a flash, sucked into the impossible entryway. The air folded like black silk around him.
As quickly as it came, it vanished—leaving only the flailing crow and the stone silence of the cemetery. Gravel whispered as though swallowing a secret.
All that remained of Archie were his bootprints in the gravel. A phantom gust swept over them, erasing every trace before the night closed across the scene like a lid.
The crow glided away and faded into the blackness, and all was still—ghost-still—as if nothing unusual or unexpected had happened at all.
—And we, who had witnessed, were left with the silence—a silence that accused—
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