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When I did awaken, the first thought to enter my oddly clouded mind was the deep and unerring chill. So profound was it, that I did fear for a moment that my very bones themselves had frozen. I clambered my way to a seated position and prepared myself to fetch what remained of the chair we had stolen from Chapman's last week, so I could use it for kindling. But upon opening my eyes I found myself not in my bedroom, nor in any room at all! Indeed, it was a place most familiar to me. A place whose sullen stones and mostly dead grass I had come to learn as well as my own name. Slowly I raised my arm and pinched myself until the skin surrounding turned white, but I did not break from the world I had found myself in.
I willed my breath to slow and shouted out with all my might, "GEORGIE! ANTIGONE!"
My cries were swallowed up by the chill air surrounding me, and no response came. After a moment more I tried again, "MADELEINE?".
And when that too garnered no response I tried for my most hated enemy "CHAPMAN! CHAPMAN DID YOU DO THIS?"
But still, I stood alone in that most silent of spaces, only my own voice answering my call. I felt the darkness pressing in on me and in that moment I knew I had become something I had not been for quite sometime, I was alone. Truly alone. With a halting stiffness I began to walk through the desolate rows of the dead. The path was one both simple enough and well known enough for me to traverse it by moonlight alone. I walked until I came upon the wrought iron gates at the front of the cemetery. I pushed against them but they did not budge. Even when leaning all my weight I could not provoke them into moving an inch! It was as if I wasn't there at all. I gripped either side of the gate and shook it as hard as I dared, yet still they remained unchanged. The fence encircling the cemetery may have been traversable, had I been in possession of more athletic skill than I was. I pondered it for a moment, before I decided that braking my neck well attempting to scale a fence was a very undignified way to go.
All options exhausted, I resigned myself to waiting until morning, at which point the rest of the village would awaken. The thought of spending all night trapped in the graveyard, surrounded by so many corpses, was not a pleasant one, but it was the only one I seemed to have. I sat beneath the tree that rested in the far corner and under its pitch black branches attempted to quell the panic in my chest. How had I come to be here? What would have driven me to this place? Dirt marred the knees of my trousers and the hems of my sleeves, had I perhaps set out to dig a grave? I dismissed the thought almost as soon as it came to mind, Georgie was one who did that. As I recall she was in fine enough shape to do it last time I had seen her. Thick fog seemed to swallow my memories and I found that I could not recall what day it was. Any recollections darted just beyond reach, like minnows in a stream. But still, even ignoring the gaps in my mind, a quick scan of the graveyard revealed no fresh graves, filled or otherwise. I could not have been here for that. I cast my eyes across the field that had become my prison, perhaps the world might find it in itself to be kind to me for once. Perhaps I would awaken in a short while and find myself curled in my bed. Perhaps then this dreary experience could be regulated to the small corner of my skull where all dismal dreams reside.
The clouds above, ever in tune to my misery, began to pour themselves out onto the already damp grass. Though the tree under which I rested would shield me for a time, I would no doubt end the night soaked and more frigid than I already was. The soft drops of water against my skin felt too real for dream, but yet too distant for wakefulness. I drifted in that muffled existence for what nearly felt like years. The rain never ceased, but it never breached the tree leaves beyond a few drops at a time. Though I closed my eyes and rested my head against the trunk, sleep eluded me. I must have laid there for hours in that strange twilight world. A soft hoot alerted me to the presence of an owl, no doubt escaped from the sanctuary, sheltering from the rain in the tree above me. Though I called out to it, it did not respond. Nor did it give any sign that it had heard me. Animals and I have always had an unusual manner of kinship, even if this beast was otherwise preoccupied. I tried no more to grasp its attention, instead making an effort to preserve what little warmth I had. When this ended and and I returned home, I would mostly likely do so with a cold. I dreaded the interruption to my schedule any illness would bring.
The owl and I stayed like that for a while more, water pelting down on the canopy above us. As dawn began to crack its way through the dark sky, I let myself believe my nightmare was nearing an end. Soon, surely, I would wake or otherwise be free from this place. The owl, perhaps disturbed by the oncoming morning, removed itself from the tree and began to take flight. I followed the owl's swift movement with my eyes. It swooped around the graveyard in a vast circling pattern, as though searching for something in the pale half light. After several minutes past, it landed heavily upon a stone. Then it began hooting once more, a new and sullen collection of sounds. It neared a dirge as it went, both beckoning and dreadful. I found myself drawn towards it, nearly indifferent to the rain as it pounded down. It had perched itself on a large stone, most likely denoting the surrounding area as a family plot.
When I neared close enough to read the name on the stone I felt a brief jolt of shock run through me, and I almost turned around right there. The surname chipped into the rock, nearly worn away by the years was indeed my own. I had not visited this place since the internment of my parents beneath its dirt. I would have left right then, had my attention not been drawn to something unusual. A new stone had been added to the plot. I bent down to examine it, hairs on the back of my neck prickling. I should have turned back there, perhaps. But I did not, and so I saw what was written upon the headstone. My own name, cut into the rock with careful and precise strikes. My heart would have stopped, had I not come to realize in that moment that it hadn't been beating at all. As I stared down at that terrible stone I felt memories I had forgotten come forward unbidden. It was too late for me to be out, far too late. But I had insisted. Had it been raining then, too? Through the thick tree canopy had the water pooled enough to transform the ground into slick mud? And then-
And then I had slipped, had I not? A brief rush of air as my dim flashlight soared through the air, a sharp intake of breath, a deafening crack followed by- followed by nothing at all. No. not quite nothing. The scurry and screeches of scavengers as they nipped at the soft exposed bits of flesh, the mud not quite cold enough to slow rot. A bird had landed heavily on the ground. It saw itself reflected briefly in clouded over eyes. It raised its beak and the world was washed away in a signal moment.
But still I remained, half curled on the forest floor. I do not know how many days must have passed before I was found and prepared for burial. Some distant recollection of a muffled scream, though it may have been a shout, comes forward. The difference matters little, for in that incredibly dense woods I had at last broken myself beyond anyone's ability to repair. But still they had tried, in their own ways. Had my dear sister readied me, had Georgie dug the grave? Someone must have, for I had been buried. The owl called out once more, saluting the morning sunlight piercing through the sky. It rose from the stone and flapped away, going where I could not follow. I stood alone in the slight stillness of early morning, starring at the fresh flowers someone had left for me.