The graveyard behind Northward Chapel stretched far beyond the wrought iron fence that marked its edge, sloping down into a shallow valley where the fog pooled like spilled milk. The stones here were old, most so weathered their names had been erased by time, leaving only the suggestion of who had once lain beneath. Crosses leaned, broken columns lay half-buried, and crows perched like sentinels on statues with no faces.
Corren Vale had worked these grounds for three years now, ever since the fever took his parents and the priest took him in. He'd learned quickly not to ask questions, not to linger too long by the oldest plots, and never to speak to the mourners, especially the ones who didn't bring flowers. Those were the ones who stayed too long after sundown, staring at the ground like they expected something to come up from it.
Tonight the mist had arrived early, and the silence was thicker than usual.
He stood knee-deep in a new plot, the soil dry and stubborn despite the recent rains. His shovel made a dull chock each time it hit a stone. The rhythm was comforting, thrust, lift, toss, though it left his arms aching by the third hour. A lantern sat near his feet, flickering faintly, its flame reluctant in the damp air. Beyond it, the graveyard melted into gray.
The chapel loomed behind him, its bell tower long disused, the bell itself cracked down the middle. Ivy had crept up its stone flanks like veins, and the stained glass windows hadn't caught sunlight in years. They depicted saints no one prayed to anymore, faces too hollow, eyes too wide.
Corren paused to stretch, knuckles stiff, breath steaming in the cold. He leaned on the handle of his shovel and looked out across the gravestones. No one else was out here. Not that he expected company.
And yet
Something in the stillness felt different. Not wrong, exactly. Just watchful.
A breeze stirred the fog, exposing rows of graves that hadn't been visible a moment ago. Some bore fresh flowers, others melted wax from vigil candles. Then there were the forgotten ones, their markers half-swallowed by earth, roots twisting through them like veins through bone.
He rubbed his sleeve across his mouth and returned to his work, striking the shovel again into the dirt. Another thock. Another stone.
But this one didn't feel like the others. It rang.
A low, dull note, not metallic, not rock, just off, somehow.
Corren froze. He pressed his ear to the wooden handle, listening. Nothing. Just the wind again. Or the whisper of it.
He shook his head. "Getting soft," he muttered.
The words sounded loud, louder than they should've in a place like this.
And then, from somewhere just beyond the edge of the mist, a shape moved.
Not fast. Not threatening. Just passing.
He squinted, trying to follow it, but the fog swallowed it too quickly. When he turned back to the grave, the hole looked deeper than it had moments ago. He couldn't remember digging that far.
Behind him, the chapel bell groaned once, an old wood creak of sound, like something heavy shifting in its sleep.
Corren looked up, heart thudding once, hard.
Then he laughed under his breath, wiped the sweat from his brow, and went back to digging.
Corren didn't remember falling asleep.
The shovel was still upright in the soil, and the lantern had gone out. The fog pressed closer now, thick as wool, and the graves around him had vanished into it. Only the disturbed earth at his feet remained visible, pale and loose as ash.
His breath came in short, cold bursts. The air smelled different. Older. Sweet and sour, like rotted fruit left in a crypt too long.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off the sluggishness that clung to him. His limbs felt heavy, like he'd been submerged. He reached for the lantern, struck the flint, and watched the flame cough to life. The light barely touched the mist, but it revealed one thing: the hole he'd been digging was no longer empty. Something had surfaced
It wasn't a coffin. At least, not like the others he'd unearthed over the years. This one was too smooth, almost like stone, but darker than any wood he'd ever seen. Black, but not with paint or rot, just black by nature. And etched with something. Patterns. Symbols. Not letters. They wound around the surface like veins, or cracks that hadn't split.
He crouched, not touching it, just studying.
The soil around the object was dry, even though he'd struck groundwater just a day ago. No worms. No roots. Just that dead, thirsty dirt.
Corren swallowed. His mouth tasted like metal. He didn't remember eating anything all day.
He reached out with the edge of his shovel and gently tapped the surface.
No sound. Not even a thud. The vibration didn't carry up the handle. It was like tapping the void.
He stood again. Looked around.
Nothing. No chapel in view. No gate. No fence. Just fog and grave markers, some at angles he didn't recall seeing before. Some were broken in ways that felt deliberate.
Then faint and far, a bell rang.
Not the chapel's bell. This one was deeper. Slower. Like it had been rung underwater.
He turned toward it instinctively, though he could see nothing in the direction it came from.
When he turned back, the object in the grave was open.
There hadn't been a seam. No lid to move. No sound.
But now it lay open, like a flower pulled apart by unseen hands.
Inside was only a shadow.
And something looking back.
Not eyes, not exactly. Just the weight of being watched. A pressure behind his ribs. A wrongness in the bones of his face.
The flame in his lantern surged once, too tall, then vanished.
Corren stumbled back, heart hammering, blinking into the dark.
When he opened his eyes again, it was morning.
Gray light spread across the graveyard. The mist was thinning, peeling away to reveal crooked stones and dew-wet grass. The chapel stood as it always had, silent and unmoved.
The grave he'd been digging was half full. No object. No hole. No signs of anything ever having been there at all.
Just his shovel, lying on the grass.
And beside it, a footprint.
One that didn't belong to him.
Corren didn't speak of what happened the night before.
He hadn't slept. At least, not in any way that made sense. One moment he'd been staring into that impossible hollow in the dark where something had watched him. and the next, the sky was pale and colorless, mist retreating from crooked headstones like it had never belonged there.
He didn't remember closing his eyes. He remembered the grave, the thing inside it, the lantern's flame vanishing, and then morning. Just like that.
The chapel stood unchanged. The grass was wet. The grave he'd been digging was half full, as if nothing had disturbed it. No sign of the strange object, or the pressure behind his ribs, or the hollow presence.
Just his shovel.
And the footprint.
He tried to ignore that part. But as he walked the grounds that morning, he kept glancing toward that row. The edge of his vision tugged toward it, the way a bruise demands attention even when you don't press it.
Everything else was as it should be.
Until the end of the far row.
There it was.
A grave, freshly dug, dark with churned soil gaping like a wound
He stopped. Tilted his head.
He didn't remember this one.
And he would have. He tended these grounds every day. There'd been no funeral, no service, no notice from the chapel. Just the open dirt. No headstone. No tools left behind.
He stepped closer, peering down into the shadowed pit.
At first, he thought it was a chunk of bone. White, porous. But as his eyes adjusted to the low light, he saw the shape more clearly.
A skull.
It sat in the middle of the grave as if placed, not buried. Whole, clean, no soil clinging to it. And something about its angle, it wasn't lying flat.
It was facing up.
Looking.
A breeze passed over the cemetery, and he shivered. The grass rustled, though none of the trees moved.
He crouched at the edge. He wasn't afraid, exactly. More... unsettled. Like someone watching a wasp circle just inches from their face.
He swallowed and stared into its hollow sockets.
Something brushed the edge of his mind.
A whisper. Not in his ears, but behind them. Like the feeling of remembering a voice without words. Like being watched from inside your own skull.
His breath caught.
He stood abruptly, stepping back, nearly slipping on the wet grass.
No one's around, he told himself. No one's here.
But the air felt changed. Charged. The wind carried no sound. No birds. No distant bells.
The skull remained where it was. Waiting.
Corren turned, walked away, and didn't look back.
He didn't see the faint imprint of fingers pressed into the earth beside the grave.
The morning air was sharp with the scent of wet earth, and the graveyard was eerily still as Corren stepped through the iron gate. He hadn't meant to come back. not yet anyway, but the pull had been impossible to ignore.
His boots crunched softly across the damp grass as he made his way to the far row. He hadn't told anyone about the strange grave or the footprint that had been left behind. The others would have asked questions he wasn't sure how to answer.
But now, standing before the grave once more, the weight of it pressed on him, heavier than before. The dirt was still undisturbed, the air stagnant, as if time itself was holding its breath.
And there, in the center of the grave, was the skull.
It looked the same. No sign of decay, no weathering of any kind. The bone gleamed faintly in the muted light, a stark contrast to the surrounding earth.
But this time, there was something different.
A hum.
It was so soft at first, he almost missed it. A low, vibrating sound, as if the skull were alive, or something inside it was. The sound wasn't constant, but pulsed, just on the edge of hearing, like a distant whisper.
Corren swallowed, his throat dry, as he crouched by the grave again. His hand hovered near the skull. Something about it seemed to call to him, compelling him forward despite his better judgment.
Finally, his fingers brushed against the smooth surface. The hum deepened, and he felt a strange tug in his chest, a sensation like something invisible pulling at him. The pressure behind his ribs was familiar now, that wrongness from the night before.
For a long moment, he simply stared at it, heart hammering in his chest. He didn't want to touch it again. He didn't want to feel it, whatever was inside the skull, whatever force it contained.
But something kept him there, rooted in place, staring at the hollow eyes that seemed to stare back, even though there were no eyes at all.
The hum grew louder, vibrating in his teeth. Corren jerked back, his pulse quickening.
And then the voice came.
A whisper, barely a breath. "Take it."
He stumbled backward, his skin prickling with cold.
The voice wasn't like the one from the grave last night, though it felt similar. It was insistent, threading through his mind like a dream he couldn't escape.
Corren turned his gaze to the surrounding graves, half expecting someone to emerge from the mist, half-expecting to find eyes staring back at him from the shadows. But no one appeared.
His fingers trembled. He didn't know why he reached for the skull again, but he did, lifting it slowly, carefully, as if the weight of it might shatter him.
Once it was in his hands, the hum faded. Only the lingering pressure remained.
He stood there for a moment longer, unsure of what he was doing. Should he take it? What was this, this thing, he had in his hands?
But the graveyard was silent again, except for the wind. He couldn't leave it here, not like this. Not after everything. He glanced around, making sure no one was watching.
With a final, heavy breath, Corren turned and began to walk away. The skull cradled in his hands, its humming now a dull, insistent pulse.
And in the stillness of the graveyard, the wind whispered.
The skull was heavy in his satchel. Not in weight, but in presence. Corren felt it with every step, as though it were watching the world with him, tucked beneath the leather flap and cloth wrappings.
He left the graveyard through the rusted side gate, stepping onto the narrow, winding road that led toward the town's edge. Fog still clung to the gutters and lower alleys, swirling as he walked.
Rellmark was not a large town. Tucked between low, forested hills and the gray mouth of the river, it had once been a thriving port village. Now the docks rotted, the merchant routes had shifted elsewhere, and the bell tower in the square hadn't rung properly in years.
The buildings leaned together like conspirators, crooked rooftops and worn brick faces, chimneys exhaling faint plumes of smoke. Old signs swung silently above shopfronts that rarely opened. There were people here, yes, but they kept to themselves. Curtains stayed drawn. Conversations happened behind doors, in whispers.
Corren passed the baker's shop, windows fogged, shutters half-closed. The apothecary was shut, its sign scratched through in places no one had bothered to repaint. Even the chapel's steeple, visible over the rooftops, had begun to lean.
He adjusted the strap of his satchel and kept walking.
A murmured voice pulled his attention left.
"Corren?"
He turned.
Elda stood at the edge of a crooked stairwell, wrapped in a dark shawl. Her eyes, sharp and clear even in the dim morning light, flicked to the bag on his shoulder.
"Didn't think I'd see you this early," she said. Her voice was quiet but not cold.
"Didn't think I'd be out this early," he replied.
She stepped closer, scanning his face like she was trying to read something he hadn't written. "You're pale."
He shrugged. "Didn't sleep."
A silence hung between them. Short, but weighty.
Elda looked past him, toward the fog-draped road that led to the cemetery. "It's thicker than usual, isn't it?"
Corren nodded.
She hesitated, like she wanted to ask more, then let the thought drop. "You heading back home?"
"Yeah."
Elda looked like she might say something else. Then she just gave a small nod and stepped aside.
"Be careful," she said, and her tone had changed. Less casual, more knowing.
Corren didn't ask what she meant. He just nodded again, and continued on.
The rest of the walk passed quietly. The mist began to thin as the sun fought to rise, casting a dim silver sheen over the cobbled streets. A blackbird cried once from a rooftop and was answered by nothing.
When he reached his house at the edge of town, he paused before unlocking the door. The satchel felt heavier than ever.
Inside, the hearth was cold, and the air still smelled faintly of ash and damp wood. He placed the satchel down gently on the table.
Then, slowly, carefully, he unwrapped the skull.
It stared at nothing.
But something, somewhere, hummed again.