Dan woke up the next day to find himself sleeping on the exact spot where his body had been inside the restaurant. He lifted his body slowly, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the blood-stained money... the same money he had snatched from his victims the night before. He placed it on the table, silently paid for the juice, and left.
As he left, he spotted people gathered in the dark alley where the four men had been killed. Whispers rose from the faces, but what startled him wasn't the bodies or the blood... it was the strange man in the crowd.
He was thin, his long black hair falling over his shoulders, his fingers fiddling with a gold chain dangling from his neck. His eyes were fixed firmly on Dan, a sharp stare that seemed to whisper, "I know you did it."
Dan's body trembled, but he turned away and continued on his way. His heart was leading him home, toward his family.
When he arrived, he found no one. He asked an elderly neighbor standing on the doorstep. "They've gone... to bury their son," she replied sadly.
He froze, the words like new knives piercing his chest. He hired a horse-drawn carriage and made the long journey to the cemetery.
When he arrived, the scene was beyond his imagination. A huge crowd of people. They had gathered for his funeral, more than he'd imagined his simple life was worth. He stood in the back, hidden in the shadows, contemplating the faces of the mourners.
His mother was melting in her sobs, and his sister Lyra leaned against her, sobbing. His father, as usual, was silent, but his silence was more deadly than any other sobbing. Frank was the most broken, weeping with a bitterness that surpassed even the family's tears. Then Dan realized what he'd never imagined: that he mattered more to others than he'd realized.
As the sun set, and the people left one by one to go on with their lives, Dan was left alone. He sat on the edge of the grave, facing his own silence. He looked at his tombstone, at his name engraved on the stone.
"Tell me... body lying there... are you enjoying your rest? Or am I? I, the cursed ghost, more at peace than you?"
Dan lay on his grave, staring up at the gray sky, memories playing with his mind. He remembered the moment of his death... the moment when he knew no pain, but was extinguished like a quiet candle, then suddenly awakened in his body again. But since that day, people no longer saw him the same. His return to life had fundamentally changed his features and his soul.
He muttered in a broken voice, "Why did I come back? What's the purpose of this? Is it torture? Or is it? Is it possible? To live my old life again... Or is this the real death? To return with your soul, but in a body that's no longer yours?"
Dan sank deeper into his dark thoughts, floating in a sea of despair until a faint sound broke the silence... like the sound of a metal chain or sacrificial pieces dancing in the wind. He opened his eyes to find a figure standing by the grave, smiling mysteriously and playing with a chain dangling from around his neck.
It was the same man Dan had glimpsed the day he committed his crime. The man placed a rose on the grave and said in a sarcastic tone,
"You seem to like lying on your grave... but you know the dead don't like that?"
Dan sat up, stunned.
"How... how did you know I was dead here?"
The man replied with a wide smile, "Because I'm dead, too, like you. My name is Liam... a ghost like you. My body lies there, only ten graves away. No one usually goes near it, and no one puts flowers on it. Unlike you... people seem to have liked you. As for me, no one liked me... except for one person, but he died long before me."
Dan didn't understand anything, becoming even more confused. He asked,
"Do you know... what happened to me? Why did I come back to life?"
Liam leaned closer, his bright eyes piercing the darkness.
"... I'll explain everything to you, but not here. You have to come with me first. There's an organization waiting for us. They're like you and me... ghosts who have returned to the human world. They call themselves... the Ghost Organization."