He didn't expect anything to happen that day.
That was the problem.
The road by the river had become busy since morning. A merchant cart had snapped its axle on the uneven stones, spilling sacks of grain across the dirt. People gathered not out of concern, but habit—hands moving, voices overlapping, life continuing in small, unremarkable ways.
He stood nearby longer than he needed to.
Not helping.
Not leaving.
Just watching grain being scooped back into torn sacks, watching arguments spark and fade over whose fault it was, watching how easily the world occupied itself.
Someone laughed. Another cursed under their breath. The horses stamped, restless, breath fogging the air.
It was ordinary enough that he barely felt present in it.
That, too, mattered later.
A sharp sound split the air.
Wood cracking.
The shout came a heartbeat after.
He turned just in time to see the cart shift—weight redistributing suddenly, violently. One of the support beams gave way completely, splintering outward. The horses reared, panic snapping through them.
He stepped forward without thinking.
Not heroism.
Instinct.
Something struck him square in the chest.
The impact drove the breath out of him so completely that for a moment he didn't feel pain—only absence. His feet left the ground, body thrown backward as if he'd been pushed by an invisible hand.
He hit the dirt hard.
Sound dulled immediately, like he'd been plunged underwater. Shouting became distant, warped. The sky above him tilted, blue breaking into uneven fragments as his vision swam.
He tried to inhale.
Nothing happened.
His mouth opened uselessly, chest burning as if clamped shut from the inside. Panic rose, sharp and animal, but his body was already failing him.
Pain arrived late.
It bloomed deep in his chest, spreading outward, heavy and crushing. Every heartbeat sent a wave of heat through him, weaker than the last.
Someone knelt beside him. He felt pressure against his ribs, hands trying to steady him, to fix something already broken.
A voice said his name.
He couldn't answer.
His fingers twitched against the dirt, nails scraping weakly. The ground felt cold despite the sun overhead, the chill seeping through his clothes and into his bones.
The world narrowed.
Edges darkened, closing in slowly, methodically—like a door being shut with deliberate care. The noise around him faded into a low, constant rush.
His thoughts fragmented.
Not regrets.
Not memories.
Just confusion.
This wasn't supposed to matter.
He stared up at the sky as a cloud drifted lazily across it, unaware of the chaos below. Its edges were soft, shapeless, indifferent.
He wondered, distantly, if anyone would remember this moment.
Then the pain dulled.
His chest stilled.
The sky dimmed until it was nothing at all.
⸻
They said he died quickly.
That part was a kindness.
By the time his body was carried away from the road, the cart had already been righted. Grain was gathered. Arguments resumed. The horses were calmed.
Life closed around the gap he left with practiced ease.
By evening, his name was being spoken softly, carefully, as though volume alone could change its meaning.
Candles were lit.
Someone washed the blood from his clothes.
Someone else closed his eyes.
No one noticed anything strange then.
The priest murmured the usual words. His family listened in silence, hands folded, grief contained rather than released. The body cooled as expected, stiffness setting in with slow inevitability.
He did not breathe.
He did not move.
By the next day, they placed him in a simple wooden coffin. Nothing ornate. Nothing meant to last longer than memory.
The lid was closed.
Nails were driven in.
Earth followed.
Three days passed.
And the world did not wait for him.
There was no darkness.
No drifting.
No sense of waiting.
Breath returned violently, as if forced into him by something impatient.
His chest seized. Air tore into his lungs, burning all the way down. He choked, body jerking as his back arched against hard wood. His hands struck something solid above him, fingers scraping uselessly as panic surged too fast for thought.
The space was too small.
Too close.
His second breath came in ragged, broken gasps. The smell hit him next—stale flowers, damp earth, melted wax. Each inhale tasted wrong, heavy with dust and decay.
Wood surrounded him.
Pressed against his shoulders.
Against his legs.
Above his face.
A box.
The realization did not arrive with terror.
It arrived with clarity.
I was buried.
His fists slammed upward again, harder this time. The sound was dull, muted, swallowed by layers of soil and silence. Dust fell into his mouth and eyes. He coughed, choking, throat raw.
Another strike.
Then voices.
Murmured. Low. Rhythmic.
Words spoken slowly, deliberately.
Prayers.
His next удар was wild, driven by instinct rather than strength. The coffin shook, just enough to break the rhythm of the voices above.
The prayers stopped.
Silence followed—thick and sudden.
Then someone screamed.
The coffin lurched violently as hands grabbed it from above. Soil slid away, cascading down the sides. Wood creaked under pressure. Nails shrieked as they were torn loose.
Light split the darkness.
The lid was ripped open.
He sucked in air like a drowning man, coughing hard as sunlight stabbed into his eyes. His vision swam, shapes blurring together—faces leaning over him, frozen in disbelief.
There were only a few of them.
His mother collapsed first, knees giving out as she fell forward into the dirt. She made a sound he had never heard before—raw, broken, wordless.
The priest stood rigid, prayer book slipping from his fingers. His lips were still parted, as if the words had simply failed him.
Someone whispered, barely audible, "That's not possible."
Hands reached toward him, then hesitated.
He sat up slowly, body trembling, lungs burning but functional. The tightness in his chest was gone. There was no pain. No wound. He looked down at himself with shaking hands.
Clean clothes.
Unbroken skin.
He pressed his palm flat against his chest.
A heartbeat answered him.
A man near the edge of the grave stepped back, crossing himself again and again. "We buried him," he said, voice unsteady. "Three days ago."
Three.
The word settled heavily in his mind.
He tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
His throat worked uselessly, as though language had been buried deeper than his body. He swallowed, tasting dust and copper, and finally managed a hoarse breath.
His mother reached him then, hands clutching at his sleeves, his arms, his face—touching him too quickly, too desperately, as if afraid he might fade.
"You're cold," she said, and then immediately, "No—warm—why are you warm?"
He didn't know how to answer.
They pulled him from the grave carefully, as if he were fragile. As if he were something that might break if handled incorrectly. The world above ground felt too open, too wide after the coffin's confinement.
People gathered later.
Not many at first. Word spread cautiously, carried in whispers rather than shouts. Those who came did not crowd him. They watched from a distance, eyes full of questions no one dared to ask.
He was given water. He drank it slowly, hands steady despite the weight pressing on his chest. Every movement felt observed, measured.
No one asked how.
No one explained why.
That night, he was returned to his bed.
Candles burned low around the room, their light flickering across familiar walls that now felt subtly wrong, as though they belonged to someone else. His family took turns watching him, afraid to sleep.
He lay still, staring at the ceiling beams.
Sleep did not come easily.
When it did, it brought no comfort—only the sensation of earth pressing down on him, of breath running out, of voices fading above.
Morning arrived.
Then another.
People looked at him differently now. Not with relief alone, but with caution. Conversations stopped when he entered rooms. Hands hesitated before touching him.
On the third day after his return, he went to the grave alone.
The coffin had been removed. The headstone leaned against a tree nearby, his name carved cleanly into stone. Fresh earth filled the hole where he had been laid to rest.
He stood there for a long time.
Nothing spoke to him.
No answer rose from the ground. No understanding followed.
Only the quiet certainty that the world had accepted his death without protest.
That night, he sat by the fire with a small knife in his hand.
He did not hesitate.
The blade pressed into his palm until blood welled up, bright and warm. Pain flared sharply—real, immediate.
He watched the wound.
Moments passed.
The bleeding slowed. The skin closed.
He stared at his unmarked hand.
His breathing was steady.
Something was wrong.
Not with the world.
With him.
And whatever it was, it hadn't ended in the grave.