Feast

I sprinted down the stairs, the wind biting my face. Footsteps thudded behind me. My heart was racing. I never should have ventured into the tomb.

I dodged gravestones, pushed through shrubbery, desperately trying to throw the footsteps off my trail. Darting around a corner, I dived beneath a large bush to hide. Branches scratched my cheeks as I held my breath.

The footsteps came closer.

Slowly.

One after another.

Then they stopped.

I pressed a hand against my mouth. For several seconds, there was nothing but silence. Even the wind seemed to have died.

A shadow appeared on the ground beside the bush.

“I know you’re there,” a voice said.

I remained still.

“You’re not very good at hiding.”

For some reason… I recognised the voice. Soft. Almost amused. Somehow, that frightened me more than the footsteps had.

The shadow disappeared. A moment later, the footsteps continued past me.

I waited before crawling out, trying to get my bearings. Through the fog, I spotted the lights of a police car. I scrambled towards it, nearly tripping over a broken gravestone.

An officer climbed out as I approached.

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“This place…” I gasped. “It’s haunted.”

The officer stared at me.

Before he could answer, I looked back towards the cemetery.

A young woman stood amongst the gravestones. Long dark hair drifted gently in the wind. Her pale face was barely visible beneath the moonlight, but I could see her eyes fixed upon me.

Ahyeon. Ugh. I thought I’d escaped her. Distance. Supposed unfamiliarity. That was the plan.

She raised one hand and waved.

A small, innocent wave. I melted.

She smiled. I melted again. Not that I was supposed to.

I steeled myself, and turned back towards the officer. Thankfully, he’d walked off, exasperated.

Lovely.

This case was to be closed. No one would look into it, especially not if I had any hand in it.

Never again.

The papers the next day read:

OFFICER GOES MISSING IN CEMETERY. BE ON THE LOOKOUT

Years later…

I sipped my watery tea, at this point, used to the taste. No different from every other day at work.

The pile of paperwork on my desk at the precinct was endless. Reports, witness statements, meaningless forms covered almost every inch of the surface. Unfortunately, I had to complete them. That’s how life worked. You had to do, what you had to do.

More importantly, I needed something to distract myself.

I opened the top drawer of my desk. Inside was a small silver bracelet.

It had appeared on my windowsill that morning, alongside a folded piece of paper.

Tonight. The usual place.

There had been no name written beneath the message.

I ran my thumb across the bracelet and smiled.

Three years had passed since that night in the cemetery. Three years since I had first seen Ahyeon standing amongst the gravestones. Three years since I had discovered what truly lived beneath the old tomb.

I still remembered our first proper conversation.

I had been shaking so badly that I could barely stand. Ahyeon had watched me from the other side of the hidden room, her head tilted slightly.

“Are you always this frightened?” she had asked. “No,” I lied. “You ran into a gravestone.” “It was dark.” “You apologised to it.” “I thought it was a person.”

She had laughed then. Not the cruel, horrible laughter I expected from someone who lived beneath a cemetery. Her laugh was bright and warm, completely wrong for a place like that. It was strange… but not uncomfortable.

That was probably when everything began.

As I prepared to work once again, Mark, my desk partner, came to our workspace and plopped himself down in the chair opposite, resting his shoes against the side of my desk. “One case down, one more to go,” he sighed. “Get your feet off my desk.” I muttered.

He ignored me.

“Have you received your new case briefing yet?” I asked. “Yeah, it’s some idiotic religious flunky stirring up trouble again. Something about grave desecration at a cemetery. Apparently, ‘God is angry’,” he moaned. I stilled for a moment. My eyes slowly moved towards the silver bracelet.

“Which cemetery?”

Mark glanced at the paper in his hand.