PART 13

I obeyed, probably because I didn’t have another choice besides the less-than-glorious one of running away as fast as I could. After a few moments, the icy hand came back and perched on my shoulder blade like a heavy, numb bird. A smell of dirt and rot invaded my nostrils. I felt my skin get covered in goosebumps and I chocked back a pitiful moan, but I didn’t flinch. 

The being behind me said nothing and did nothing. And yet, very suddenly, I felt a flood of foreign emotions (his emotions) take over my soul and shake my body. There was fear, and I stopped breathing. There was sadness, and I felt my own throat get tighter. There was loneliness – an awful loneliness – and I nearly screamed. There were regrets, there was anger, there was…

– Turn around and face him, son.

The call shook me out of my trance, and I looked at the one who had just spoken to me: it was the grave digger of course. He was looking at me impassively, but I think I saw a glimmer of amusement, or maybe it was something else.

– Turn around, the grave digger repeated.

It was incredibly noisy in my head, but if I knew one thing, it was this: nothing and no one in the world, in that exact moment, could have forced me to turn and face that… that thing.

– Turn around.

I clenched my jaw shut and felt my own nails rip into the skin of my palms. No, no and no again. I wanted to stay sane. Stationary I was, and stationary I would stay.

On my shoulder, the hand’s pressure got greater and a puff of frustration overtook me, literally submerging me. I understood that the creature beside me was losing patience.

– Turn around, son.

NO! I said NO!

– TURN AROUND.

The command hit me once more, but the voice wasn’t the same: it had a cavernous, unreal tone, with a particular resonance that clearly meant “Don’t play with me”. I realised that it was not the grave digger that I had just heard, and my last threads of dignity disappeared all at once.

I let out a strident scream and wrenched myself out of the thing’s grip to run and hide in my nocturnal guide’s reassuring shadow.

I stayed behind him for a while, panting and trembling. When I dared to look, guess what: the creature had disappeared, taking its foul breath and its terrible icy-fingered hand with it.

– You should have turned around, the grave digger commented, trying to light his cigarette butt again.

(Go to PART 14)