Echoing Steps
Wôdnesdâ, the 18th of Ostaramonað in the year 267
The darkening sky prepared to bid farewell to the sun, casting long shadows that danced amongst the gravestones. The air hung still, heavy with the sound of ragged sobs. At the base of a freshly turned mound of earth, Madeline knelt amongst the rows of weathered graves, her black dress pooling around her.
Her trembling fingers brushed back a strand of black hair beneath her sombre veil before she wiped her puffy eyes with a damp handkerchief.
“I… I can’t leave you! Pietr…”
She pressed her wedding ring to her lips, then to the cold headstone. His name was carved there beside hers, waiting. The fresh earth covered her husband’s grave.
His smiling face, soft, pale, and gentle, rose in her mind, summoning fresh tears as the sun slipped beyond the horizon and swallowed the world in twilight. Cold moonlight glimmered through patches of steely clouds, casting an eerie contrast over the darkening landscape. When she looked down at the mound of freshly laid earth, wisps of vapour rose and curled above it, and for a moment Pietr stared back at her.
A sudden shriek pierced the stillness.
Madeline jerked her gaze skyward, heart hammering. A thick, dark shadow glided over her, sending a shiver down her spine. A trembling gasp escaped her lips.
“It’s an owl…” she managed, dabbing her eyes as the creature swept past, its silhouette casting shadows over the tombstones.
Her chest heaved as she rubbed her chilled hands together, trying to coax warmth back into her fingers. “I… I must go home,” she whispered. The surrounding darkness pressed in around her. Flames from the torch-stones flickered, their light casting jagged, stretching shadows across gravestones that seemed to leer at her.
“Oh, it’s late,” she murmured. Her breath caught. She rose unsteadily and turned towards the path out of the burial ground.
She reached the nearest torch-stone. Its ethereal glow illuminated the gravel ahead. She hesitated, then turned left. The crunch of stones beneath her shoes sounded strangely amplified in the stillness. Each step echoed into the void, reverberating back at her in a way that made her quicken her pace.
Startled, she jerked her head around, scanning the inky darkness behind her. Nothing met her gaze, only the thin, swirling mist rolling in like a curtain. She turned back to the path and broke into a light jog.
But the echo followed.
It tracked her steps with unnatural precision, like an unseen predator approaching. She risked another glance back.
The mist hugged only her footsteps. The rest of the graveyard remained perfectly clear.
How can this be? Her stomach lurched.
She sprinted towards the next torch-stone, breath trembling.
But she never reached it.
A guttural scream tore from her throat as pale, vapoury hands seized her from behind, dragging her into a burst of freezing darkness, and the night fell silent once more.
Okay so the way you build up suspense like, every shadow and whisper of mist is giving me literal chills I was totally on edge with Modeline my heart was racing the whole time and the imagery wow the graveyard the torch stones the moonlight everything feels so hauntingly beauiltful I literally felt like I was right there with her running and trembling along side her This is pure gothic perfection I can't even can't wait to see what happens next