Chapter 37 #4
You ever get that moment, little Ghost? Where it stops being about what’s happening and turns into something older than that?
Something instinctive. Predator, prey. Except, I couldn’t tell which one I was at that moment.
Because he didn’t move, he just stood there.
Looking at me like he’d always known where I’d end up, like this was inevitable, like I was.
My grip tightened around the stone until my fingers started to hurt.
Time stretched long enough that something inside me started to twist, to pull too tight, like it needed to break or it would tear me apart from the inside, and then it did.
A sound ripped out of me, a raw noise dragged up from somewhere low and violent in my chest, something that didn’t belong to language at all.
It tore through the air, rough and ugly and loud enough to break whatever had settled between us, and I moved.
Not toward him, toward the coffin. The stone came down hard.
A dull, heavy crack against the surface, again and again.
Each impact jarring up through my arms, into my shoulders, into my ribs where everything was already screaming, but it didn’t slow me down, it only made it worse.
Faster.
Harder.
The sound changed with each hit. First solid, resistance, then gradually weaker, the surface giving in to small fractures that spread under the repeated force.
The paint chipped, the structure underneath started to strain, wood beneath the outer layer, old, weakened, but not gone.
I hit it again, and again. Breathing gone completely uneven now, turning into something closer to gasping between strikes, my vision narrowing until all I could see was where stone met the coffin. Another hit, and something gave.
A split, small at first, then wider as I brought the stone down again, driving into the same point, forcing it open bit by bit until the material finally cracked under it, caving in just enough to leave a jagged opening where the surface had broken through.
The sound that followed was hollow. I froze for a second, chest heaving, the stone still raised in my hands, sweat and dirt and something darker smeared across my skin.
The hole was there, right in front of me, and behind me, I could still feel him. It wasn’t enough.
The hole was there, jagged and ugly, but it felt too small.
Like it still held something together that I wanted gone, so I brought the stone down again, hard.
The edge caught, splintered more of it open, widening the gap.
Each hit grew sloppier, driven more by raw force than control, until the opening split wider and wider, the wood breaking apart into jagged pieces beneath the force.
Just broken material pushed inward, torn apart.
I came to a stop when my arms finally started failing me.
My grip slipped against the stone, mud and sweat making everything harder to hold onto, and for a second I just stood there bent over the grave, my whole chest straining hard enough to hurt while my body tried to recover from what I’d forced it through.
I looked down into it and there was nothing, just darkness, thick, swallowing everything beyond the edge of the break.
I couldn’t see anything inside, just a void where something used to be, and I just stood there staring into it.
Then something twisted in my chest and I straightened up, dropping the stone to the side without looking where it landed. My hands moved on their own, mechanical. I stepped closer to the edge of the coffin, positioned myself over the opening, pulled my dick out and gave my mom one last goodbye.
Poetic, isn’t it?
My mouth dragged sideways into something warped that barely resembled a smile, and then the laughter came out of me before I could hold it back.
It sounded wrong immediately. Empty in a way that made my stomach turn, like it had been trapped somewhere deep in me for far too long and finally forced its way out the second it found an opening. I kept laughing anyway.
Hard enough that it started hurting. It echoed off the stone, off the ground, off everything around me, twisting into something that didn’t sound like it belonged to a person anymore.
You would’ve loved that, little Ghost. Or maybe you would’ve looked at me differently after that, hard to tell.
I finished, adjusted my clothes again, then I looked up towards the trees.
The spot where he had been, empty, no trace of him at all.
If he were moving, then I’d find him. I pushed myself up out of the grave, boots once again slipping against the loose dirt before I got enough leverage to pull myself over the edge, landing harder than I meant to on the uneven ground above.
My body reacted too late. Pain flared through my side, my shoulder, places I’d ignored long enough that they were starting to demand attention again, but it didn’t matter.
I straightened, turned toward the trees, ready to move, ready to hunt, but then. “Stop! Hands up!”
I turned and there it was, a gun, pointed straight at me, locked and more movement behind it. Shadows shifting, spreading, cutting me off before I even had time to move.
“Hands where I can see them! Now!”
My heart slammed so hard it fucked with my hearing, everything coming in too loud and too distant at the same time. Blood still on me, dirt under my nails, the grave behind me, the hole, the coffin and that gun, pointed right at my chest.