They knew they would travel their separate ways, intrigued with their own vision of darkness. The tall, lanky man had walked eastward, toward the crypts surrounded by foliage. The shorter, stockier man had walked westward, towards the children’s graves. The woman with them was but a young girl dressed in black. She was undecided on who to follow, so she just paused for a moment and let her gaping mouth take in this grey land. Then she proceeded to merely go forward, making her own path toward the obelisk in the very heart of the cemetery.

She looked up into the bleak, grey sky and could barely see the tip of the fifty foot monument. She sighed, and violently shivered, knowing that she was all alone. The absence of sound echoed in her ears; it was too quiet to feel completely safe. The silence was broken by the piercing shrieks of nocturnal birds: the owls and bats. They remained hidden, deep in the evergreen trees, but their presence was evident to her.

The girl continued to walk through the cemetery, walking amid the forgotten graves. The cemetery itself was immense; she felt like a tiny black scar upon the face of this vast, grey land. She gazed at the headstones, neatly organized in a row. While intently examing each one, she gently pressed her fingertips to the inscription. Shadows of the grave markers were fixed upon the ground, causing an eerie effect. The girl crouched behind a stone, with her knees pulled up tightly to her chest. A delicate gust of wind had tossed about her raven locks, and unconsciously, she had brushed the hair from her dark eyes. She was searching for her friends, the two whom she had entered with, but she felt completely abandoned. She wanted to scream, but her mouth had gone mute. Anxiously, the girl had searched for a trace of someone. She had risen from where she was seated and walked onward. She was familiar with this place, yet she had no idea where she was going. Panic began to seep into her brain and her feet led her further. She walked with heavy treading footsteps that seemed to have reverberated into the air; each footstep penetrated the ground and sounded like a cannon. Her mind ran in circles; around and around and around the girl had walked without any realization. Her body guided her in circles.

She began pacing, back and forth, with the urge to cry out. Suggestions of people obscured her mind. The people of this land were dwelling ten feet below her. Then she noticed the tall, skinny figure was walking just ahead of her. She whispered his name, trying to avoid waking up the people. He continued onward, not even looking back to her. He never even noticed that she was there. He had stopped to look down at the stone that he nearly tripped over, and then suddenly the man she knew had disappeared from her sight. She feared being so alone in this land; it was so cold and brusque. She wanted to be held close to feel his warmth. She wanted to find the other one too, and listen to him speak. What she would give for some human conversation to shatter this quiet!

Unrest had cut into the very core of the girl. Her heart pumped fiercely in her throat. Grey shadows outlined every black silhouette with its own evil glow. They punctured her eyes and lingered in her mind, but she kept walking, rambling, pacing, through every inch of this desolate land. The ground grew soft under her feet, and the girl noticed she was walking over a fresh, new grave. With fear in her heart and mind, she fled over the plot, scrambling and racing away. She was stupid for running; there was nothing there.

Then she felt the cold running down her spine. She stopped short and peered into the darkness. Strange, unknown sensations filled her, and she was struck down furiously. In nervous convulsions, her slender body twitched and shuddered uncontrollably. Her body was overcome with the feeling of a million insects crawling under her skin. Hot and cold flashes struck her mind. She tugged at her skin and tore at her hair. She had no power over her erratic and spastic motions. She was being attacked by her deranged images; they slowly grew into more severe hallucinations. Madly, she rolled over; it was then she felt the stable hands reach her to help her up from the ground. The girl pushed them away and felt the earth beginning to swallow her.

Screaming wildly, she struggled some more and inched away. On her hands and knees, she met eye to eye with the body of another girl. This girl’s soul was untimely snatched away. Her dead gaze stared at the demented girl. The dead girl had been brutally murdered and was left here to decompose with others ten feet under. The demented girl stumbled and raced to her feet. She felt some pity, but her fear was overpowering as it steadily increased. She ran as fast as humanly possible toward the entrance gates. She ran gasping, until she couldn’t even take in any air. The girl collapsed again, panting on the ground like an animal. A sharp sting resounded in her head. She slowly went to stroke her sore head, and felt her hair matted with blood. A puddle of blood oozed from her head. Her eyes flickered and sluggishly she sensed herself slipping into unconsciousness.