Chapter 1382: Story 1382: Her Whisper in the Graveyard
We buried her at dusk.
No prayers. No speeches. Just hands, trembling and sore, digging through frost-bitten earth behind the old churchyard, under a twisted tree that still blood white flowers despite everything.
Talia.
Gone in seconds.
One bite. One scream.
Then silence.
And a promise I made with blood on my lips: “You won’t co back like them.”
The grave was shallow.
We had no choice.
The soil was hard.
The shovel broke halfway down.
My back ached for days.
But we gave her a place.
Not a fire. Not a ditch.
A place.
Three nights later, I heard her voice.
Faint.
Like wind catching a threadbare ribbon.
“Eli…”
I froze, mid-sip of water. The rest of the group was asleep in the church. I stood, ears straining.
Again, softer this ti.
“Eli…”
My na, caught in the fog.
I followed it.
The grave was undisturbed. No claw marks. No broken roots.
But the white flowers were all turned—facing the mound.
And the air slled like her perfu. Lavender. Rainwater.
A scent I hadn’t slled since before she died.
Then I heard it again.
Right beside .
“Eli… don’t forget…”
I collapsed to my knees.
Was I breaking?
Was this grief?
Or was she still here—sowhere between life and what ca next?
In the days that followed, I began to visit her grave more often.
At first, I just sat.
Then I started talking. Quietly. Like she was beneath the roots, listening.
I told her about the others. About the supplies we found. About the infected patrols passing closer each night.
Then I told her I missed her.
That I couldn’t sleep without her hand in mine.
That I still felt her in every sunset.
The others said I was losing it. Marla even threatened to dig her up “just to prove she’s gone.”
I nearly stabbed her with my own knife.
That night, the whisper ca again. Louder.
“Don’t let them… touch .”
I ran back to the grave.
The ground was disturbed.
Soone had started digging.
And whoever it was… hadn’t finished.
A boot print. Fresh. Still moist in the soil.
I stayed up all night, guarding her with a rifle in my lap and rage in my chest.
But no one ca back.
The next morning, under the white tree, I found sothing half-buried beside the grave.
Talia’s locket.
Open.
Inside, a photo of us. Smudged, dirty, but intact.
And scratched behind it, in handwriting that wasn’t mine:
“I rember you.”
I don’t know what’s real anymore.
Maybe the virus takes the body, but not the soul.
Maybe love doesn’t rot.
Maybe she never truly left .
I buried the locket where her heart would’ve been.
And whispered back.
“I rember you too.”
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