Page 2 of All the Things We Buried
The dirt was wet. Sticky. The air smelled wrong, like rusty metal.
I saw it.
The blood first. Thick, black under the moonlight, but dark red as I approached.
Too much. Way too much.
I stepped closer. My breath broke. My chest tried to fold in on itself.
Ian was there on the ground, and his eyes were closed. His lips parted like he was about to say something, but no words came. His skin looked too pale, like the color had slipped out of him and into the dirt.
They say when you see death, it never leaves you.
That night, it stole everything. My voice. My breath. My brother. My world.
And I never got any of it back.
I lost myself that day.
ONE
DORIAN
23 years old
The walls breathed with me. In. Out. They whispered to me in the places no one else could hear.
I hadn’t spoken in years. The words had rotted somewhere inside me. Died the same night Ian did. The white burned my eyes. The bed, the floor, the ceiling, the straps. Everything white. White like his skin in the barn; drained, empty, silent.
I stayed in my corner. Back pressed against the wall. Knees locked against my chest. That’s where it felt smallest. Safe, almost. Like if I folded myself up tightly enough, I could vanish inside my own ribs and never come back out.
He was there again.
Shadow.
He was always there. Sitting across from me like a vulture that never needed to eat.
“You still wouldn’t talk,” his voice slipped into my ears. “It’s been years, Dorian.”
I didn’t look at him. I stared at my fingers instead. They twitched without me asking them to, as if they had their own thoughts, their own fears.
“You still talk to them, though, don’t you?” Shadow whispered. “Ian. The barn. The screams.”
The air turned out to be colder than it was before; I could feel my breath in the air. The whispers behind the paint grew louder, pressing through the cracks. They were always there. Always watching and always waiting.
The door clicked open, and a sharp light cut through the room. “Phone call for you,” the nurse said as she entered.
I stopped breathing. The phone continues to ring in her hands.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
My chest tightened. My pulse stumbled. My hands shook harder now.
Shadow leaned in closer. “Who’s calling you, Dorian?”
The ringing carved into my skull.
Ring. Ring.
