Running through the cemetery, her heart deep in her chest, it was then that Lilly remembered how the spirit had warned her: "It isn't over yet." Dark, alive, and closing in from every corner, with every step heavier was the weight of secrets the graveyard held. She had always known that West Wood Cemetery was dangerous, but the true size of that danger was slowly beginning to reveal itself to her now, with the spirits steadily becoming more aggressive, ancient rituals psychologically feeding into her mind.
Lilly picked up the flashlight from the ground, trying to catch her breath, her hands shaking. The cold nipped at her skin, but she barely felt it. Words, SSHHhhhh…. The darkness will consume you just like the others. What others? Had there been more like people who tried to unravel the truth and failed?
The spirits were demonstrably terrified of something, and that something was not the memory of the Greys. Something lingered in this cemetery-something above and beyond restless ghosts. Something darker. Whatever it was, it was getting stronger.
Turning onto her shoulder, half expecting another spirit to peer out at her from the darkness, Lilly peered through the shadows. For tonight, though, there was silence in the cemetery, eerily still now that the confrontation was finally over. She knew she couldn't stay there much longer. Grown agitated, the spirits were already weighing in a bit too heavily against her presence.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she began to turn to leave. Lilly froze, a cold shiver running down her spine. There was something behind her. Something watching her.
Slowly, she turned around to catch her breath in her throat.
A figure stood at the far edge of the cemetery, near the tree line. It was worlds different from any spirits she had ever encountered.
It was gray and indistinct, but there was something menacingly evil about it. It seemed as if the very air around it puckered and twisted, much like heat would rise off the pavement on a scorching summer's day. But instead of heat, this figure brought with it an unnatural chill that made Lilly's blood run cold.
She couldn't make out its face-if it had a face at all. The figure just stood, watching her and leaning heavily in its presence onto her. Lilly's pulse raced, and instinctively she took a step back. The figure didn't move, but its shadow seemed to reach across the ground for her in tendril darkness.
Lilly's throat started to clot. She had seen spirits before, but this was different. This was not just some ghost. It felt ancient and malevolent; the mere presence of it instilled in her a kind of dread so crippling she could barely breathe.
She didn't have to hear the whisperings to know this was something dangerous. Every fiber in her body screamed to run, to get as far away from this thing as possible. Yet her feet seemed frozen, her mind racing wildly as she tried to comprehend what lay before her.
The figure did not move, but the oppressive energy emanating from it strengthened, weighing upon Lilly like an unseen force trying to push her down. She could feel it in her bones: deep and unsettling, like a darkness trying to seep inside her.
In the next instant but a flicker, like so many fireflies dancing around a flickering flame, his form seemed to dance and heave with the exertion of wills to maintain his entity upon the earth. And even while he danced, the danger did not pass. If anything, it appeared to increase, as if he was growing by the moment more angry and malignant because of his helplessness to materialize.
Lilly swallowed hard, her mind racing. She didn't know what this entity was, but she knew one thing for sure: it wasn't a spirit like others she'd ever dealt with. It was something much more dangerous-something tied into the darkness that hung over West Wood Cemetery.
The air around her grew still colder, and Lilly felt the muscles of her body tense. She couldn't stay here anymore-she needed to get out.
Lilly cast one last, fleeting look at the figure and then suddenly turned and ran, taking flight down the path as her breathing came in ragged gasps. The beam of her flashlight bobbed up and down with every step, casting long shadows in her beam that danced and flickered across the gravestones. The cemetery seemed to grow longer and longer, the rows of headstones blurring into each other as she urged herself faster and faster.
It didn't follow her-at least, not in the ways it should have. Still, Lilly could feel its existence, its eyes seared into her back as she ran. It was like a predator watching its prey, waiting just for that right moment to strike.
She did not stop running until she reached the gates. Gasping for breath, Lilly flung them open, stumbling onto the street as her legs buckled beneath her. She turned back, her heart pounding in her ears.
It was still at the cemetery, but the dark figure was gone.
But Lilly knew that wasn't the end. Whatever that entity was, it wasn't finished with her. It had been watching her, and it wasn't going to stop.
She placed a hand on her chest, trying to regulate her breathing as she leaned against the wrought-iron fence. Her mind whirled, playing like a video recording in her head. This wasn't about Silas's death anymore; this was bigger, something that had lain dormant in this cemetery for years. And now it woke up.
She just couldn't shake the feeling that she had just crossed some line, that whatever barriers had held the darkness at bay would soon give way. The spirits were getting restless, the cemetery was changing, and now this new presence-this shadowy figure-bringing watchfulness her way.
I have to talk to Silas, she thought; her heart was still racing. He'd warned her that the truth was dangerous, but she hadn't expected this. She hadn't anticipated coming face to face with something so dark, so malevolent. Pushing herself easily off the fence, she set off walking back home, but her head swam with questions. What was that? Anything to do with the Greys and those rituals they did in the cemetery? Or something even more ancient, something that had been lurking in the darkness before the Greys ever came near West Wood? One thing was for sure: whatever it was, it was connected with the cemetery, and it wasn't going to let her get away with this that easily.