The morning sun was barely creeping over the horizon when Lisa found herself trudging back to the cemetery, shivering in the early dawn mist. She hadn't slept a wink. Every creak of her house, every whisper of wind rattling the window had jolted her awake, her mind consumed by last night's events. It didn't make sense, none of it did. But the longer she lay in bed, the more one thought gnawed at her, pulling her back to the graveyard as if an invisible thread tied her to it.
As she approached Liam's grave, her steps slowed. She hadn't expected much—maybe a faint outline in the grass where she'd sat, or the remnants of the candle she'd hastily abandoned. But the sight that met her stopped her dead in her tracks.
The grave was disturbed, soil scattered as if something—or someone—had clawed their way out.
Lisa felt a chill crawl up her spine, rooting her in place. Her heart hammered wildly, a mix of terror and exhilaration. Her mind screamed to turn around, to run away, but she couldn't tear her gaze from the ground. The dirt was heaped in piles around the grave, and the once-solid mound above Liam's coffin was now a gaping, open cavity.
"No way," she whispered, her voice barely audible, trembling as she stared down at the disarrayed earth.
She forced herself to take a few shaky steps closer, each one filling her with more dread and… a strange thrill she couldn't deny. Maybe, just maybe, her ritual hadn't been in vain after all. But if it had worked, if Liam had somehow come back…
What would that even mean?
Her eyes scanned the area, hoping, half-dreading that she'd spot him lurking among the tombstones, his figure ghostly and pale in the morning fog. But the cemetery was eerily quiet, its only occupants the stone markers and the towering trees that stretched their limbs above, as if guarding their secrets.
Just as she was about to turn away, she heard a soft rustle behind her. She spun around, her heart leaping into her throat.
"Lisa?"
She nearly screamed before realizing it was Emily, dressed in mismatched pajamas and a jacket hastily thrown over her shoulders. Her hair was a mess, her eyes wide and bleary. Lisa let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, clutching her chest.
"Emily! You scared me to death!"
Emily gave her a look, half-amused, half-baffled. "What are you doing out here? I thought you said the ritual didn't work?"
Lisa's gaze drifted back to the grave, her voice barely above a whisper. "I… I thought it didn't. But look…"
Emily's eyes followed hers, and she let out a strangled gasp. "Oh…my…God. Did you do this?"
Lisa shook her head, still unable to fully process what she was seeing. "No. I mean, I left as soon as the ritual was over. This must've happened sometime after. Maybe… maybe he actually—"
Emily looked at her like she'd grown two heads. "You're saying Liam just dug himself out of his own grave? Like some kind of zombie?"
The words sounded ridiculous, even to Lisa, but there was no other explanation that made sense. "I don't know, Em. But if he… if he did come back, I don't think he'd be in his right mind. The ritual… it was only meant to connect with his spirit, not bring him back to life. If he's walking around somewhere…"
Emily wrapped her arms around herself, glancing nervously over her shoulder as though expecting a hand to reach out from the shadows. "So… what? Now we're in a horror movie, and any second he's going to jump out and try to eat our brains?"
Lisa let out a shaky laugh, though it held no real humor. "Let's hope not."
But despite her fear, Lisa couldn't shake the small flicker of excitement within her. She'd been fascinated by death and the supernatural for as long as she could remember, but this was different. This wasn't just a ghost story or a seance gone wrong. This was something real, something alive—or almost alive.
"Maybe he's… looking for something?" she ventured, trying to piece together the fragments of logic that barely held up in her own mind. "Or someone?"
Emily shot her a skeptical look, but her expression softened. "Look, I know how much this means to you. But Lisa, if this is real, if he's… out there somewhere, he might not be the Liam you remember."
The words hit Lisa hard. She'd been so focused on the possibility that her ritual had worked, she hadn't considered what a return like this might mean—for her, for Liam, for everyone. What if the boy who'd returned wasn't the same gentle Liam she'd adored?
Emily's voice broke into her thoughts. "Maybe we should go to the police?"
Lisa snorted, crossing her arms. "And tell them what? That we performed a ritual to bring back a dead guy and now his grave's empty? They'll think we're nuts."
Emily sighed, rubbing her temples. "True. So what do we do?"
Lisa glanced back at the disturbed grave, the dirt scattered haphazardly around it. She took a deep breath, her determination hardening. "We find him."
Emily looked like she was about to protest, but something in Lisa's eyes made her stop. She nodded, albeit reluctantly, and together they backed away from the grave. The unease lingered between them, but so did a sense of purpose.
Just as they turned to leave, Lisa caught a glimmer of movement out of the corner of her eye. Her heart skipped a beat, and she whipped around, scanning the rows of gravestones. There—just a shadow, slipping between the trees. For a fleeting moment, she thought she saw him—dark hair, lean figure, the same Liam she'd remembered.
But just as quickly as he appeared, he was gone, vanishing into the mist.
"Did you see that?" she whispered, clutching Emily's arm.
Emily squinted into the fog, her face pale. "I… I think so."
They stood there, paralyzed, the weight of the moment hanging heavy around them. Lisa's heart pounded, every instinct telling her to chase after him, to finally see if it was really him, if he had returned as she'd hoped… or feared.
But she knew, deep down, that this was only the beginning of something much darker, something she couldn't control.
"Let's get out of here," she whispered.
They left the graveyard, Lisa's mind racing with questions, her heart torn between hope and fear. And as they walked away, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching them, lurking just beyond the fog, waiting.