The mud had baked hard in the morning sun creating a hard, smooth outer shell. But now, in the cool of the evening, she cool feel the comforting warmth in her carapace dissipate. It was this that prompted her to move, to wiggle, to stretch her thin limbs to their capacity, till her clay armour cracked and the cool evening air crept over her.

Slowly, so as not to risk injury, she climbed from the ground and crawled, like a giant insect, to the water’s edge. The ground beneath her knees was a blanket of twigs and leaves - the debris gathered daily by the forest. Her cold skin split as small stones cut into her, imbedding themselves in her flesh. She did not grimace, she did not know.

Death has a habit of changing our priorities. Once breathing is no longer a priority there is little need to steel oneself and breathe through pain. Pain is a human concept. It is not for the undead to trouble themselves with.

By the water she carefully cleansed the dirt from her, once tanned, skin. Her fragility was clear: apply too firm a hand and her once firm and supple skin would peel away in the moonlight. One knee already showed the bleached bone beneath it and the wound where he’d stabbed her had grown loose and distorted over time. Yet cleaning was important. She would hate to be unrecognisable once found. She wanted her mother to still know her little girl’s face, even after all this time.

Once clean she lay bathing in the moonlight, silently listening to the water as it flowed and enjoying tickle of tiny feet that scurried across her on their nightly journeys. Murder had rather changed her perspective on fear. The fine, delicate legs of a spider were no longer a source of panic. Instead she watched with interest all the lives she had previously ignored. Life was so much more than human.

As the dawn threatened to rise her time to be discovered was up and so, with what dignity she had left, she began her journey back to the muddy pool in which she’d be left. What little muscle remained was weak and she struggled to haul her body back across the bracken. The difficulty was a painful reminder that, in a few short hours, once night had faded and morning broken, he would come from his house, through the trees, around the pond and, with a crackle, stand on the part baked earth of her grave - as if he knew that she could feel his weight. As if he knew that she was so much more than dead.