Sun never visited the graveyard on the outskirts of the village. It was a peculiar phenomenon—most definitely not a common occurrence anywhere else in the world. It was as if there was a repellent presiding over the domain, keeping the ubiquitous, yellow orb in the sky at bay.

Perhaps the repellent was the impenetrable, gray clouds that perpetually loomed over the graveyard, or perhaps, it was the man who perpetually wandered the area.

No one knew who the man was.

The current village gravekeeper, who had inherited the ostensibly-morbid position from his folks, had been warned of the man's relentless presence many times before he officially assumed his duty.

His great-great-great-great—and so on—grandparents had been the first to pass the knowledge down to their children. From there, it seemed to have become a family tradition to pass along unnerving tales of the man of the graveyard to the next generation, alongside maintaining the village graveyard. This bizarre tradition continued, until finally, it was his turn.

The young gravekeeper had been warned, but he had also witnessed the absurdity of the man the very first week he struck up the position.

It was the first time he had set foot into the graveyard, which he had only had contact with by word-of-mouth.

Gray and dusty—the graveyard was much more dull than the grand, macabre tales he was told, and the job was much more mundane than the imagination.

Six days filled with marking graves, plucking weeds, and keeping records flitted by in the blink of an eye.

His hands grew dirty and callused quickly, and so too was the speed at which his mind grew numb.

On the seventh day, logic came crashing down, and the young gravekeeper had begun to contemplate running away.

He was on his way to dig out a grave for the village's kind widow who had recently passed from old age when he halted in his steps. The gravekeeper brought the shovel in his hand up into the air and planted it into the ground, his chin resting atop of a the steely handle with his two hands acting as a cushion in between.

Numerous escape plans generated themselves in his mind, behind his closed eyes.

_CRASH—!_

The young gravekeeper toppled over.

Unfortunately, a bold stroke of unprecedented ingenuity did not cause him to jolt in shock, but quite the opposite. A burst of the cold night's wind had struck him in the face, awakening him from his deep contemplation.

The young gravekeeper sat on the ground, slightly dazed—not at just having fallen over, but at the figure that dominated his vision. It was murky figure of a man, arising from the ground just past the lofty tower of his shovel.

Brown eyes dilated in horror.

Clumps of dirt fell from the slowly-rising body like blood from a bloodbath. The man was tall—too tall, and too thin. He was skin and bones walking amidst the many graves, porcelain-white and deathly alabaster under the midnight moon.

His face was unhealthily gaunt, his cheekbones prominent, and each of his steps bore a wretched haggardness that seemed to bestow him the ability to collapse and vanish at any point in time.

The young gravekeeper did not breath. He was too assured of the presence of an invisible scythe at his throat—too close and too lethal for comfort—so he chose to remain still, motionless, so as to pass off as a rock, or better yet, a speck of dust.

Yet, his wishful disguise was easily seen through.

The two eyes that slowly crept towards the direction of the gravekeeper on the ground brimmed with madness beneath that crimson veneer—complete and utter madness, spiraling endlessly.

But then, those eyes disappeared, and the man walked away in the opposite direction, fading into the forest as if he never existed.

It happened in the blink of an eye, yet it felt so much longer.

Fear was cemented into the being of the young gravekeeper. He was defeated, sitting on the dirt, floored. Half an hour passed like that before strings began to pull him. The young gravekeeper stood up, abandoned his shovel, and walked straight to the space the man had emerged from.

The strings were curiosity, its hold relentless. He couldn't stop his feet from moving nor his eyes from seeing. He was powerless, and _drawn in_.

He peered over the pit in the ground, and his eyes met a blackwood casket, a silver cross adorned on its sleek cover.

Blackwood caskets were a unique product of the village, the only location in the world abundant with the main material: blackwood trees. These trees were colossal, and coal-black in color from leaves to branches to trunks to roots, containing properties that made their caskets the highest of qualities.

The crafting process for blackwood caskets required the utmost skill and technique, and, most notably, considerable time. Meanwhile, the villagers considered the ancient blackwood trees to be protectors of their village, thus, outsiders were forbidden from handling them, as well as occupying their caskets, made only using fallen or old trees. With both these factors combined, only a couple dozen blackwood caskets were crafted per year.

However, that was not the only remarkable thing about them.

It was well-known throughout the village that once a blackwood casket was locked, _incineration_ was the only way to open it.

The young gravekeeper's eyes grazed the untouched cover of the casket before subconsciously traveling in the direction the man had walked.

That man had not come from the casket...

A shiver crawled up his spine. Somehow, that prospect was more horrifying than if the man was a corpse that had arisen. His eyes drew back towards the headstone resting beside the pit. The name read:

'Chance W. Vacien'.

That was the name of the casket's true tenant.

That was not the name of the man of the graveyard.

The headstone dated back many centuries ago, correlating with the long-standing, gravekeeping tradition of his family. It was no doubt an important villager who had been buried here if they were granted the burial rights to a blackwood casket, but they were a stranger to the young gravekeeper. All he knew was that, by being buried here so long ago, that villager had become one of the first 'customers' of his family's graveyard.

And horrifyingly enough, that man, who had just climbed out of the grave, had been the very first 'regular customer' of his family's graveyard.

The young gravekeeper had been maintaining the graveyard for the six full days—today being the seventh—and he had never once paid close attention to any grave.

He regretted it.

He had walked past this very grave many times, completely oblivious to the breathing body underneath his feet...

The young gravekeeper shuddered, vigorously rubbing the goosebumps from his shoulders. His mind twisted and turned.

The more morbid question of exactly how long the man had been buried six-feet underground beside the a centuries-old, rotting corpse was still up in the air.

His ancestors had seen and described the man before, but words could never fully realize his absurdity. Now, the young gravekeeper saw it for himself, and he was strucken deep to the core by true insanity.

Those demonic, red eyes pierced into his soul.

_Thump, thump, thump._

Suddenly, soft and uneven footsteps emerged from the depths of the forest, breaking the unnerving silence.

Like a shadow escaping the abyss, the man's figure reappeared before the gravekeeper, crimson-red eyes now peering downwards upon his scalp.

The young gravekeeper's head unconsciously lowered, and he bit his lip for the lightning pain to remind him not to pass out. He braced himself.

Surprisingly, however, the man did nothing but step beside him. For a moment, their heights were side-by-side, in a stark contrast with one being nearly three heads taller than the other, who was an adult man in his prime years. Of course, the flesh of their bodies were wholly different in amounts.

Head still lowered and hands still sweatily clamped onto the sides of his pants, the gravekeeper perked his ears to listen to the rustling behind him. He refused to turn around, for if he did, he feared the hideousness of the other's existence would cause his vision to blacken, but, something within him told him that he had to listen. _He had to._ Thus, he listened in absolute stillness.

Behind the gravekeeper, the man of the graveyard slowly knelt down on one knee. A train of prayers passed by in silence before the man placed what was bundled in his tattered, bony hands gingerly beside the headstone—

—two, bright-red orchids.

Then, the man dragged his weakened body back into the grave and laid himself beside the blackwood casket. His hand grazed the silver cross one last time, engraving yet another burn into his pallid flesh, before he crossed his arms over his chest and forever closed his weary eyes, permanently relieving the world from their burning mayhem.

Dirt fell of its own accord, as if to block the two bodies from the tumultuous outside world, enclosing them in a solitary space of their own.

A small breeze traced over the petals of the two flowers intertwined beside the headstone.

The sun eventually rose.

The young gravekeeper's eyes were blind to the final event of the night, his ears the sole witness.

Unconsciously, his eyes began to wet, and small droplets of tears steadily streamed down his cheek.

The young gravekeeper wiped them away with his hand as he looked at the headstone one final time.

_Chance W. Vacien._

His eyes passed the uneven dirt of the grave.

Retracing his steps to his shovel that was left standing in the ground on its lonesome, the young gravekeeper then picked it up. He returned to the grave, patting down the dirt until it looked as brand new as all the other graves. He cleaned the headstone as well, but left the two flowers untouched.

His finger accidentally grazed the name on the headstone, and for a moment, the young gravekeeper did not move, frozen in place. He stared, before finally making a decision. He brought out his family's set of carving tools and sat down beside the grave, gently carving out a second name onto the headstone—

—_Al. Night._

Afterwards, the young gravekeeper left the graveyard, heading into the forest in the same direction the man had left in earlier that night. He spent a couple minutes walking past rows and rows of blackwood trees, densely obscuring the forest in darkness with their inky leaves despite the sun ruling the sky.

Eventually, the deeper the gravekeeper trekked, the sparser the blackwood trees grew, replaced with blossoming red orchids. The dark, gloomy world turned vivid and lively within moments, swept up in a lovely, passionate charm.

A pure-white cathedral lied ahead of the flower garden, flanked on both sides by a parting sea of red.

Its windows were clean and pure, and its stately elegance remained despite the years as it rested undisturbed within the forest, its only visitor likely to be but one man—one very devout man who visited every week to clean the sacred building.

If not for that one man, the church may have been dilapidated ruins by the time the gravekeeper visited, as the holy religion had long been tossed within the village.

The gravekeeper entered the cathedral and walked up to the angelic statue piously positioned at the far end. He kneeled on both knees before the statue and put his hands together around the silver cross that hung from his neck, tucked behind his shirt.

The day passed in silence with the young man kneeled before the statue.

As the sun set, he finally stood and left through the front doors of the cathedral, his destination—the graveyard.