sweet blood: or, the resurrectionist by Kyra Purgason
fiction ☆
fiction ☆
You knew it was the right grave because the blood in your mouth started to taste sweet.
It was unmarked, as most graves were now with the sickness. It took you longer to find it than you wished but now that you were here, it was all worth it.
Digging up a grave was easier than everyone assumed, you thought. All you needed was a sturdy shovel, a light for the darkness, and practice. Especially when it was fresh, the soil still disturbed and soft breaths coming from below.
The cemetery was pitch black and bitingly cold this late in the evening, but you didn’t care. It pricked at your fingertips underneath tattered gloves, at the raw uncovered nape of your neck. You pushed it away with brute force, knuckles buried deep in it. The cold hardly bothered you anymore, you told yourself.
This wasn’t even the illegal part. Not yet. This was, however, the worst part. The dirt invaded everything no matter how valiant your effort was, no matter how careful your methods. This was the way of digging up a grave.
It took many hours or maybe simply many minutes, it was hard for you to tell between the repetitive motion of digging, the stillness of the night, and the watchful eye you kept upon the caretaker’s hovel.
You made sure not to dig too deep. You wouldn’t want them to lose an eye or a finger or even a hair on their head. There would be no bruising on their beautiful body, at least not that came from you. At the first sign of white cloth amongst the brown dirt, you dropped your shovel and began to use your hands to dig out the last remnants of the soil, careful to only brush, not disturb.
Delicately you unlaced the burial shroud. The scrape of fabric felt soft against your calloused hands.
Brown eyes, dusty hair, and the blood of someone far stronger than you.
“Hello, my love,” you said, touching their cold face with your exposed fingertips. You knew this was the right grave.
Kyra is a bookseller and writer originally from Planet Drool.
