VI
I wandered the graveyard for what seemed like an hour until I finally made way toward the gates. Tall and covered in rust, the wrought iron gates were framed with two pillars topped with the yellow oil lamps. They creaked as they swung in the night air. The fog thinned just enough near the gate lamps for shapes to form — crooked stones, leaning angels, the faint glow of candles trembling on fresh earth. And then I saw him.
A man — or what was left of one — hunched over a grave. His back was to me, shoulders narrow beneath a threadbare grey coat that looked soaked through with fog. His hands shook as he cupped a match, shielding the flame from the wind. When it caught, he lit a small wax candle at the foot of the headstone, the flame flickering weakly in the damp air.
I stepped closer, my soul‑form barely disturbing the mist. "Excuse me," I tried to say, though I wasn't sure if sound even existed for me anymore. "Where am I?"
He froze, eyes rounding with surprise. Hardly anyone came out this late at night. Slowly, he turned his head — not fully, just enough for me to see the side of his face. His skin was pale, almost translucent, like moonlight stretched thin over bone. His eyes were hollow, not empty but… incomplete. As if pieces of him had been taken, siphoned away the way my great‑aunt had been. He didn't speak. He couldn't. But he saw me. Something in his expression shifted. He had a flicker of recognition, or maybe envy as he sadly shook his head in pity for the lost girl's soul. He lifted one trembling hand and pointed toward the wrought‑iron gates at the end of the path. A simple gesture, a warning, and a direction all in one.
I stepped closer, desperate. "Please — I need to know where my home is. I need to know what this place is. I was kidnapped. I need to make my way home"
His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Only a thin wisp of fog escaped, curling upward like a dying breath. He shook his head slowly, sorrowfully, and tapped his chest with two fingers. Then he pointed at me. Not at my face. At my shape, and at the way I held together. I was whole and he was not. I didn't flicker like he did. My parts were intact.
He envied me for being more alive, more complete, not harvested.
I was not hollowed out. He knew I didn't belong here with people like him, leftovers of once living beings, pieces of people fate shattered.
He knew I still had a body somewhere, still tethered by a thread the aliens hadn't severed. And he knew with a kind of mournful certainty that most souls in this place were far less whole than I was. His eyes held sorrow that maybe this girl would not last the night and would not stay whole for long.
He pointed again at the gates. Urgent now. Insistent. Go.
Before this world noticed something else did, I had to seek safety. I had to leave or hide. Most of his gestures conveyed that I was not safe where I stood.
Before I became like him. His soul light had diminished into a dim, flickering remnant lighting candles for graves that no longer remembered their names. He didn't even have the energy to speak properly enough to say a prayer. He could only say them in his mind as he lit his ever-present candle.
I took a step toward the path. Behind me, the grey man's candle sputtered. Something in the fog was hunting as it rolled thickly to fill the streets like grey cotton padding.