The Day That Passed
The next day passed like a lie.
But it wasn't a lie.
It was a deal,even if it was without dreams it was reality wrapped up as a dream,
Six things existed beyond the reach of names—objects that did not belong to history, science, or faith. They were older than reason and quieter than death. Each of them represented something humanity was never meant to understand, only to obey.
They were buried.
Not hidden—interred.
A graveyard was chosen because no one questions the sacredness of the dead. Silence grows naturally there. And silence, I had learned, listens.
To claim what slept beneath the earth, I had to arrive at midnight.
And before that—
Three lives.
No exceptions.
No substitutions.
The rules were not spoken aloud. They settled into me like instinct.
I returned home before dusk.
My mother was in the kitchen. My father was reading. My sister hadn't come back yet. The house was warm. Alive. Full of the fragile noise people mistake for permanence.
I felt nothing.
When it was done, I washed my hands carefully. The water ran red, then clear. I waited. At the door. Calm.
My sister arrived minutes after I left.
She would never understand why the house burned so fast. Why the fire climbed inward instead of outward. Why the neighbors said they saw only one shadow walk away before the flames rose.They imagined I was kidnapped and having some personal enmity of whose price my family had to pay off,
By the time sirens screamed, I was already moving.
Toward the Divinity Graveyard.
The Graveyard of What Should Not Be
The gates were open.
They always are.
Moonlight spilled across crooked headstones like spilt milk. Names eroded by time. Dates that meant nothing. At the center of the graveyard lay a single, unmarked grave—older than the rest, untouched by moss.
I knelt.
The earth parted easily.
Inside was not a body, but the idea of one. A shape wrapped in rotted cloth, heavy with age and meaning. I burned it where it lay. The fire did not crackle. It breathed.
As the ashes settled, the ground trembled.
Six objects revealed themselves.
I did not hesitate.
One was a fountain pen, cold and elegant, its nib slightly curved like a smile. I understood it instantly. It would not write with ink. Only blood. And what it wrote could not be erased—only obeyed.
The others I did not yet understand. I took them anyway.
Knowledge is rarely polite. It does not wait for readiness.
As I turned to leave, a voice spoke from behind me.
"I feel no fear in you."
I stopped.
"Will you make a deal?" the voice asked. "I can grant you the ability to speak with spirits."
"Yes," I said.
No pause.
No questions.
The ground shifted. The air thickened.
"I want a favor in return," I added. "Be my companion. Guide me when I am wrong."
There was a soft laugh.
"I accept."
I turned.
He looked like a man.
He was not.
He was a magician's soul—thin, distorted, stitched together by whispers. His eyes were too bright. Too crowded. He had gone insane listening to the voices of spirits, a gift passed down through his bloodline like a curse that refused to die.
The ability had a cost.
It always does.
"Tell me," I said, "where the body is."
The magician smiled—not kindly, not cruelly, but knowingly.
"You should go to the lighthouse first."
The moon shifted.
Somewhere far away, something ancient adjusted its attention.
And I understood then—
The work was no longer gradual.
It had begun.