Outskirts of Nemeth Graveyard, Gaveal Cemetery
If one searches for the difference between a graveyard and a cemetery, the answer is simple.
↳ A graveyard is a burial ground attached to a church, usually within the churchyard.
↳ A cemetery is a separate burial ground not attached to a church, typically larger and often non-denominational.
But that definition in the modern-day dictionary was a bit outdated and has a different meaning. Now one might wonder then, what is a graveyard and a cemetery?
To put it into simple words, after the First Fracture, or the term used in many sci-fi scenarios, "THE APOCALYPSE," the world lost all concept of faith and religion, and with it any distinction between the two, causing the terms graveyard and cemetery to lose their individuality.
For a while people didn't care, and for a good reason. Following the Fracture, random people suddenly woke up with tattoos and a unique superpower. And if that wasn't the cherry on top, seven rifts tore through space-time, and each rift connected Earth to seven other planets.
Quite the week for humanity, really.
Now, what do you think happens when someone finds more land to own?
Of course, they claim property rights based on where they opened. Summits were called. Committees were formed. Experts who had never seen a rift in their lives were flown in to write reports about them. World leaders shook hands in front of cameras and signed agreements that were quietly ignored within the month. Flags were planted on the other side of rifts before the soil beneath them had even been tested for safety.
Corporations filed territorial claims faster than governments could process them. Military units were deployed under the label of "peacekeeping." Sanctions were threatened. Aid was weaponized.
The United States especially, upon discovering that one of the seven worlds sat on reserves of a liquid suspiciously similar to crude oil, had a democratic revelation and deployed three aircraft carriers within the week in the name of freedom, liberty, and absolutely nothing else. And through all of it, political leaders made their usual brilliant decisions, leading to war (not a surprise).... But little did the finders and keepers know, each world already had its inhabitants.
Turns out the universe had planned an unannounced meet and greet.
[Spoiler: It didn't end well.]
If the internal strife between us humans wasn't already enough, the inhabitants of those worlds eventually began crossing over as well.
Light elves, dark elves, ice giants, fire giants, witches, werewolves, and many other creatures too numerous to list soon followed through the seven rifts. Some were neutral. Most weren't.
Fast-forward several hundreds of years later, Earth still has not recovered from the damage since the First Fracture. Lack of resources, clean water, air in some regions far too polluted to even take a single breath, etc... etc.
Now of course the resources being too short would cause a problem for survival, hence a solution was made... a solution that wasn't new. Humanity had done it before, dressed it up in different words each time, but the principle remained the same.
A selection based on a person's worth, building havens in ruins across the world, across whatever countries still remained functional, called Endorsements.
Massive fortified cities carved into mountains, bases hidden beneath the oceans, or built within the skeletal remains of old megacities. Places where the air was clean, the water filtered, and the lights still worked.
A reward for the useful.
A sanctuary for the valuable.
And, naturally, a dream most people would never see.
Because nothing says fair survival system quite like deciding who deserves to live.
Coming back to the topic, simply put, since these artificially built heavens where the living continued to survive were given names, for example a few major ones being the Europa, Continental, Lotus, Borealis, Solara, and Polaris Endorsements.
Each one a fortress of technology, guarded borders, and carefully selected citizens. A reminder that even after the apocalypse, humanity still loved its paperwork.
But what about everything outside those walls?
What about the places where the living simply waited to die a day later? Regions where the air burned the lungs, the water poisoned the blood, and organic food was a luxury people killed for.
And sometimes, as if the world itself hadn't suffered enough, a Gate would appear.
No warning. No alarms. Just a tear in space opening in the middle of a street, a forest, or what remained of a city.
From it came monsters.
Creatures that had no place on Earth, pouring out of the rift as if the planet itself had suddenly become their hunting ground. For a normal human, survival wasn't unlikely.
It was impossible.
Cities that once held millions, now reduced to hollow concrete skeletons filled with ghosts that hadn't died yet.
A place where, in the near future, it would disappear with everyone inside it already dead.
Wouldn't that be no different from a cemetery?
But a contradiction is at hand.
A cemetery is a burial place for the dead.
The people outside the Endorsements weren't buried yet.
They were still breathing.
Still starving.
Still surviving.
Then the ministry of a certain country's Territorial Management, having a sudden EUREKA! moment during what was probably a very well-funded meeting, gave meaning to the word graveyard once more:
"A place where the living are bound to be buried," the woman said in a low voice, as if reminding herself of the meaning.
She walked through the cold, each step of her boots crunching against the thin layer of snow covering the stone tiles. Beneath a worn winter coat she wore a thick sweater, her breath forming faint clouds in the air as the wind brushed past. Strands of her white hair shifted slightly against the fabric of her hood.
A boy walked a few steps ahead of her.
They moved through a worn-out cemetery as snow fell quietly, even in the month of May, another change the Earth had suffered through. Since the Fracture, seasonal change had become a thing of the past, the world having been plunged into an eternal winter for nearly two hundred years.
"The person maintaining the cemetery seems to have at least cleared out the piled-up snow through the lane," the boy muttered, his gaze settling on something ahead, as if he had finally found what he was looking for.
Coming to a stop in front of a certain grave, the boy's grey eyes seemed to soften as the edges of his lips slightly curled up. Bending a knee to the ground, he wiped off the snow piled atop the tombstone. With each wipe, words etched in stone became clearer.
The woman caught up and pulled her sweater down, folding it over her knees as she crouched beside him.
"Sable Voss," she read quietly before asking, "a person you knew, Pluto?"
"Yes," Pluto answered, but his voice came out quieter than he intended. He stayed looking at the name for a moment. "Actually, thinking about it now... saying that doesn't feel right."
"I knew her for about a year at maximum. During that time my mind was still developing. You already know about my memory loss, mentioned in my files, being a bit unusual from standard amnesia." His hand rested against the cold edge of the tombstone.
"Apparently when I first woke up, my brain had reverted back to a toddler's, even though I was biologically twelve at the time. Sable was the one who took care of me, even though she herself was only seventeen. Thankfully I was a quick learner and caught up to my mental age within three to four months."
The woman's mouth fell open slightly.
"What, you didn't know?" Pluto glanced back at her, something quiet and unreadable in his expression.
"No, it's just... I never thought about how you would have looked at twelve." Turning to Pluto she asked, "I wish I could have seen you as a kid. I'd bet you were pretty cute."
Done cleaning up the tomb, he placed a bouquet of flowers before the slab, then drifted into a quiet memory as the woman let out a low chuckle.
"No, I think I was pretty weak looking. Almost malnourished, beggar-looking, I think?"
The woman stopped laughing.
The two of them offered silent prayers, then got up and turned to leave.
"Are you sad?"
Pluto replied instantly, not because he was sure but because the opposite was easier to say.
"I don't know." He turned and walked. The woman kept pace behind him.
"I'm sure she cared about me enough to look after me. In a world where selfishness was the new norm, feeding an extra mouth, caring each day, providing clothes even though they were ragged... that's definitely a touching story." He paused. "But at that time I don't think I really understood what was going on. I had no history, no name. I just lived, because she wouldn't let me die."
He was quiet for a few steps.
"You think I should be sad?" he asked softly.
"No one has the authority or control over a person's feelings, in my opinion. But..." she hesitated. "If you're asking my opinion."
She walked closer to Pluto, taking a quick good look at his face to confirm her answer.
"Seems to me you look sad."
Pluto's eyes seemed to soften. "I see."