Gothic Short Story

Graveyards are lonely places, inhabited by the dead and visited by those who want to find peace in their distress, desperately clutching to their beloved's tombs and hopelessly trying to find there a living remembrance. A graveyard always seems empty, as  mournful faces always go unnoticed, and footsteps are drowned by the silence of grief. A graveyard is sorrow, fear, affliction. That is why it is dreaded. But a graveyard's silence sometimes welcomes those who have nothing to share and nobody to love. 

In Winterville, a figure always stood in the graveyard at midnight. A dismal, solitary girl who seeked company within the  dark graves of the cemetary. Often did she cry out her despair, cold tears running down her white cheek, the pearls of sadness making her raven black hair glitter in the moonshine. For Katheryna was never loved; she only knew melancholy and hatred. Her frantic cries were only heard by the heartless crows. She was like a ghost, her sorrow haunting the tombs of Winterville. 

Katheryna had never found joy in people's laughter; perhaps it is because did not know anybody whose warmth made you happy. But for a long time now had she dwelled in her laments, finding some affection towards the dead. 

The graveyard was foggy; yet we could still see the moon piercing the mist to lighten the world of night. The church was rising, like a king to the cemetary, its dark mass clear in the shadow. Katheryna was asleep, lying on a child's grave. For once, her face was peaceful. Her hands moved in her sleep, feeling the smoothness of the rock that binded the child's coffin. She dreamt of death. She dreamt of a life below earth, a life in those gloomy vaults she so loved. The seed of a morbid idea was, unconsciously, taking roots in her mind. 

She woke up suddenly. She felt a strangeness around her. A tree branch loomed over her head. Yet she was not afraid. A beam of pure, white light glowed in the shadows. It was a child. A young boy, whose ghostly figure now stood above Katheryna. She watched him, amazed as he sparkled in the gloomy night.

He wore a dark, old suit with a collar. His hair was like Katheryna's, shining in the light of his body. His manners were old-fashioned. He stood straight, and his eyes spoke coldly. Yet he was handsome, and an aura of death as well as his translucent brightness floated around him. 

 "Katheryna", said his deep, low voice. 

"You know me", she stated.

"You come here every night, Katheryna. You  lie on my sepulchre and you share your despair with the dead. How could I not know you?

Although he did not touch her, she could feel him. He was bitter, and his voice, as gentle as it was, betrayed a long-held incense. Katheryna could tell he was grieving ; something in his life had made him feel powerless when he usually controlled the ways of things. 

Katheryna could read him. She could not read the living, yet she could read the dead. And already she was in love with him; she was in love with his voice, with his elegance and his haunting charm. His face was ravaged with pain and still it was tender. 

"I have watched you, Katheryna. Your soul is injured. You belong to nowhere."

He took her hand and caressed her chin. She felt amazingly cold and yet warm; she could not tell. It was a feeling unknown to her. And as he leaned to kiss her, she felt like she was loved. She belonged to somewhere; she belonged to the dead.

"You can be released, Katheryna. You can be released from your miserable life."

The ghost of this boy had made her understood; unhesitantly she withdrew the knife he had handed her.She took it to her throat; her face was misformed by insanity. In an instant, she ripped her skin with the sharp blade. The ghost let her go as she fell to the ground, her shrieks piercing the misty night. He took her in his arms. His wretched face smiled at her agony; for now she was dead, bathing in her own blood, and soon she would be with him. He cared not if she would suffer; for a long time had he watched her and he was thirsty for her love. He cared not if her pain in the living world would increase in her passing; that the graveyard she thought she knew was only a pale version of death.

And in his madness he took her bloody hand; and he used it to dig the earth around his tomb. His grip around her wrist was full of bitterness; and dirt stained her warm blood as he made Katheryna do his evil work. Soon the earth revealed a wooden coffin, and the ghost read his own name carved on the varnished surface:

"Lord of Finly, 15 years, rest in peace"

The boy's face was torn with heavy pain from his remembered days; his anger was fierce and he opened his coffin with uncontrollable fury. Tears of wrath rolled down his swollen eyes. He took Katheryna and lay her beside his decaying remains. He made her corpse embrace his rotten bones. Her blood flooded, and worms started to feed on her soft flesh. But the boy could feel her closeness, her cold body against his. Yet could only feel rage at the thought that she would perhaps know peace. He loved her in a way that was beyond obsession; it was evil, and his sadistical thirst would only be satiated when Katheryna's soul would ramble in the infernal abyss he had suffered through.