Phantom Chained

Chapter 1. Hope. POV Incubus Elm.

Gloomy clouds stretch across the sky.

Inside my grave, I quietly cry.

Oh, how lonely and dismal it is,

Alone to lie in my grave like this.

Elm's gloomy song

If I had a brain, I would have lost my marbles a long time ago. But due to the lack thereof, I am forced to entertain myself by making somber poems that I forget the very next minute. Today I succeeded in catching a couple of short radio waves but sadly there wasn't anything interesting, just the usual weird noises and lyrics about break-ups.

The sun always sets behind the graveyard's fence. I can't see it, obviously, but I can feel it. Today is sunset number thirty-six-thousand-one hundred-fifty-nine.

So boring.

There were some local ghosts here, but that was before I sent them all to Hell when I arrived. I was furious, ready to tear everyone around me to shreds. So I did. Alas, my claws only reached ghosts and earthworms. When I finally snapped out of my rage, most of the graveyard was left without any living being.

The worms soon returned, but the same couldn't be said about the ghosts. Now I sit here, wallowing in regret, thinking that we could have had some nice conversations together.

You humans call graveyards a place for the dead to rest, but that's only for you. We suffer; we endure hunger, endure pestilence, endure death.

There are lots of us. Hungry.

The place is completely isolated and abandoned. The living don't walk here, and it makes sense because who could they possibly visit? Nobody carries in new deceased anymore, and nobody remembers the old ones. Graves are stacked on top of each other like lasagna sheets. Underneath us some ancient rubble got flattened, mixing the outsides and insides. Even we got squished under a casket with a pair of children. Sickness and war crammed the earth with such a great amount of bodies that memories of them lost all meaning and were eventually forgotten altogether. Nobody needs them. And nobody needs me. Back in the old days, however...

I feel forlorn.

The frigid wind carries dead leafage across the cold ground. The leaves rustle and disappear into the distance, where my path leads.

Although, no... not quite... it is the rustling of leaves under footsteps. Is it really? Or...

Damn it all, there are people above!

Living... splashes of red. Voices. Female... there's a woman! Sweet, pretty, warm! Closer... even closer... my curse, my salvation, so close!