Chapter 9: Grave of the Forgotten.
The neighbour’s door slammed on Mira but the words kept ringing in her ears.
Did us all a Favour...
She stumbled back, away from the familiar door with its familiar sounds and the smells behind it.
Her legs carried her down the stairs and out into the cold night air once again.
Even though her mind was a shattered glass, her legs seemed to move on their own.
She had so many questions.
If her body was truly buried, then she died? So why was her soul in this one?
Also how was Gordon able to pack out of that apartment so fast when he had always even struggled to pay rent or this worn down one?
So many things made no sense no matter how hard she tried to make them.
She wrapped her arms around herself even though it did nothing to stop her shaking. It was like she was going through a full body tremor as she vibrated with pure shock.
Was she a ghost now? Just not in the cool supernatural way but in a pathetic new body way?
A sudden need popped in the chaos of her mind as she wondered, what If I’m not really dead? What if that woman is saying whatever she wanted?
She had to see it for herself, she had to look her own grave in the face.
The graveyard was exactly as depressing and scary as she had imagined it’d be. The iron gates were rusted and stood ajar while squeaking in the faint wind.
The air was also smelling of wet earth and decay with several shadows clinging to the headstones in terrific ways.
Her heart hammered against her ribs like it was a frantic drum counting down to her own mental breakdown. She moved between the graves as she scanned the names one by one.
Jones. Smith. Johnson. Kimberly. Grace.
Carter.
She froze.
There it was. A small and cheap slab of grey stone that almost looked like an afterthought.
MIRA CARTER
BELOVED DAUGHTER
1999-2024
Beloved. To Mira, that word was like a slap in her face. A lie carved in stone.
She couldn’t believe it. She had indeed died.
A sound tore from her throat, something she could not quite call a sob nor a scream. She fell to her knees not minding the way the damp grass soaked through Lorena’s expensive pants.
They were now dirty anyways.
"I’m not dead!" She screamed at the stone, her voice echoing in the silent cemetery. "I’m right here! What the hell is happening!"
She clawed at the dirt in front of her headstone as her perfectly manicured nails, Lorena’s nails of course dug into the cold soil, breaking and filling with dirt.
"I’m not in there! There’s absolutely no way I’m in there!"
But the stone remained, looking like it was mocking her. Like it was the undeniable proof that Mira was gone.
She stared at her name and picture on the pathetic stone and then whispered with a new found intensity."I’m really dead. But I’m not gone."
She then pushed herself to her feet and wiped her muddy hands on her pants. "I’m so not gone."
Stumbling out of the cemetery, she found a 24-hour internet cafe just a few feet away and went in.
She slid into a sticky both in the back and typed in the URL for her old social media profile. The page loaded as error 404: page not found.
She tried another site. And another, yet got nothing.
Her profiles were gone and none of it made any sense. She hadn’t deleted them at all so why was every of her photo and connection to the person she was wiped clean?
It was like she never existed.
Frantically, she tried to log into her email and even that said her password was incorrect.
A last desperate idea came into her and she found herself remembering that she had a very old junk e-mail account that she used to own. She entered the password and it miraculously still worked.
She kept scrolling but the inbox was nothing but a wasteland of ads and newsletters. But then at the top of it, bold and unread was a single email.
The subject on it almost made her blood run cold.
A celebration of healing and new beginnings.
Her finger trembled badly as she clicked it. The email loaded, revealing a very elegant digital invitation.
Travis Hale & Naomi Brooks
Request the pleasure of your company
As we celebrate our union
And honor the memory of our amazing best friend
Mira Carter
May her soul rest in peace.
The date was the next month.
Mira was dumbfounded! Not only did these two betray her with cheating and stealing her money, they’d even planned their wedding?
And they’d dared to use my death as a pathetic disgusting theme? Like they’re such good people?
A scream built in her chest, she couldn’t contain it. She jumped out of the booth and almost slammed the desktop on the floor.
"WITH MY MONEY!" She yelled, her voice echoing in the nearly empty cafe.
Even the employee was startled and stood up to look in her direction.
She didn’t care though, she ran out of the cafe and then let the sob that she had been keeping in escape her in defeat. She slid down the wall as she finally let all the tears out in a hot messy manner.
And as if the world was against her, rain started to fall heavily as it soaked through her clothes, washing the mud from her hands and mixing with her tears.
They had taken everything from Mira. They had erased her existence.
And then as if bipolar, a sudden dangerous smile touched her lips, "I’ll haunt them," she murmured like a vow.
She lifted her head as her eyes beamed with a new light.
"No..." she corrected herself, "I’ll destroy them."