I've Dug Two Graves For Us Novels & Stories

She begged. That day, it wasn't just her child she was going to bury. She was also going to bury her past and the Rodriguez we're going to pay deeply. It was a promise.

There was a path there, one I hadn’t walked in a long time. I knew where we were going. The cemetery was quiet. Peaceful. The afternoon sun filtered through the trees overhead, casting dappled shadows across the ground. We walked in silence until we reached the two graves at the far end. The first one was mine. Or rather, it was the grave for my first body. The one that had died in childbirth. The headstone was simple, with my name and dates carved into the stone. The second grave was slightly newer, but not by much. My mother’s.

It had long been my fear that I would have to do that for Mara one day, she was so close to giving up before this Freeze. Unfortunately gravedigging requires the ground to not be frozen. So one particularly dark, long cave has always been used for this purpose. “Nothing’s changed, not a fucking thing,” Elvie huffed, as the sniffling procession lay willa down on top of a sheet, ready for wrapping. Her blonde curls were still bouncing and light, she could almost be sleeping.. Elvie continued in a low, angry voice. “We’re just as fucked as we were under Valdis.”

I glanced toward where I had just come out from, thinking about the innocent kid whose life was unfortunately cut short in his prime. I think about the carnage surrounding us, the piles of dead bodies that we encountered here, and the massive graves that were going to be dug up tonight as we tried to give them a proper burial. I think about the heartless animals that had the mind to wipe out a whole city without flinching and how they did it and I replied, "But I did."

Uncle Harry has no family and friends, so no one will ever come looking for him. We don't have any neighbors because of how poor the infrastructure in this particular part of the street is, so I look at Mom, and she nods, the last option; we bury him in our yard. I rush into the apartment and return with a shovel. The worms in my stomach and tired muscles are revolting against me to drop the shovel and reverse my little energy, but I ignore the hunger and lower myself and start digging. Tired, sweating, panting, and covered in breath, I keep digging until it's 6 ft deep, or I think it's 6 ft deep, then we push Uncle Harry's lifeless body into his grave.

"No, we can't. A pack honors its dead, Azriel. Even the ones without fur." For the next four hours, the world shrank down to the sound of metal cutting into the frozen earth. Kieran and I dug. We didn't use our wolf strength to tear through it like wild beasts; we dug with our human hands, paying our respects with every heavy lift of dirt. We prepared a massive, unified gravesite beneath the ancient pine tree at the center of the square. One by one, we carried them. Old Maren, her face peaceful despite the violence that had taken her.

I didn't have time to be happy and celebrate that we could communicate because I was already running in the direction of the sacred grave where the former kings and powerful beings are buried. 'I'm coming for you, mate. Please hang on!'

Under cause of death someone had later tried to scratch winter fever into something else and given up. Vaelin’s aura thickened until the lamp smoked. “We go to the graves,” I said. “We go with a war party dressed as a census,” he said. “North Ridge is not a library. It is a mouth.” I nodded. I felt the mark on my thigh listen.

It felt like the heavens were weeping for a lost soul. Kevin sat in the rain, holding Ashley in his arms. A line of tears dropped from his eyes, mixing with the raindrops that poured on his face. T-Murek’s words kept rattling in his mind. Everyone you love dies. ### Kevin saw that the hole he had dug wasn’t deep enough to conceal her coffin after it had been buried. He took the shovel and rammed it into the rain-soaked soil, using the heel of his boot to wedge it further into the earth.

The gravestones stood as silent guardians, each holding a story untold. As I stood before the graves of my long-lost parents, tears welled up in my eyes. The weight of their absence bore down upon me, but so too did a sense of belonging. I knelt down, tenderly brushing my fingertips over the engraved names that held a piece of my soul. "Mother, Father," I whispered, my voice trembling with emotions held captive for far too long. "I have found my way back to you. Though our paths diverged, my love for you has endured."