The Life We Bury Novels & Stories

But I had always convinced myself that perhaps I had taken after a great-grandmother or something. My brows furrow, if mother and father are not my real parents, then who are? Who am I? And what was it about a curse? And the black mist..and – “Beta Laurel? What should we do with the body?” This time, it is I who is called back to my senses. Pulling myself together, I point to the body of the woman I once called mother, “We bury her.” ***** It is nightfall by the time we are done with the burial. Mother…Helen was buried in a shallow unmarked grave by the lake.

Elena looked peaceful, her chin resting on her chest, a faint smile still playing on her lips as if she were sharing a private joke with Leo in the Great Green. ​"She’s gone, Kaelen," Julian Sallow whispered, stepping up beside him. He didn't reach for a medical scanner. He didn't need to. The "Null-Link" in the room had shifted from a frantic, living pulse to a steady, eternal hum. "The First-Born has returned to the soil." ​The Burial of the Rogue ​They didn't hold a funeral in a cathedral of stone. They took her body down to the Original Gutter, the place where the first Directorate dropship had slammed into the mud of Earth a century ago.

“Let’s make sure.” The cemetery had a running silence. The moonlight painted long shadows on the uneven ground, and the musty smell of wet soil was heavy in the air. We had decided to burry what was left of Bryan’s body deep in the woods, under a thick stone slab. And not in respect, but in need. Mark rubbed a hand across the stone’s rough surface. “Still intact.” Ethan exhaled. “Then let’s go—”

We built an amazing life together it felt like ten lifetimes with all the curves we handled yet still felt too short. "Hey grandpa." My little grand daughter Alley sat next to me. She was a woman now just starting her own family, but still my little Angel. Most of the people had left the burial but I remained in my seat. We buried Darien next to his mother and moved big Derek here too. Alley wanted her ashes to be mixed in the soil of a baby tree just beginning it's life. We placed a small plaque in the ground in front of the tree for her tombstone. Of course everyone agreed the same and one day there would be a small forest here of all of us.

Each scoop of earth felt like an attempt to bury the nightmare we’d unleashed. When the hole was deep enough, we lowered the bags in — one after another, until the last of the money disappeared beneath the dirt. I knelt down, pressing my palms to the ground, breathing hard. It was done. At least, for now. “Cover it,” I ordered. “No trace. Not even a footprint.” The men obeyed without a word. The sun had started to rise, pale and unforgiving. My hands were blistered and raw. I stood there for a while, staring at the spot where we’d just buried our sins and i wasn’t sure if I’d ever dig it up again.

And she died because a monster decided she wasn’t worth saving. “Elara?” Sofia’s voice was thick with tears. “She’s gone,” I said flatly. Sofia started sobbing harder. I just stared at Carmen’s body, feeling nothing and everything all at once. ----- We buried her the next morning. Ray wouldn’t pay for a proper burial, wouldn’t call anyone official. So Sofia and I wrapped Carmen in a sheet and carried her out to the overgrown garden. We dug a grave with garden tools we found in a shed…shallow, because the ground was hard and we weren’t strong enough to dig deep.

"But why? Why did you do it? Why did I have to be monitored? Why exactly did you get yourself into it?" June sighed. "My dad died when I was seven. My brother was still a baby back then so we were left with our mum to take care of us. Things weren't so rosy but my mum kept on trying to make ends meet anyways. She kept on trying to make us happy in any way she could. When I turned fifteen, my mum died too. I was left with my little brother. No family, no relatives, no family friends- just us. Apparently, my mum got pregnant when she was still in high school so her family severed all ties with her. My dad was also in high school when he got my mum pregnant but he decided to take responsibility

She should have been buried by her children as they cried over her long-lived life. She should have been surrounded by all the accomplishments and evidence of her human life. Yet, here she was, buried as her body was beginning to decompose right before my eyes with half a lived life if anything. I closed her grave myself, my hands digging furiously into the dirt as Serin, Sol, and Francis helped me. Sarah joined us later as we stood there for a long moment. Neither of us spoke to one another. Serin brought Sarah into his arms somewhere through it.

one of nothing but constant death and tragedy that brought me a sick sense of relief for a brief moment, the life I had built for myself after years of fighting. Or finally having my missing piece in my arms. A life of sweet bliss in a suburban home, working a 9-5 and coming home to see everything I would ever need lying on my bed. The choice was inevitable. Her. Always would it be her. "Take him home. Find his wife's number. She can come and pick her up." I quickly ordered without a thought, that same protective instinct rekindling. My gaze shot to my Uncle's, I practically seethed in his direction.

I gave him his final send-off by restoring his face to how it looked before everything fell apart. When my colleague walked back in, he gasped in surprise before sighing sympathetically. "You take your job way too seriously, Vicky. Andy said this was an unclaimed body from the hospital. Why did you bother making him look so good?" All I did was smile. My colleague stared at Jose for a while and lowered his voice. "The guys who delivered him said he was an orphan. Poor guy. He was abandoned in life, then abandoned again in death." I looked down at the peaceful, 17-year-old face I had recreated for Jose and gently pulled the white sheet back over his head.