The tomb was small and musty and empty. There was a white patch in the dust on the floor where the coffin had once been. And there was a nest of snakes that had been there since the coffin was removed. It was hard to see once she closed the door and sealed them both inside.
"Where are you?" he hissed in the dark.
She melted into the shadows. She did this very easily, like blinking, or beathing. "You can't see me?"
"I can't see my hand in front of my face," he said. He shuffled around in the dirt.
"I can see you," she said. "Careful. You'll step on the nest of snakes."
He froze. He was nowhere near the nest of snakes, she saw, but he couldn't know where they were. They weren't there yet. She wanted to say something before it happened.
"You never answered my question, earlier," she said.
"I forget what it was," he admitted, feeling his way along the walls.
"How do you want to die?"
"Oh. Right. Peacefully, I guess. Of old age. Or maybe doing something heroic. You know, something people will remember me for."
Yes. She'd heard this before. Everyone wanted to die one of those ways. "I know how I'm going to die," she said.
His voice held amusement. "Do you?"
"Yes. I know how you're going to die too."
There was a pause. This was not something people normally said, in the dark, in a tomb.
She continued: "And I'm sorry. It will be unpleasant and it won't be quick. And you're so young."
He made an uncertain noise. "Um..."
She grabbed the handle of the door and stepped out of the shadows. "And for it to happen, I have to leave and lock the door." She paused. "I'm sorry again."
She pulled the door open and stepped outside. The sunlight was grey. The cemetery was empty. He was still inside. She shut the door. "Mind the snakes," she said to the closed door.
She sat down, pulled out her iPod, put in her earphones, turned on her music, and waited.
Art by Abigail Larson
Text by Lucie MacAulay
