Part 2: The First Encounter

As Eka wandered deeper into the cemetery, the temperature seemed to drop further. The mist thickened, curling around the gravestones like fingers, obscuring his vision. His flashlight flickered again, and this time it went out completely.

“No, no, no!” he muttered, smacking the side of it in frustration. It sputtered to life for a second before plunging him back into darkness.

The silence pressed in on him, but something was off. It was too quiet. Even the crickets had stopped chirping. The only sound was his ragged breathing.

Then he heard it—soft, almost imperceptible at first—a whispering. A chorus of voices too faint to understand but undeniably close. His blood turned to ice as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

“Ekaaaa…” The voice was a hiss, like the wind snaking through the trees. He spun around, his heart pounding in his ears, but the mist swallowed everything beyond a few feet.

“Who’s there?” he called, his voice shaking.

The only reply was more whispering, the voices growing louder, surrounding him. Panic set in as he fumbled for his phone, the dim light barely cutting through the fog. Then, something moved in the corner of his eye. A shadow, tall and looming, stood between the graves.

It was gone as soon as it appeared.

“Enough!” Eka shouted, backing away. “This isn’t funny!”

But the whispering grew louder, filling his ears until it was all he could hear, a maddening cacophony of disembodied voices. He stumbled, his foot catching on something hard. He fell, the breath knocked out of him as he landed on the ground.

When he looked up, his blood ran cold. Directly in front of him was a gravestone, freshly unearthed as though the ground had been disturbed recently. And lying half-buried beneath the earth, a skeletal hand protruded from the soil, its fingers twisted and reaching toward him.

The whispers became a deafening roar. He scrambled to his feet and ran.