Part 4: The Keeper of the Cemetery
As Eka ran, gasping for breath, he stumbled upon a crypt, its iron door rusted and hanging ajar. Without thinking, he rushed inside, slamming the door behind him. The heavy clang echoed through the dark chamber, and for a brief moment, he felt safe.
His heart pounded in his chest, and his hands trembled as he slid down to the cold stone floor. His phone’s dim light illuminated the room, revealing walls covered in ancient carvings, and in the center, a stone sarcophagus.
Eka’s breath caught in his throat. This place… it felt wrong. The air was thick with the scent of decay, and the carvings on the walls depicted strange, nightmarish scenes—figures being dragged into the ground by skeletal hands, eyes wide with terror.
He swallowed hard, trying to calm his racing heart. But then he noticed something strange. The air had grown unnaturally cold, and the shadows in the crypt seemed to move on their own. He heard a soft, rhythmic tapping—a sound that didn’t belong.
Tap… tap… tap.
It came from the sarcophagus.
Eka’s blood froze. He edged toward the stone coffin, his hand shaking as he raised the phone to shine its light on the lid. Dust and cobwebs clung to it, but beneath, the stone was carved with intricate symbols he didn’t recognize.
The tapping continued, louder now, more insistent. And then, with a low creak, the lid began to slide open.
“No…” Eka whispered, backing away, his mind screaming at him to run.
But before he could move, a figure emerged from the sarcophagus. A man, or what had once been a man, dressed in the rotted robes of a priest. His skin was a sickly gray, pulled tight over his bones, and his eyes glowed with an unnatural light.
“The keeper of the dead,” Eka breathed, recognizing the figure from the old stories.
The priest’s gaze locked onto Eka, and a slow, twisted smile spread across his decayed lips. “You should not have come here,” the priest rasped, his voice dry as dust. “The dead do not take kindly to intruders.”
Eka backed away, his pulse racing, but the priest raised a bony hand. The crypt door slammed shut with a deafening bang, trapping him inside.
