The cemetery felt quieter that night.
Too quiet.
Not even the crickets dared to sing.
I was checking the candles that were still burning when I saw him.
At first, I thought it was a shadow.
Something cast by the moonlight.
But then I noticed… it was walking toward me.
No sound.
No footsteps.
Just the rustling of dry earth under invisible feet.
He stopped three meters away.
He didn't speak.
He didn't blink.
He was wrapped in a long charro coat, dark with dust and time.
His hat cast a shadow over his face.
But I could see his mouth.
Sewn shut.
And his arms… ended in nothing.
No hands.
Just jagged stumps, as if something had bitten them off.
I didn't run.
I couldn't.
The obsidian inside me throbbed.
And something—something old—told me to stay still.
The gravedigger raised one of his arms.
And suddenly, the earth moved.
⸻
From the graves, the bones began to rise.
They didn't assemble into full skeletons.
They floated—ribs, skulls, jawbones, vertebrae—like moths in the night.
They didn't attack.
They danced.
Around him.
Around me.
As if they were remembering something.
Or preparing.
Then, he finally moved.
With a strange elegance, he walked to an open grave, the one no one dared to use.
And he knelt.
He pressed his stump to the earth.
And the bones obeyed.
They returned to the ground.
Every single one.
Except one.
A small skull.
Child-sized.
Cracked in the back.
He looked at me.
And I understood.
"He killed you," I said.
He nodded.
"He took your hands so you wouldn't bury what he did."
The gravedigger lowered his head.
"You still guard the dead."
He looked at the candles.
Then at the sky.
"Do you want vengeance?"
Silence.
Then, he stood.
He didn't nod.
He didn't smile.
But he raised both stumps toward me.
And from the shadows, two ghostly hands emerged—made of mist and dirt.
They floated toward me.
And rested on my shoulders.
Cold.
Heavy.
Like promises.
"Then help me dig up the truth," I whispered.
The candles burst into blue flame.
The tombstones cracked.
And the earth opened again.
⸻
Now, the gravedigger walks with me.
He doesn't speak.
He doesn't need to.
His footsteps echo in the silence.
His hands—those spectral hands—mark the places where secrets were buried.
Where the general dumped bodies.
Where the names were erased.
Where children were silenced.
And every time we uncover a truth, a new head joins the procession.
The march grows.
The fury grows.
And so do I.
⸻
If one day you find an open grave, don't cover it.
It might be one of his.
One of the forgotten.
And if you ever hear the sound of bones dancing at night…
Don't run.
It's just the gravedigger,
doing the work that no one else dared to finish.