They walked past homes etched with generations: vines curling like signatures, shutters faded from storms long gone. Every door was closed. Every window seemed to be watching.
Until one creaked open.
Then another.
And another.
Quiet figures began to emerge. Not rushed, not panicked, just solemn, dressed in dark fabrics, some clutching pressed flowers, some holding nothing at all. Their expressions were unreadable, like pages written in languages time had forgotten.
Windie didn't speak. She only walked, and Ira followed, heart thudding in rhythm with the soundless procession that was forming behind them.
Then, from the center of the village, the bell rang.
Low. Long. Final.
The bell had called every being out, signifying that time for the procession had come.
The bell tolled again, three times.
Ira followed Windie toward the gathering place without knowing why.
A crowd had formed, quiet but intentional.
Every villager moved as if they'd rehearsed this moment before.
In the center of the square, a wooden cart held a body wrapped in black cloth. A pendant rested on top, a swirling shape carved from bone. It looked almost ceremonial.
But Ira felt nothing.
No grief. No connection.
Only the prickle of being outside something ancient.
The elder spoke. "We honor her return. As is the cycle's will."
Murmurs rippled. Someone sobbed.
Windie clutched Ira's hand, her grip firm.
Ira leaned close. "Who was she?"
"She was one of ours," Windie said. "It's important."
"Uhm… so when will all this end Windie? You really have to help me leave… I… I'm not supposed to be here." Ira whispered to Windie.
"But you have come. So there is no exit… I would love for you to stay longer. Everyday has a new funeral. It's normal, you would get used to it like every one of us." Windie looked at Ira mysteriously.
Before Ira could realize any further activities, the funeral had come to an end. Just like that, the people retreated back to their homes and the village was quiet once more. Ira still consciously followed Windie, there had to be something the little girl wanted to tell her.
"Return to your habitat. Time is over now." The woman back at the inn said to Windie as she gripped Ira's wrist, "We have to return to the inn now. Darkness is coming with full force and it will be too dangerous to stay out."
Before Ira could look back at Windie, the little girl had vanished.
She was surprised by how quickly the girl left the scene. "Let go of my wrist", she freed herself from the old woman's grip.
The woman didn't flinch or anything, she turned and walked toward the inn. Obviously, Ira followed behind still turning around to recheck if Windie was still in sight somewhere.
After Ira walked into the inn, the door creaked shut as usual.
Inside, the woman had set a table with different foods and a fine tablecloth. "Dinner time" she said with a weird smile on her face.
Ira still couldn't figure out what the village she found herself really was, and she felt like time was running out or something abnormal could possibly happen.
She sat down with the woman to eat. "Uhm…shall we pray?" She immediately asked before the woman picked up her cutleries to eat.
"Pray to whom? Can we not just enjoy our food tonight?"
"…do you not pray in this village?" Ira cautiously asked, trying to understand the people and the village better.
The woman dropped her cutleries down, eyes fixed on Ira. "The question is pray to whom? What do you pray to? Is that necessary? What does the prayer do to you afterwards?"
Ira responded with little hesitation, " Where I come from, we pray to God. He… you know who God is, or don't you?"
"There is no God in this village. There is no God anywhere… now eat your food". The woman's tone seemed to have become more serious than it was before. Ira was stupefied for some minutes.
She however proceeded to eat the food before her, "Quiet a nice meal", she thought within herself. Then she stopped eating and asked the woman, "What happens tomorrow? Why did everyone return to their homes like nothing happened and why is it too dangerous to stay out at night… like it's still early if I'm not mistaken".
The woman stopped eating too, slowly glared at Ira.
"Do you not have table manners young lady? This is time to eat, not time to ask questions about tomorrow".
"Yes… but I just wish to know. I… I'm new here right?" She tried to coax the old woman, "I'm interested in learning about the daily activities of the village. I already met that little girl… Windie, quiet a nice little girl…a..and I… I like it here too".
Every word spoken by Ira was false, only to get the woman to say something about the village. She was indirectly seeking for more knowledge.
"Tomorrow another person will be buried. It's normal."
"You're trying to say it's normal for someone to die or get buried every single day in this village? Why is that so?" Ira tried to draw more knowledge.
The woman paused. Her hands stopped eating. Then she smiled, but not with kindness.
It was a stretch of lips, nothing behind the eyes. And then, softly, she laughed. Not loudly, just a whisper of mirth, like a cracked mirror chuckling to itself.
"Oh child," she said. "It's not normal. It's culture."
She turned to Ira fully now,
"Soon you'll understand. We all do. Eventually."
Ira wanted to respond. Her mouth moved, but no sound came.
The woman resumed eating, humming a tune Ira hadn't heard before, but felt oddly drawn to. Somewhere inside the inn, a floorboard creaked, though no one else was awake.
And from beneath the garden bench, something scratched.
The inn was still. Too still.
Ira lay on the thin mattress, blanket clutched just under her chin. The air felt thick, like dust inhaled through skin. From the crooked window, moonlight spilled across the floor in fractured stripes, like bars.
Then it started.
A sound.
Faint. From outside.
Not an animal. Not the wind.
It was whistling low, distant, off-key. Like someone singing a lullaby who had never learned the tune. It stopped and started again, always just beyond the edge of recognition. Ira sat up slowly, breath tight.
Then came the second sound.
Knocking. Soft. Not on the door, but on the back wall, near the inn's overgrown herb patch. Rhythmic. Too gentle to be urgent, too deliberate to be ignored.
She slipped off the bed and crossed the room, bare feet cold against the wooden planks.
The knocking stopped.
Silence.
Then a whisper.
Not inside her head. Outside.
"Come see."
It was a child's voice. Or something mimicking one.
Ira's breath hitched. She backed away, heart hammering.
From under the doorframe, a sliver of black mist began to seep through, as if the night was trying to enter by force.
"Come see."
Again. Closer now.
She stumbled to the lamp, tried to light it. Her fingers trembled. The match flared and died.
The match sputtered... then died, leaving behind the acrid sting of smoke in Ira's nostrils.
Darkness returned, thicker than before.
Her breath trembled through the stillness, loud against the silence. Her hands flailed across the bedside table, feeling for something solid. Her fingers brushed cold metal, the edge of her phone.
Clutching it, she thumbed the screen blindly until a beam of white light burst forth.
The whispers stopped.
All at once.
No lullaby.
No knock.
No voice.
Just a stillness so loud it made her skin crawl.
Her heart pounded harder, not because she was safe, but because it felt... interrupted. Like she'd turned the page too early in a book no one wanted her to read.
She slowly panned the light toward the window.
Nothing.