Awakening
“Cemetery” is derived from the Greek koimētērion, meaning “sleeping chamber,” and the verb koiman: “to put to sleep.”
The sun always used to shine in the sleepy town of Sunnyside. Life moved slower there, and the mornings started late — after the thick fog that rolled off the nearby lake had dissipated, releasing the rising sun.
Then something beneath Sunnyside began to wake, and everything changed.
The air became thick all the time, not with fog, but a sickly haze. The earth beneath the town rumbled and creaked. Residents swore they heard agonized shrieks coming from the local cemetery. One witness even claimed to have seen spectral entities engaged in combat there — a deadly dance of blades and scythes, clashing in the glint of waning sunset light.
For millennia, we humans have memorialized our dead — adorning their bodies with ornaments, flowers, and tombstones. But little did we know that the rituals we used to remember our dead would, in their absence, become the very thing that animated them once again.
After all, the cemetery was only supposed to be a place for weary souls to rest. But nothing sleeps forever.
