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gjnhjfdhns: Part THIRTY-THREE: Abrupt Transition

We scraped away the dirt without speaking, and I was beginning to fear the worst, when there was a movement just below. I paused for a second, stunned, and then begun to dig with renewed vigor- Something was in that grave, something living!

A hand burst through the weakened surface, and then another, both feeling around for something to grab on to. Mitchell and I took one hand and pulled, helping the person emerge from below. Through the rain of soil, there was a surprising sight.

Someone who was totally not Brian.

He blinked idly at the tombstone, and then looked up at our dumbfounded faces. With a maniacal little grin, he laughed, "Ha-ha! You didn't find Brian!"

I slapped my hand to my forehead in a mixture of both relief and sarcasm. "Oh joy, it's Romee!"

"How'd you get here?" Mitchell asked, kicking away a random dirt clod.

He dusted himself off, and made sure his hair was as in place as he could get it to be. "I dunno, I was walking down a tunnel or something. I heard something above me, so I climbed out." He took in the mess we were- blood, dirt, gross-hospital-stuff- and did a double take. "What the hell happened to you guys?! Rape?!"

"Ah, shut up, little man."

"It's a long story." I sighed and looked around. He'd come out of the tunnel entirely by chance, just because we were digging as he passed by... What if there were other people walking in that tunnel? "Hey, Jerome, do you know how you got in the tunnel?"

"... No. I couldn't see behind me, it was pitch black, and it got freaking freezing whenever I tried to back up, so I kept walking."

"Did you see any exits?"

"Only this one."

I walked over to the grave and kicked at the dirt, finding that it wasn't very deep at all- Had we continued digging, we would've broken through the surface in a matter of minutes. Inside was the tunnel, a gaping, inky blackness.

"It got freaking freezing..."

"Well, let's go!"

"Where?"

"Into the tunnel, duh." Mitchell made a move like he was about to venture into the hole, but didn't get any closer to it.

"No way." I took three steps back. "I'm not going in there. It's dark."

"What're you," Jerome laughed, "afraid of the dark?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes. I am. Okay? Okay."

"Loser."

"Is that the grass talking?" I retorted, rather loudly, craning my neck to look around.

"Shut up."

"Yea, yea..."

We all surveyed the scenery, trying to see through the thick fog, or pinpoint some sort of pathway. It was difficult to see past a yard or two, because it looked like bits of clouds had descended onto earth, still condensed, solely to hinder our vision. This added to the gloomy atmosphere of the cemetary, something I found to be cliche in movies. Now, in the midst of the situation, I was hit with the raw feeling of being in a scary place.

Not a pleasant thing at all.

"What now?" Mitchell asked. If I never heard 'what now' again, it'd be too soon.

"Let's... Try to find a way out?" I scanned the little I could see. "If we could find a high place to look from... Aha!"

The tip of a statue was visible through the fog, and I moved closer to it, finding that it stood much taller than I did. I also found that it was the stone angel I had seen before, the one with its wings replaced by jagged stumps.

After a moment of silence, Jerome piped up. "I wanna go! I wanna go!" He walked toward the morbid statue and grabbed hold of its foot, which was the highest point he could reach- Understandable, seeing as the angel stood on a block of stone about as tall as Jerome himself. He pulled himself up to a place with easier footing, and scaled the angel like he'd been climbing statues all his life. If it wasn't so creepy, I would've wanted to climb it, too.

Soon, Jerome was near the absolute top, and his head was immersed in fog.

"Can you see anything, Romee-"

The ground started to rumble, violently, and I paled. The statue looked like it was about to step off its pedestal and crush us! A scream pierced the air, and Jerome was falling face-first toward the ground. Before he could even get close enough to even be close to touching it, however, a stone arm jutted out, knocking the wind out of him. It curled around his waist and the other one caught him in a loose headlock.

"Holy sh*t!" Frantically, he kicked at his captor, trying to wriggle free, but it was in vain; he was trapped by a stone angel, and no match for its heavy arms.

"Oh my God!" I screamed, my hands covering my mouth. This isn't happening, this can't be happening, please don't be happening...!

The angel did, in fact, step off the pedestal. It took a step or two toward us- we took a step or five back- and it began to sink into the ground, right into the fresh (fresh?!) soil of the grave it stood over. Before long, it had disappeared into the earth, Jerome its captive, leaving only a hole behind.

The initial shock wore off sooner than I had anticipated, though that probably was nothing to study; who could blame me, after what I'd seen?

Still, the whole thing was f*cking terrifying.

"What the f*ck," Mitchell began, looking as horrified as I felt, "was that!?"

"I-I... I..." I couldn't find any words to explain it. Tentatively, I walked toward the hole and peered inro it, hearing Mitchell slowly following. All I could see was an inky darkness, and no trace of the angel and Jerome, except for the hole its-

"HOLYSH*T!"

A hand, a cold, hard hand, had wrapped around an ankle and gave me a rough tug, and I felt the rush of coarse dirt flying by as I was dragged down into the grave.