I leaned my head against the window, the cool breeze from the cracked glass brushing my skin, as the car hummed steadily along the road. The low hum of my parents' voices barely registered, their words blending into a soft background noise. My body ached, the lingering effects of my hospital stay wearing me down, but I couldn't bring myself to sleep for long. Still, my eyelids grew heavy.

  A few minutes later, I drifted.

  The world around me faded, and I was no longer in the car, no longer with my parents. I found myself standing in a place I couldn't quite place, a shadowy, barren landscape. The air was thick and cold, the ground cracked beneath my feet. There was no sound—just the oppressive quiet that felt suffocating, like I was the only living thing left in a dead world.

  Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw it. A figure—no, a shape—emerged from the darkness. It was a grave, or what used to be one, the earth parted as if something—or someone—was clawing its way out. The figure slowly pulled itself up, emerging from the depths of the grave. It was a man, bloodshot eyes wide open, fixated on me as if he'd known I would be there.

  His clothes were torn and caked in dirt, and his face was twisted in pain, but those eyes—they were so familiar, the exact shade of hazel I could never forget. There was no mistaking it.

  "Liam..." The name slipped from my lips, though I hadn't meant to say it aloud. The figure seemed to hear me, his head snapping in my direction as if my voice was the lifeline that tethered him back to reality.

  His lips parted, as though trying to speak, but all I could hear was the sound of my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.

  And then, just as quickly as the image had come, it shattered.

  I jolted awake, my breath coming in sharp gasps as I gripped the seat, eyes wide and frantic. The familiar hum of the car engine met my senses, and I realized I had been asleep, though the dream lingered like a fog in my mind.

  "Hey, you okay?" My mom’s voice pulled me back to the present, concern lacing her words.

  I swallowed hard, trying to steady myself. "Yeah... just a bad dream," I muttered, unsure of how to explain the haunting vision I had just seen.

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  Liam. Crawling from a grave. The bloodshot eyes.

  I didn’t understand. It had to be a dream, right? But the image felt too real, too vivid. As if I had witnessed something—something I wasn’t supposed to. Something I wasn’t ready to know.

  I stared out the window, my heart racing. What did it mean? What was that? And why did it feel like a warning?

  A few moments later the car came to an abrupt stop, jolting me from my thoughts. I blinked, my heart racing a little as I glanced at my dad. "Why'd you stop?" I asked, confused.

  He didn't answer immediately, his face tight with concentration as he stared ahead. Then, I saw it. The scene ahead of us, a flash of red and blue lights flickering through the trees, police cars and ambulances crowded on the road. It was a wreck, a bad one. The twisted metal of the vehicles lay sprawled across the road, and I could see bodies on the pavement—too many to count. I felt a chill crawl up my spine.

  “Is… is everyone alright?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, though I already knew the answer.

  Dad didn't reply. He just kept staring at the wreck, his jaw clenched. I followed his gaze, my eyes scanning the wreckage.

  And then I realized—the bodies. There were no survivors.

  The air thickened in the car, the weight of the reality settling over us. I leaned forward, staring at the scene, my thoughts spinning. How could something so devastating happen in the blink of an eye? Why were we here?

  But then, something happened that made the hairs on my neck stand up. A figure, tall and cloaked in black, emerged from the shadows near the wreckage. I hadn’t noticed him before, but now, he was impossible to ignore. He moved with an unsettling calm, almost too calm for the chaos surrounding him.

  He approached the bodies, and I watched in disbelief as he spoke to them. I couldn’t hear his words, but the scene before me was surreal. Suddenly, the bodies—lifeless and cold just moments ago—seemed to stir. Their souls, or spirits, I couldn’t tell, rose from the bodies like wisps of smoke and followed the figure, moving in a slow, silent procession.

  It was like something straight out of a nightmare.

  The figure didn't seem to notice us, oblivious to the world around him as the spirits followed him willingly, leaving their bodies behind. But then, as though the tension in the air suddenly shifted, he looked over his shoulder—directly at me.

  His eyes met mine, and for a split second, I could’ve sworn I saw something. Shock. Recognition. Fear? It was fleeting, but it was there.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I blinked, trying to convince myself I hadn’t seen what I thought I saw. The figure's gaze was now fixed ahead, and he continued to lead the spirits away from the wreckage, vanishing into the night, as if he hadn’t just done the impossible right in front of me.

  "Did you see that?" I gasped, turning toward my dad, my voice trembling.

  He didn't answer at first, too focused on the road ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. "What?" he asked, glancing at me for a brief moment. "What did you see?"

  I opened my mouth to explain, but my words caught in my throat. How could I explain what I had just witnessed? A figure in black speaking to the dead, guiding them away like they were nothing more than shadows?

  I shook my head, my mind a swirl of confusion. It couldn’t have been real. But deep down, something in my gut told me it was. It felt... too real. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever just happened, it had something to do with me. With why I was still here, why I hadn’t died that night.

  After my near-miss with death, things were... different. But this? This was a whole new level of terrifying.

  The car started moving again, slowly rolling past the wreckage, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen.

  Was this some kind of omen? A warning? Or was I just losing my mind?

  I didn’t know. But one thing was for certain: since that night—since the accident—I hadn’t been the same. And I had a feeling that whatever was happening to me was just the beginning.