Reaching out, Karen touched the switch on the wall. The soft click and subsequent flicker of light brought a faint sense of grounding, like reaching for something solid in an ever-shifting landscape. The basement of the Yimmerles family house brightened beneath the bulb’s glow, casting muted shadows along the walls. Karen’s steps down the spiral ramp felt heavier than usual as he approached the basement, where the air thickened with a strange, creeping unease. The atmosphere itself was enough to breed dread, but the growing sensation within him whispered that it wasn’t the environment he feared; it was something deeper, something unnamable.

The muffled sound of weeping echoed down the corridor, barely audible above his own breaths. It came from Aunt Mary’s studio, where she performed her solemn, meticulous work on the deceased. Karen paused in front of the studio door, hesitant to enter. His hand reached for the doorknob, but he hesitated, casting a glance over his shoulder toward the spiral ramp behind him. The light above illuminated the hallway, and yet, the faintly lit path felt both inviting and ominous, the dimness at the end of the hall suggesting secrets waiting in the darkness.

He let out a slow, calming breath, wishing for a moment that he could detect the comforting scent of warm milk, or anything that might temper the uncanny chill in the air. But scents didn’t bring answers, and he knew it. Trying to shake off the crawling unease, Karen twisted the doorknob, pulling the door open, and reached out to find the light switch. He flicked it on, bathing the room in a warm glow.

Inside, two gurneys lay side by side, bearing the bodies of Jeff and Mr. Mossan. Karen’s gaze settled on their faces, starkly contrasting in their preparation. Jeff’s face had been crafted with a macabre brightness—a styled middle part, glossy hair, and a coat of makeup so heavy it seemed mocking. He probably hadn’t looked so lively in life. Mr. Mossan’s face, in contrast, was more naturally composed, as if merely resting. The discrepancy in Aunt Mary’s handiwork between a regular case and a welfare case was glaring, though Karen supposed it wouldn’t matter to the clients or their souls.

He dragged over a round stool with wheels and sat down beside Mr. Mossan, eyes on the silent form of the elderly man as he placed his feet on the stretcher’s rail. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the open doorway, keeping an awareness of the hallway—and especially the dark spiral ramp beyond, leading up into obscurity. He wanted to be ready for whatever might come.

A quarter of an hour passed in absolute stillness. The silence was so profound that he felt each second as a weight pressing on his shoulders. His nerves grew taut, his mind racing through endless questions as he waited for something, anything, to happen. The anticipation gnawed at him, tugging him between fear and fascination.

Finally, Karen sighed. Nothing was happening. Maybe he’d been wrong. With a resigned breath, he pushed himself up, already beginning to think about the warmth of his bed upstairs. But as he moved past Mr. Mossan, he noticed the top button of the man’s shirt was undone. Out of habit or respect, he leaned down to button it back up.

The moment his fingers touched Mr. Mossan’s cold, lifeless neck, a sharp wave of dizziness washed over him, as if his consciousness was being pulled into a dense fog. He staggered, one hand reaching out to steady himself against the wall as a new sound filled his ears—a quiet, mournful sobbing that seemed to come from the room itself.

Karen lifted his head. Mr. Mossan lay still on the stretcher, yet in the far corner of the room, a figure was curled up, hugging its knees and crying. The sobs were faint but carried a weight that tugged at his soul.

“Mr. Mossan?” Karen whispered, his voice cutting through the heavy silence. The figure gave no response, continuing to sob quietly in its distant corner. Karen moved closer, but no matter how far he walked, the space between them remained unchanged, as if a strange, invisible barrier separated him from the apparition. He tried to reach out, but the distance was absolute, a constant that defied physical laws.

“So… what I’m seeing isn’t real?” he murmured to himself. 

He attempted to alter his perspective, angling himself in different directions to see if the figure would respond. To his surprise, the image of Mr. Mossan in the corner began to shift, almost as if sliding with his movements. It was like a projection bound to his line of sight, adjusting its position with every step.

*Is this… a soul?* he wondered, uncertain of what he was dealing with. It was as if he were peering into an echo, a remnant left behind. An idea formed in his mind, and he moved to align the projected image of Mr. Mossan with the body lying on the stretcher. As he positioned them to overlap, he felt an inexplicable urgency, a sense that whatever haunted Mr. Mossan’s corpse needed to be whole, needed to be unified.

The moment the images aligned, Mr. Mossan’s sobbing ceased. The figure in the corner stood, its movements slow and confused, and drifted toward the gurney, laying itself over the corpse like a shadow merging with its source. The entire process was unsettlingly smooth, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

And then, suddenly, Karen’s mind was seized by an overwhelming pressure, a force that wrapped around his brain like a vice, squeezing mercilessly. He gasped, feeling a violent tug deep within his mind, and fell to his knees, clutching his head as blood dripped from his nostrils onto the cold tiles below. It was like something had gripped his very soul and tried to tear it from his body.

“Wuwuwu…” The sobbing resumed, echoing around him. Karen looked up, his vision blurred, as Mr. Mossan’s form sat upright on the stretcher, his face twisted in pain, his eyes empty and clouded.

“Please… don’t burn me,” Mr. Mossan murmured, his voice laced with a desperate plea. “Cremating my flesh… no forgiveness… cremating my flesh…”

Karen’s breath hitched as he realized he was witnessing a manifestation of Mr. Mossan’s deepest fear, his last desperate wish. Aunt Mary had mentioned Mr. Mossan’s religious beliefs prohibited cremation, that the desecration of his body would sever his connection to salvation.

“Mr. Mossan?” Karen called softly, but his words seemed to drift past the apparition, unheard. Mr. Mossan continued to beg, his hands clasped in a gesture of prayer, his eyes vacant yet filled with a strange, residual anguish.

This wasn’t a conscious conversation but an instinctual response, a fragment of Mr. Mossan’s final, unfulfilled desire. In his last moments, he’d feared for his soul’s fate, and now, even in death, that fear clung to him, refusing to let him rest.

“Please don’t burn me…” Mr. Mossan’s voice grew louder, his tone frantic, until his words spilled over each other in a rush. “Don’t burn me! Don’t burn me! Don’t burn me!!” His hands shook as his gaze fixed on Karen with an intensity that pierced through the darkness.

Karen’s heart raced as Mr. Mossan’s spirit grew agitated, his desperation twisting into a frenzy. His lifeless eyes darkened, blood vessels surfacing beneath the translucent skin, spreading like cracks on glass. The air thickened, a dangerous tension building as Mr. Mossan’s sorrow gave way to rage.

“Mr. Mossan?” Karen called again, a sense of dread pooling in his stomach. He took a cautious step back, but his voice seemed to trigger something within the spirit.

“You… dare to burn me!” Mr. Mossan’s body convulsed, jerking in unnatural spasms. His limbs moved with an eerie disjointedness as he leaped from the stretcher, crashing against Karen with surprising force. Karen stumbled, barely catching himself as Mr. Mossan’s hands clawed toward his throat.

Karen’s instincts took over. He struck out with his knee, aiming to push the spirit back, but his strength was no match for the weight of Mr. Mossan’s corpse. The dead man’s body bore down on him, pressing him to the floor, pinning him with a vice-like grip around his neck.

“You… dare… to burn… me!” Mr. Mossan’s voice was a guttural snarl as he lunged, his mouth snapping open, teeth gnashing as if to bite through Karen’s chest. But the corpse’s decayed teeth failed to break the skin, leaving only a deep, painful bruise.

Panic surged through Karen’s veins as he struggled against the grip on his neck. His vision blurred, dark spots creeping along the edges as his oxygen waned. In his last moments of desperation, he glanced toward the open doorway, praying for some intervention, some miracle.

The silence shattered with a sharp crack—a sound like metal snapping, or perhaps the shattering of glass.

Mr. Mossan froze, his frenzied movements ceasing as his head whipped up, eyes widening in alarm. Then, in a final surge of anger, he tightened his grip, twisting Karen’s neck with a strength born of pure rage.

“You dare… burn me…” The words dripped from his lips like venom, each syllable reverberating in Karen’s mind as his own grip on reality slipped. His vision

 swam, darkness closing in as his lungs screamed for air.

But then, as if reaching some invisible threshold, Mr. Mossan’s body seized, his hands falling limp as his rage dissolved. The corpse crumpled, collapsing onto the cold tile as the last remnants of his spirit faded.

Karen lay there, gasping for breath, the taste of blood on his tongue as he struggled to regain control. His hand reached up, wiping away the blood trickling from his nose. With a shaky breath, he turned his head toward the open door, where the dim light of the hallway cast a muted glow over the room’s shadows.

He laughed, a choked, bitter sound, as he slapped a hand to his forehead in weary frustration. “Damn it… what kind of godforsaken world is this?”

---

At the base of the ramp leading to the first floor, Dis Imolace stood, his presence as unwavering as stone. His gaze drifted toward the basement, his posture suggesting he’d been watching the entire event unfold. Beside him, the black cat, Poe, sat on the first-floor steps, meeting Dis’s gaze with an eerie, knowing look.

Dis glanced at the cat, his expression thoughtful. “Did he just speak the language of the aberrant demon?”

Poe lifted its head, the air around it shifting as it replied in a voice that dripped with wisdom far beyond that of a mere animal. “I’ve lived two hundred years and have never known an aberrant demon to craft their own language—at least not one so complex, so precise.”

Dis turned back toward the basement, a contemplative frown on his face as he watched the aftermath of Karen’s encounter with the restless dead.

---

The first rays of dawn had barely touched the sky when Aunt Mary’s furious scream echoed through the basement.

“Who on earth did this? Who messed with my work!” she fumed as she stomped up the ramp, her face red with anger. When she reached the top, she stopped, her eyes meeting Dis’s calm, priestly demeanor.

“Oh… Father,” she said, collecting herself. “It’s just… someone’s disturbed Mr. Mossan’s body.”

Dis nodded, his voice calm and composed. “I performed a ceremony for him, to ease his passing.”

Aunt Mary’s face softened instantly, her anger dissolving as she clasped her hands in reverence. “Praise your mercy, Father. May Mr. Mossan rest in peace.”

With a quiet prayer, Aunt Mary returned to the studio, taking up her tools to restore Mr. Mossan’s disheveled appearance. It wasn’t the first time one of her prepared corpses had been disturbed following one of Dis’s mysterious rituals, and while it frustrated her, she knew better than to question his methods.

As Aunt Mary busied herself with her work, Karen, still groggy and shaken, made his way back to his room. His cousin Lunt was already gone from their shared bed, leaving Karen to sit alone, staring at his reflection in the cracked mirror by the dresser.

He touched his face, tracing the bruise left by Mr. Mossan’s ghostly grip. This body was painfully fragile, he realized, every ache and bruise a reminder of his limitations in this strange, unpredictable world.

Downstairs, the somber strains of “The Departed” drifted from the gramophone, filling the house with a haunting melody as the family prepared for the day’s funeral services. Karen wandered to the first floor, where the others were already hard at work.

Ron and Paul were carefully positioning the coffin on a small platform, while Mina and Chris set about lighting candles, their movements quiet and respectful. Lunt scrubbed the floor with a mop, erasing the last remnants of footprints, each step measured and meticulous.

Karen watched them in silence, the events of the night lingering in his mind. The echo of Mr. Mossan’s pleas still haunted him, a reminder that in this world, the dead did not always rest.