Chapter 1 - Unearthed

It’s dark, I can’t see anything. I reach out with my hand, but the only thing I can feel is something hard, barely an inch from my face. I start to panic when I realize that I am surrounded by this…thing. I feel stiff and cold, moist. Suddenly it strikes me. I never woke up after getting shot in that store, I must be dead. No, that can’t be, I move, I think I br… Wait a minute, I’m not breathing, I reach for my neck, no pulse, nothing at all.

How could this happen? I’m dead for Christ’s sake! I shouldn’t be lying here moving and thinking should i? More and more I start to feel afraid, I want to get out, but I lying 6 feet under ground, in a pine box. Panic strikes me, and I start to claw at the damp wood on the inside of the cheap coffin I was buried in. My nails break off, and my fingertips fill with splinters, but I can’t feel anything. I try to calm down, but now instead of panic I feel anger.

I have to get out of here! I scream into the dark inside of my coffin, LET ME OUT! I know that no-one can here me, my only chance is to get out by myself. I start pounding the lid, damning it to hell for keeping me from my freedom. Suddenly I hear a loud crack, oh no, must have broken something. I feel my hand, wiggle my joints and bones and try to feel if anything is wrong. Nothing, I prod the lid with my hand, and there it is, a crack in the wood, yes! I start banging and pushing on the crack, and slowly it starts to get wider. I can feel the dirt falling into my face, a final bang on the wood and the coffin caves in.

The soil Is wet and heavy, it must have rained recently. As I dig my way upwards it gets brighter and brighter. Freedom! But when I finally crawl out of the hole I realize something, what now? My legs are weak and stiff, I can’t walk very well. I stumble towards the church, past graves and memorial plaques, each of them represents someone who is like me, dead. Although these people haven’t come back. So why did i? Many questions, zero answers. I’m nearing the church when I happen to notice a well, I walk up to it, lean over the edge and look down. With a feeling of disgust I back away from the image I saw in the water, almost half of my head is missing! My face is gray and gloomy, lifeless eye, the one that I have left. I look horrible, I can’t be seen among people looking like this!

But why should I do that anyway? What is the purpose of being a walking corpse? During my lifetime I always liked zombie-movies, but none of them covered any of this. I am not a mindless cannibal, I don’t feel the need to feed at all actually, I’m not mindless in any way, I can reason and think, even though I’m missing half my brain. Guess it was the inactive half. Right, back to stumbling then, the church looks much more inviting now than it ever did when I was alive, never was much for religion, but there is something that feels right about it. When I walk in I get some kind of strange urge, I just want to rip everything from the walls, I am angry, why did god do this to me? God? I don’t believe in god? Maybe these mood swings have something to do with my missing brain, I feel a tad foggy in the head, oh well.

The church survived my visit, barely, I managed to quench my thirst for destruction. As I ponder what to do next I suddenly realize, I have no idea how I died, that’s probably something I should try to find out. Since half of my head is missing I’m guessing that I might have been shot. The newspapers might have something, but how long was I buried before I woke up? This means another twenty minute stumble back to my grave, not that I get tired or anything, but still.