Deep Sea Embers

.

A small figure stood at the cemetery entrance—a girl who appeared to be around eleven or twelve years old, dressed in a dark brown woolen coat, a black skirt, cozy cotton boots, and thick gloves. She seemed to have been waiting at the cemetery gate for quite some time. Snow had started to fall in the frosty city during the evening, and numerous snowflakes had already settled on her gray knitted hat, with faint hints of warmth emanating from the twilight snow.

The little girl tapped her feet lightly in place, occasionally glancing down the slope opposite the cemetery. When the caretaker came into view, she immediately smiled and energetically waved at him.

“Here again…”

Upon seeing the girl, the elderly caretaker couldn’t help but mutter, his tone sounding somewhat impatient, but he still hastened his steps and approached her.

“Annie,” the old man frowned, examining the girl before him, “you’ve come alone once more. I’ve told you countless times that a cemetery is no place for a child like you to visit alone, especially near dusk.”

“I already informed my mom,” the girl named Annie responded cheerfully, “she said it’s alright as long as I return home before curfew.”

The old caretaker quietly observed the smiling girl before him.

Most people in the area disliked the cemetery caretaker and avoided getting close to this creepy and perilous place, but there were always exceptions—like a little girl who wasn’t afraid of him.

“Mr. Caretaker, has my dad been here yet?” Annie looked up expectantly at the stooped old man in black; his cloudy eyes, which typically frightened others, didn’t make her uneasy.

“…No,” the old caretaker replied as usual, his voice as cold and unyielding as the wind echoing through the cemetery, “he won’t be here today.”

Annie didn’t appear disappointed but merely smiled as she always did, “Then I’ll return tomorrow and ask again.”

“He won’t be here tomorrow either.”

Annie continued to look up, “But he’ll come eventually, right?”

This time, the consistently cold and unyielding old man finally paused for a moment. It wasn’t until snowflakes landed on his eyebrows that his murky eyes shifted slightly, “The deceased will eventually gather in a cemetery and experience eternal peace beyond that door—but not necessarily in a cemetery of this world, and not necessarily in this cemetery.”

“Oh,” Annie responded, but it seemed as if she didn’t take it to heart. She merely turned her head, glanced at the locked fence gate, and asked curiously, “May I go in and take a look? I want to warm up by the fire in your little house…”

“Not today,” the old man shook his head, “Cemetery No. 3 is in a unique situation, with the church’s guardians stationed inside, and it’s not open to the public today. You should head home, girl.”

“…Alright,” Annie nodded, slightly disappointed. She then rummaged through her small bag and pulled out a small package wrapped in rough paper to give to the old man, “Then this is for you—it’s cookies my mom baked. She said I can’t always be causing trouble.”

The old man looked at the item in the girl’s hand and then at the snowflakes on her body.

He reached out, accepted the cookies, and casually brushed the snowflakes off her knitted hat, “I’ll accept it. You should head home early.”

“Alright, you take care too, Grandpa,” Annie said.

With a smile and nod, she adjusted her scarf and gloves before walking down the path towards the city’s residential area.

However, after taking just a few steps, the old caretaker suddenly called out, “Annie.”

“Huh?”

“Annie, you’re already twelve years old,” the old man stated, calmly gazing into the girl’s eyes as he stood in the twilight, “Do you still believe the things I told you when you were six?”

The girl paused and looked at the cemetery caretaker, puzzled.

The dead would all come to this cemetery—no matter how scattered they were in life, Bartok’s foyer would be their final gathering place.

This assertion was written in the church’s scriptures, but when faced with the same proverb, adults and six-year-old children would always have different interpretations.

Twelve-year-old Annie stood there, bewildered for a long time, while the black-clad cemetery caretaker stood like a cold, rigid iron statue by the tall, locked gate, with tiny snowflakes dancing between them and the winter chill enveloping the dusk.

Suddenly, Annie laughed and waved at the old man, “Then you can just think I came here to see you. My mom said that elderly people need someone to talk to regularly.”

The girl turned around and sprinted away, gracefully skimming over the increasingly snowy path like a swallow. She slipped at the bottom of the slope but quickly stood up, dusting the snow off her skirt and thermal pants, and hurriedly departed.

“…Elderly people…” The old caretaker watched the girl’s receding figure, only grumbling after she had run far away, “This child is becoming somewhat mischievous.”

“Shattering a child’s expectations is even worse,” a young, slightly hoarse female voice suddenly emerged from the side, interrupting the old caretaker’s grumbling. “You didn’t have to say that just now. The twelve-year-old child will gradually understand what she needs to, and sometimes we hard-hearted adults don’t need to expose any truths.”

The old caretaker turned and saw the black-clad, bandaged “gatekeeper” Agatha, who had somehow already appeared at the cemetery entrance, with the previously locked cemetery gate now open.

He shook his head, “Let her continue hoping her father will be sent to this cemetery, and then have her come here alone in the snowy cold?”

“Is that bad? At least when you talk to her, you seem to have some warmth.”

“…That’s not something a gatekeeper should say.”

Agatha shook her head, said nothing, and turned to walk toward the cemetery’s inner path.

The old caretaker followed her, first locking the gate, then going to his caretaker’s hut to store the items he had purchased. After completing the shift change with the daytime caretaker, he went to the cemetery’s mortuary area, where he found the “gatekeeper” who had already walked ahead.

Compared to before, the mortuary was now significantly emptier, with the majority of the stone platforms unoccupied. Only a few simple coffins were placed on the platforms at the edges.

Around those few coffins, at least two church guardians stood by each platform, and black staves were scattered throughout the open space between the platforms. The black staves were the signature equipment of the Death Church’s guardians. They inserted the staves into the ground nearby and hung sacred lanterns at the top of the tips to maintain a small “holy area” that could effectively counteract the corrupting forces from higher beings.

At this moment, the twilight had deepened, and the snowy weather made the sky darker than usual at this time. In the increasingly dim cemetery, the lanterns hanging at the top of the staves burned silently like phosphorous fires, creating a serene yet eerie atmosphere.

“We have prepared extensively here, but it seems that the ‘visitor’ has no intention of returning to this place soon,” Agatha remarked casually as she saw the old caretaker appear. “Are you sure the ‘visitor’ has revealed information about coming back?”

“You should trust the hypnotic skills of professional psychiatrists,” the old caretaker shrugged, paused, and then added, “I can’t remember most of what happened that day, and the buzzing noise is gradually fading from my mind. However, after several hypnosis sessions, I can recall some things… the clearest being the ‘visitor’s’ intention to return before leaving.”

Agatha was silent for two or three seconds before she spoke softly, “But there is another possibility. A higher being like that may have a different perception of time than humans—its return visit could be tomorrow, in a few years, or even after your death, contacting you in a way that transcends life and death.”

“…Can’t you be more optimistic?”

“This is the result of the church advisory group’s discussion.”

The old caretaker snorted noncommittally, his gaze sweeping over the black-clad guardians in the cemetery and the quietly burning lanterns atop the staves.

“…I just hope that these arrangements don’t anger the ‘visitor’ and aren’t considered an offense or a ‘trap.’ After all, we know too little about it.”

“All these arrangements are merely for our own protection,” Agatha said. “After all, although you claim that your loss of control in your visions was due to inhaling too much incense, none of us knows whether the ‘visitor’ has a tendency to release mental contamination intentionally. To face a higher supernatural being, we must at least ensure our own sanity.”

The old caretaker remained noncommittal and changed the subject after a brief contemplation, “What conclusions did you come to with the samples you took earlier?”

“Do you mean those cultists, or the ‘bodies’ that melted into sludge?”

“Both.”

“As for the cultists, there’s not much to say. They were the minions of the Annihilation Sect, supernatural beings who have deeply symbiosed with demons. They were quite powerful, and ordinary church guardians would be in great danger facing them. Fortunately for us, those heretics seemed to lack good fortune. As for the ‘sludge’…”

Agatha paused here, her expression somewhat strange.

“Their ‘evolution’ has, in fact, not stopped even until now. As of when I left the cathedral, those things were still constantly presenting new forms and properties. In the past period, they even briefly displayed a state similar to metal and rock, giving the impression… as if it were something often mentioned by the Annihilation Sect in their heretical teachings.”

The old caretaker furrowed his brow slowly, “You mean… primal essence?”

“The true essence, the purest and most sacred material, the ‘Droplet of Truth’ bestowed by the Nether Lord upon the mortal world. That’s how the heretics describe it,” Agatha’s tone was laden with undisguised disgust and sarcasm. “Such beautiful words, yet hearing them uttered by these heretics is absolutely repulsive.”