Love's Grave: A Final Sacrifice

The shovel struck the dirt above me.

A dull, wet thud.

It was my grave, and I was floating above it, watching.

My ex-girlfriend, Ava, was there, livestreaming to thousands.

"We're doing this for Liam," she announced, her voice tight with artificial conviction.

Beside her, my former best friend, Liam Davis, grunted, driving the shovel deeper.

He was performing, for Ava, for the camera, for the lies he' d spun for five years about me haunting him.

Then, he unearthed my pine coffin.

The crowbar pried it open, revealing the horrific claw marks-my claw marks-inside the lid.

But also, my diary.

Ava, pale and trembling, pulled it from the mud.

She began to read my words, words that told of my love for her, of Liam's escalating cruelty, not mine.

Yet, she still clung to his narrative, selectively reading to justify her actions.

He' d almost poisoned me.

He tried to murder me.

The truth, stark and undeniable, spilled from the pages.

Then, my mother arrived.

She didn't just expose Liam's lies about an old fight; she revealed a truth that shattered Ava' s world: I was going to donate my kidney to save her life.

The man she' d desecrated, the monster she' d paraded online, was her silent savior.

Struck by a blinding guilt, Ava unearthed the diary's final, blood-stained entry.

My last words.

"Ava. Liam did this. I love yo-"

Unfinished.

The truth was absolute: Liam had not only framed me, he had buried me alive.

A raw scream tore from Ava' s throat.

The tears that followed were years too late, but they ignited a terrifying purpose.

She would make him pay.

The shovel strikes the dirt above me.

It' s a dull, wet thud. The sound travels through six feet of earth, through the wood of my coffin, and vibrates against my bones.

I' m floating above my own grave, watching.

A cold drizzle slicks the grass of Blackwood Cemetery, making the headstones gleam in the harsh, artificial light of a portable flood lamp. The light is for the camera.

My girlfriend, Ava, is holding the camera. Or, she was my girlfriend.

"We' re doing this, guys," she says, her voice tight and breathless. She' s not talking to me. She' s talking to the thousands of people watching her live stream. Her phone is mounted on a tripod, its little red light blinking, capturing everything.

"We' re doing this for Liam. We' re doing this for everyone Daniel Hayes ever hurt."

My name. She says my name like it' s a curse.

Behind her, a man I used to call my best friend, Liam Davis, drives the shovel into the mud again. He grunts with the effort, his face a mask of righteous fury. He' s performing for the camera, for Ava. For the audience.

"Five years," Ava says to her phone, her eyes wide and shining with unshed tears. "For five years, Liam has had nightmares. He wakes up screaming, seeing Daniel' s face. He says Daniel won' t let him rest. That he' s tethered to him, cursed."

A lie. I' m not tethered to him. I' m tethered here. To this spot. To her.

On the screen of her phone, I can see the comments scrolling by at a dizzying speed.

user_h8s_bullies: GET HIM AVA!

LiamIsAnAngel: Finally, justice for Liam!

TrueCrimeJunkie22: This is insane! I' m so here for it.

SpookyGurl666: You have to scatter his ashes. It' s the only way to break the curse.

Ava nods, reading the comments. "You see? They get it. We have to set Liam free." She looks over at him, her expression softening. "It' s the only way."

Liam pauses his digging, leaning on the shovel. He walks over to Ava and pulls her into a hug, burying his face in her hair. He' s careful to keep his face angled toward the camera.

"Thank you, Ava," he whispers, his voice thick with fake emotion. "Thank you for believing me."

I want to scream. I want to tell her he' s lying. He was never my friend. He was the one who bullied. He was the one who stole. The scholarship he claims I took from him? He never even qualified. I helped him with his application. I wrote his recommendation letter.

But I have no voice. I' m just a whisper on the wind, a cold spot in the drizzling rain.

They work for another hour. The hole gets deeper. The pile of mud beside it grows. My mother' s carefully tended patch of grass is a ruin. I remember her planting the flowers here last spring, her tears watering the soil.

"She' ll never forgive you for this, Ava," I try to say, but the words don' t form.

Finally, the shovel hits something hard. A hollow, wooden sound.

"We' re there," Liam pants, a triumphant smirk on his face.

He and Ava work together now, clearing the last of the dirt from the top of my coffin. It' s plain pine. Simple. All my parents could afford after the legal fees from the "accident" and the settlement they were forced to pay Liam. Another one of his lies.

They attach ropes, and with a great heave, they haul the coffin out of the earth. It lands on the muddy grass with a heavy thud.

"Okay, guys," Ava says, her camera now focused tightly on the lid. "This is it. The moment of truth. We' re going to open it, and we' re going to end this. For good."

Liam picks up a crowbar. He wedges it into the seam of the lid. The wood groans and splinters. With a final, violent jerk, the lid pops open.

A collective gasp comes from Ava. Even Liam, for all his bravado, takes a step back.

The online comments explode.

WTFisTHAT??

OMG

those are... scratches?

They are. The inside of the coffin lid is shredded. Deep, frantic claw marks tear through the wood, splinters jutting out everywhere. My own fingernails are broken and bloody, even in death.

But that' s not the only thing in there with me.

Lying next to my skeletal hand, protected from the damp by a plastic sleeve, is a small, black, leather-bound book.

My diary.

Ava leans forward, her face pale in the floodlight. Her eyes are fixed on the claw marks, a horrified understanding dawning on her face. Then, her gaze drops to the diary.

Her hand trembles as she reaches into the coffin. She hesitates, her fingers hovering just over my remains.

I watch her, a forgotten ache echoing in the space where my heart used to be. I see the girl I fell in love with in high school, the one who used to steal my hoodies and doodle our initials in the margins of her notebooks. The girl I planned a future with.

That girl is still in there, somewhere, buried under five years of lies.

"What is it?" Liam asks, his voice sharp with an edge of panic.

Ava doesn' t answer. She just stares at the diary. She knows my handwriting. She knows the little star I used to draw after my name.

"He haunted me," Liam insists, stepping closer to her, trying to pull her back into his narrative. "He was a monster, Ava. Remember what he did. Remember the scholarship. Remember how he pushed me."

Ava flinches, but she doesn' t look away from the diary. Her hand, shaking, finally closes around it. She pulls it from the coffin.

"For you, Liam," she says, but her voice is a hollow echo of its earlier conviction. "I' m doing this for you."

She holds the diary up to the camera, then looks at it herself. The certainty in her eyes is gone, replaced by a flicker of doubt. A single, terrible question.

It' s a start.

Ava' s hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold her phone steady.

The live stream was still running. Thousands of eyes were on her, on the open coffin, on the horrifying scratches inside the lid.

Liam grabbed the coffin, his face twisted with disgust. "Let' s just get this over with."

He tipped it on its side. My bones, wrapped in the tattered remains of my best suit, clattered onto the muddy grass. A sickening, hollow sound.

Ava flinched, a small cry escaping her lips.

The comments section went wild.

user8871: He' s desecrating the body!

LiamIsAnAngel: No! Liam is cleansing it! The body is just a vessel for the evil spirit!

TrueCrimeJunkie22: This is a crime scene. Someone should call the cops.

SpookyGurl666: Burn it! You have to burn the bones. It's the only way to be sure. Let the fire purify everything.

That last comment caught Liam' s eye. A cruel smile spread across his face.

"She' s right, Ava," he said, his voice low and intense. "We can' t just scatter the ashes. We have to burn him. Erase him completely."

I screamed in my silent, ethereal way. No! I' m not haunting you, you bastard. You' re the reason I' m trapped here. You put me in the ground.

I wasn' t haunting his dreams. I was stuck in my own nightmare, forced to relive the last terrifying moments of my life every single night. The darkness. The lack of air. The splintering wood under my tearing fingernails.

Liam pulled a small can of lighter fluid from his duffel bag. He had planned this. He had come here tonight intending to do this all along.

He began to douse my remains, the chemical smell sharp and sickening even to me.

"You thought you could get away with it, didn' t you, Daniel?" he sneered, kicking at my skull. It rolled a few inches in the mud. "Thought you could ruin my life and then just die. But you couldn' t even do that right. You had to come back. You had to haunt me."

Ava just stood there, clutching the diary to her chest, her face a mask of conflict. Part of her was horrified, but another part, the part that had been fed Liam' s poison for five years, was screaming that this was justice.

"Say goodbye, you pathetic loser," Liam snarled, pulling a lighter from his pocket.

It was then, in the stark glare of the floodlight, that Ava saw them clearly for the first time. The scratches. Not just on the lid, but everywhere. The inside of the coffin was destroyed.

Her breath hitched.

Those weren' t the marks of a restless spirit. They were the marks of someone who was alive. Someone desperately trying to get out.

My final moments flooded back to me. The crushing weight of the dirt. The taste of soil in my mouth. My lungs burning, screaming for air that wasn' t there. My fingers breaking as I clawed, clawed, clawed at the lid, hoping someone would hear me. Hoping Ava would find me.

But no one came.

The only person who knew I was down there was the one now standing over my bones with a can of lighter fluid.

As Liam flicked the lighter, the small flame casting dancing shadows, Ava' s gaze fell from the scratches to the diary in her hands. Her thumb brushed against the worn leather.

Something clicked. A connection. A doubt so profound it made her stomach clench.

"Wait," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Liam didn' t hear her. He was too caught up in his performance. He lowered the flame toward the soaked bones.

"Liam, wait!" Ava screamed, launching herself forward.

She knocked the lighter from his hand. It sputtered and died in the wet grass.

"What the hell, Ava?" he yelled, turning on her. "I was about to set myself free!"

"The scratches," she said, pointing a trembling finger at the open coffin. "He was... he was alive."

Liam laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "Don' t be stupid. He died in the car crash. The coroner said so. He' s just a ghost, a powerful one. He' s trying to trick you."

He reached for the lighter, but Ava was faster. She scooped it up and backed away, holding the diary in front of her like a shield.

"No," she said, her voice gaining strength. "No more. Not until I read this."

She looked down at the diary, at the familiar scrawl of my name on the cover. For the first time in five years, she was going to listen to my voice instead of his.