Saturday - 9:02 AM
The cemetery had an aroma of damp earth and rotting roses. Zina stood at the entrance of the cemetery with a phone in her hand. She had not informed anyone about her coming. Not her mother, not her guidance counselor, and for sure not the police.
She passed rows of silent graves, stone slabs like forgotten names in a ledger. Tasha's grave was tucked in the farthest corner – Section C, Plot 47. It was almost as if they were trying to conceal her.
A gentle breeze sighed throughout the trees.
Zina traced the headstone with her fingers and gently lifted her fingers "Natasha E. Okocha 2007–2025 Gone too soon, but never forgotten."
Lies.
Everything felt wrong about this place, the lack of a proper open-casket funeral, Tasha's parents avoiding her gaze during the questioning, even the pastor breathlessly blundering through Tasha's middle name. No one had bothered to double-check.
She knelt down, pressing her palm to the skeletal earth. Quiet. Still. Undisturbed. But lacking any semblance of peace.
Retrieving her phone, she opened the messages once again. They remained unchanged—undisturbed. Not deleted, unhackable, no sender ID spoofing—legitimate.
Her fingers shook as she wrote:
"Where are you? I'm at your grave. What do I do?"
No response.
As for Zina, she waited for a reply for five minutes. Then ten. Still nothing.
"Dammit, Tasha," Zina said, "Please don't mess with me." Voice shaking.
She turned her back and started to leave.
But now she was looking at something.
A person. By the old chapel, gazing in her direction.
He had on a faded baseball cap and a dark green coat. He looked like he fit in around these parts, maybe a caretaker of some sorts. But still, something felt quite off.
Zina looked at her phone and saw a message.
"Not here. They relocated me. Ask the one with the keys."
For a moment, her heart felt suspended.
Looking up again turns out the man has vanished completely.
Somewhere in the underground, three hours prior.
Tasha was slightly coming to.
In the form of darkness pressing against her eyes like hands, an overwhelming slumber loomed over her, thin air and coarse rust laden breaths stifled her throat. Time was a mystery, hours and days both felt like an eternity.
Last week, Zina was muffled sobbing desperately in a makeshift prison above her, only to fall silent at the sound of her own frame breaking down, scratch at the rough edges of what she assumed was a coffin.
That night the earth shifted, in extreme exhaustion she remembers waking up to a transformed world.
Momentarily, the claw like grip of silence was extensive, sharper in temperature and undisturbed, but the distant illusion of being the last person left in the universe shattered into pieces faint echoes of movement set it.
Returning to Zina - 10:17 AM
"Pardon me!" Zina shouted while making her way to the chapel. Her voice reverberated through the graveyard. "Hello? Sir?"
The chapel was closed off, but she was able to locate a side gate that was open, so she went to the back. Leaning against the wall were several rows of gardening tools, and a weathered wheelbarrow rested under a tarp.
She spotted a man next to a dilapidated shed, removing ashes from a cigarette.
"Are you the groundskeeper?" she asked.
He lifted his head, peering from beneath the cap's brim. "That depends. Who's asking?"
"I'm looking for someone. Natasha Okocha. She was buried here."
He took a deep drag of his cigarette. "Lot of people buried here."
"She wasn't supposed to be," she said, her voice trembling. "She might not even be— I need to know if anyone… moved her."
He held her gaze for several moments before responding. "People don't just get moved, girl. Not unless someone pays for it."
"Did someone?" Zina pressed. "Do you have records? Anything?"
The man shrugged. "Outside. But I didn't say you could see 'em."
Zina hesitated. "Please."
He looked over her once more. "What's your name?"
"Zina."
She watched him exasperatedly sigh and then unlock the shed with a key. Inside was a cluttered workspace, metal shelves filled with old maps, burial records, and keys hanging on hooks.
He pulled down a dusty folder labeled "Okocha. Natasha. Plot 47. Arrived June 12. Buried same day. No transfer record."
Zina whispered, "no transfer," as her heart sank.
"But…" An expression of discomfort came across the man's face. "Hang on, Someone added a note."
He angled the folder toward her. At the bottom in red ink was a note that said:
"TEMP HOLD - VAULT ENTRY (6/13). Clearance: J.M."
"Vault?" With incredulity painted across her face, Zina asked.
He ignored her gaze. "
Saturday – 10:23 AM
Zina looked at the bold letters written in red on the burial records as if it were about to attack her.
"TEMP HOLD – VAULT ENTRY (6/13). Clearance: J.M."
"Who is J.M.?" she queried, keeping her voice down.
Mr. Adi composed his lips in a straight line. "That's above me. All I know is, they don't use that vault unless it's... sensitive."
"Sensitive like how?" Zina pressed further. "Like, alive?"
Zina moved closer. "Please. Just tell me what you know."
"Exhaling slowly, Mr. Adi continued, "That vault was built in the city's attempt to consolidate resources during the 70s, specifically to avoid public autopsies. It connects to other places underground, much deeper than people think. Some families paid extra to keep 'complicated cases' off the books."
Looking at her, he added, "Most don't come back out."
Zina felt like throwing up. "So someone moved Tasha to the bottom of the vault, and paid to 'keep her off the books'?"
With a firm nod, Mr. Adi continued, "That's what the red ink means. The instructions were to put her in temporary hold with special instructions."
"And they never told her parents?"
After another long pause, he finally answered. "Some parents are not told, others... simply do not wish to know."
Feeling breathless Zina asked, "What if I want to breach that vault? How do I get down there?"
"You don't," he interjects. "You really think I handed you the key so you could crawl around that vault? That place remains sealed for a reason."
Zina's hand أصبح tightly clenched.