Before I could process the full weight of what I was seeing, the phone vibrated again.

I flinched.

The sound felt too loud in the stillness, like it didn’t belong among graves and silence. My chest tightened as I slowly reached out, every instinct telling me to step back instead.

But I didn’t.

I picked it up.

The screen lit my face in a cold blue glow.

Another message.

“Don’t turn around.”

My breath caught.

For a moment, I froze completely. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to run, but something deeper—something stubborn, something that sounded like my father’s voice in my head—told me to stay still.

Think.

I forced myself to inhale slowly.

This wasn’t supernatural.

Someone was here.

Someone was watching me.

And they wanted me afraid.

Very slowly, I turned off the phone screen and held it tightly in my hand.

Silence pressed in from all sides.

The wind barely moved. The trees stood like witnesses. Even the distant hum of the city seemed to have vanished.

Then—

A faint crunch.

Gravel.

Behind me.

My heart slammed against my ribs, but instead of panicking, I pivoted fast.

“Who’s there?” I demanded.

No answer.

But I saw movement.

A shadow slipping between two rows of headstones.

I didn’t hesitate.

“Stop!” I shouted, already moving.

My heels sank into the soft earth as I ran, kicking them off mid-stride so I could move faster. My dress caught on branches, on stone edges, but I kept going.

Whoever it was—they weren’t expecting me to chase.

The figure stumbled slightly, and in that moment, I closed the distance.

“Stop!” I yelled again, grabbing at their arm.

They twisted sharply, trying to pull away.

But I held on.

We both lost balance and fell hard onto the damp grass.

For a second, everything blurred—cold, impact, breath knocked out of me.

Then I looked up.

And my blood ran cold.

“Andrew?”

He froze.

My husband—still in the same suit he wore to the funeral—stared down at me, his face pale, eyes wide like he’d been caught in something far worse than an affair.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice shaking with disbelief and rage.

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he looked at the phone in my hand.

“You came,” he said quietly.

The calmness in his voice made something inside me snap.

“Of course I came!” I shouted. “You used my dead father to drag me out here in the middle of the night! What is wrong with you?!”

Andrew swallowed hard, glancing around as if the graves themselves were listening.

“Keep your voice down,” he said urgently.

That was it.