Deep Sea Embers

A small figure was standing at the gate of the cemetery—it was a girl who looked about eleven or twelve years old, wearing a dark brown woolen coat and black skirt, as well as warm little cotton boots and thick gloves, She seemed to have been waiting at the gate of the cemetery for a long time. Snow began to fall in the frosty city-state in the evening, and a lot of snowflakes had fallen on the gray wool cap on the girl's head, and there was still a slight heat rising in the evening snow.

The little girl stomped her feet lightly on the spot, looking at the ramp opposite the cemetery from time to time. When the guard appeared, she suddenly laughed and waved her hands vigorously.

"……here we go again."

The old guard couldn't help grunting when he saw the girl, his tone seemed a little impatient, but he still quickened his pace and came to the girl.

"Annie," the old man frowned, looking at the girl in front of him, "you have come here alone—how many times have I told you that the cemetery is not a place for a child like you to come alone, especially in the Near dusk."

"I already told my mother," the girl called Annie responded with a smile, "She said I just need to go home before curfew."

The old guard quietly watched the smiling little girl in front of him.

Most people here don't like the cemetery guards, and don't like to be near such a treacherous and dangerous place, but there are always accidents in the world-for example, a little girl who is not afraid of her.

"Grandpa watchman, is my father here yet?" Annie raised her head, and in the snowflakes falling at dusk, she looked expectantly at the old man in black with a hunched waist and a pair of cloudy eyes that most people feared. It doesn't make her nervous.

"...No," the old guard replied as usual, his voice was as cold as the wind whirling in the cemetery, "he won't be here today."

Annie wasn't depressed, she just smiled as usual: "Then I'll ask again tomorrow."

"He won't come tomorrow either."

Anne still raised her head: "But he will always come, right?"

This time, the old man who always had a cold attitude finally fell silent for a moment, until the snowflakes fell on his brows, his cloudy and dark eyes turned slightly: "The dead will eventually gather in the cemetery, and the dead will gather in the cemetery. Eternal peace across the way—but not necessarily an earthly cemetery, and not necessarily this one.”

"Oh," Annie agreed, but she didn't seem to take it to heart at all. She just turned her head, glanced at the locked gate, and asked curiously, "Can I go in and have a look? I want to be in your hut Roasting in the fire..."

"Not today," the old man shook his head. "Cemetery No. 3 is in a special situation. Church guards are guarding it. It will not be open to the public today—you should go home, girl."

"...Okay," Annie nodded in frustration, and then she took out a small bag wrapped in rough paper and handed it to the old man, "Then this is for you—" Mum baked cookies, and she said I couldn't always be a nuisance."

The old man looked at the things in the girl's hands and at the snowflakes on her body.

He stretched out his hand, took the biscuit, and then patted the other party's woolen hat casually, flicking the snowflakes off: "I accept it, you should go home early."

"Okay, watch over Grandpa."

Annie nodded with a smile, tidied up her scarf and gloves, and then walked towards the path leading to the urban residential area.

But just when she took a few steps, the old guard suddenly turned around: "Annie."

"ah?"

"Annie, you are already twelve years old." The old man stood in the twilight and looked into the girl's eyes calmly. "Do you still believe what I told you when I was six?"

The girl stopped and stared blankly at the cemetery caretaker.

The dead come to this cemetery—however scattered they may have been in life, Bartok's foyer will be their final reunion.

This sentence is written in the classics of the church, but facing the same proverb, adults and six-year-old children will always have different understandings.

Twelve-year-old Anne stood blankly for a long time. The cemetery guard in black stood like a cold iron statue at the towering and locked gate. Fine snowflakes fluttered among them, and the winter chill permeated the air. at dusk.

But suddenly, Annie laughed, and waved to the old man with a smile: "Then you can treat it as if I came to see you specially——Mom said that the elderly need someone to talk to often."

The little girl turned and ran away, floating lightly like a finch across the snow-covered path. She slipped at the end of the slope, but got up immediately, patted the snowflakes and dust on the skirt and thermal pants, quickly left.

"...the old man..." The old guard watched the girl's back, and waited for the girl to run away before muttering, "This child has evil intentions too."

"It's a little worse to pierce a child's expectations than that," a young and slightly hoarse female voice suddenly came from the side, interrupting the old guard's muttering, "You don't have to say that sentence just now—a twelve-year-old Child, she should understand that she has gradually understood that sometimes we don't need hard-hearted adults to expose the truth."

The old guard turned around and saw Agatha the "gatekeeper" dressed in black with a bandage underneath, standing at the gate of the cemetery at some point, and the gate of the cemetery that had been locked before had also been opened.

He shook his head: "Let her continue to expect that her father will be sent to this cemetery, and then she will run to this ghost place alone in this cold snowy day?"

"Isn't it good? At least when you're talking to that kid, you still look warm."

"...That doesn't sound like something a gatekeeper should say."

Agatha shook her head, said nothing, and turned to walk towards the inner path of the cemetery.

The old guard followed. He first turned around and locked the gate, then went to his guard's hut to put away the things he bought, and completed the handover with the guard on duty during the day, before arriving at the mortuary in the cemetery. area, and found the "gatekeeper" who had already walked here first.

Compared with before, the current morgue is obviously much empty. Most of the stone platforms are empty at the moment, only a few plain coffins are placed on the platforms at the edge.

And around the few coffins, there are at least two church guards standing next to each platform, and dark canes can be seen everywhere in the open space between the platforms—the black cane is the iconic equipment of the guards of the Death God Church. The cane is inserted on the nearby ground, and a sacred lantern is hung on the top of the cane to maintain a small-scale "sanctuary", which can effectively fight against the polluting power from the higher existence.

At this moment, dusk was deep, and the snowy day made the sky much darker than usual. In the increasingly dark cemetery, the lanterns hanging on the top of the walking sticks burned quietly like phosphorous fire, releasing a kind of quiet but Spooky atmosphere.

"We have done a lot of preparations here, but it seems that the 'visitor' has no intention of returning to this place in the short term," Agatha said casually after seeing the old guard appear, "Are you sure that the 'visitor' Has the reporter revealed any information that he will come again?"

"You should trust the hypnosis skills of professional psychiatrists," the old guard shrugged, and then added after a pause, "I can't remember most of the things that happened that day, and the rumbling noises are gradually disappearing. My mind dissipated, but after several times of hypnosis, I was able to recall some things...the clearest among them was the revisit intention revealed by the 'visitor' before he left."

Agatha was silent for two or three seconds, and after thinking about it, she said softly: "But there is another possibility. For a superior existence like that, his concept of time is very likely to be different from that of ordinary people—the revisit he said, It could be tomorrow, it could be years from now, it could be after your death, to contact you in some way that transcends life and death."

"...Can you wish me a treat?"

"This is the result of discussions by the Holy See Advisory Group."

The old guard snorted noncommittally, and glanced at the guards in black in the cemetery, as well as the lanterns that were quietly burning on the top of their canes.

"...I just hope that these arrangements don't anger the 'visitor', and don't be considered some kind of offense or 'trap' by him—after all, we know too little about him."

"All these arrangements are just our self-protection," Agatha said, "after all, even though you said that you fell into a state of out-of-control spiritual vision because you inhaled too much incense, none of us know Does that 'visitor' have the tendency to actively release spiritual pollution? If we want to face the superior supernatural directly, we must at least ensure our own sanity."

The old guard was noncommittal, but after pondering for a while, he suddenly changed the subject: "Have any conclusions been drawn from the investigation of the samples you took away earlier?"

"Are you talking about those cultists, or the pile of 'corpses' that melted into mud?"

"Both."

"There is nothing to say about those heretics. The minions of the Annihilation Sect, the superhumans who have been in deep symbiosis with the demons--the strength is not bad, and it would be dangerous for ordinary church guards to face them. It's a pity that those heretics obviously lack good luck, and As for the 'mud'..."

Agatha paused when she said this, with a strange expression on her face.

"Their 'evolution', in fact, has not stopped until now. As of the time I left the cathedral, those things were still showing new forms and properties. In the past period of time, they even briefly showed metal-like And the state of the rock, it feels...it seems to be something that the Annihilation Cultists often mention in their heresies."

The old guard slowly frowned: "You mean...'element'?"

"The essence of reality, the purest and most holy substance, the 'drop of truth' given to the world by the mysterious Lord—this is how the group of heretics describe it," Agatha's tone made no secret of disgust and sarcasm, "beautiful words , it’s really disgusting to use them.”