Sarah liked to make believe. She liked to pretend that she was walking the streets of Rome or Milan, roaming Venice on board of a charming little boat. Dreamed of a life she could call her own outside the hellhole she considered GrayBird town to be.

She longed for a day she could simply up and go, leave the place and people she always knew behind herself.

Most of all, her only wish was one she knew was purely unattainable. Sarah only wished for the years to go backwards, to the sorrowful day she turned sixteen.

Her sixteenth birthday was the day everything had changed for her. It was the day she’d begun to hear them, the voices.

They were faint at first, weak, and shy… But through the years, they gained in strength, growing bolder. They were harmless most of the time but became very nasty the moment she paid them any attention.

“There’s a bridge ahead! Wonder how far down it goes. Want to jump over and see that for me, Sarah?” said an overbearingly mawkish little voice to Sarah’s right. The young woman felt as though a little fairy was sitting on her shoulder whispering foul nothings into her ear.

“It’ll be ok. Nobody will miss you, you can do it, Sarah!” another one spoke.

Sarah shook her head fiercely, as she was about to cross an empty bridge under the moonlight, an attempt to throw the voices off that she knew to be pointless.

“You don’t want to play with us, Sarah?”

“You’re not being very nice. You’re supposed to be nice to your friends, Sarah!”

“We’re always nice to you, Sarah. You’re not fair!”

“No wonder nobody likes you,”

They spoke one after the other, they took no breaks, they had no regards to Sarah’s feelings. They paid no mind to her overflowing tears. They were relentless with their words, brutal with their utterances that cut through her heart like daggers.

“Please… Stop, please…,” Sarah finally snapped. She begged through her gasps for breaths.

The voices were so loud, they’d completely consumed Sarah’s mind, so much so that they’d eclipsed the footsteps’ sounds of a woman strolling behind her. When she heard Sarah’s quiet pleas, when she saw her desperate state, she stopped to ask, “Are you alright?”

Sarah scrambled to find a convincing response to the stranger before her. For all the bizarreness that devoured GrayBird town… Sarah’s case was peculiar for its unique reasons. Nobody could hear what she heard, nobody could walk in her shoes, not for a split second, not ever, ”Yes, it’s just that… It was a long day and I needed to let it all out, better than keeping it bottled up inside, you know,” she said.

“Yes, I suppose… I understand. Be safe,” the woman replied and continued her walk past Sarah, who stood still for a moment.

She followed the woman with her gaze, noting that she was holding a beautiful flower bouquet. Even under the night sky, Sarah could see that she was wearing an all-black attire.

After a few seconds, Sarah started walking again, her eyes still on the woman.

A few feet ahead of her, the woman took an open entrance to her left. Sarah caught up to her then stopped in front of that same entrance. It was the GrayBird cemetery’s gates, Sarah hadn’t been there since her grandmother’s burial, and that was a decade ago.

“No!”

“Don’t go in there!”

“You’ll die!”

As if on cue, the voices rose all together, terrified. They hammered her with cries of dissuasion. Would she truly die in there? It didn’t make sense to Sarah, not one bit. After all, only minutes ago, they’d been trying to make her jump off a bridge. So, why were they so concerned with her safety all of the sudden?

Determined to figure out what frightened the voices to such an extent, Sarah took her steps towards the graveyard, ignoring their urgent and pitiful cries for her to stop. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was satisfying for her to ignore them. For once since her sixteenth birthday, she finally got to turn the tables on them. They’d always disregarded and laughed at her cries for mercy. She felt vindicated, avenged. Then, she felt pathetic that she’d even enjoyed that short lived victory against the voices that had turned her life into an unending hell, for all those years.

Sarah remained in place, closed her eyes, took a deep breath and readied herself for whatever came at her in there but… Nothing came at all. She waited and waited. She breathed the air into her lungs some more. She thought it was oddly fresh, much fresher than the air she’d been breathing for years, before something dawned on her.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The voices… They were gone. For the first time in seven years, her mind was quiet and clear. For the first time in seven years, she could hear the sound of pure silence.

Her eyes shot open, the realization hit her so fast, she couldn’t fathom it. Although, once she rested her irises on the image in front of her, she immediately understood that there was much more to unravel in that place. Looking from the inside, the graveyard didn’t seem so cold, grim and gloomy as it always had for the outside onlookers. It didn’t appear to be abandoned or neglected. In fact, it was the total opposite.

The gravestones were flawless and clean, they glistened and reflected the moonlight. The names engraved onto them were perfectly legible, thanks to the candle flames burning at the foot of each stone. Oddly enough, their wax was of an immaculate snow white, and all the sticks were of the same length, no matter for how long they burned.

Each grave was decorated with its own variety of gorgeous flowers. The grass around was cut precisely even. The areas of it that were enlightened by the candles possessed an unnaturally vivid color.

Sarah walked along the paved path that offered itself to her. The place gave her such a warm welcome that she barely paid attention to where she wandered. Everything about that site was pleasant and easy on the eyes, although, something felt out of place, a scent. A sickeningly sweet, metallic smell reached Sarah’s nostrils.

But before she could dwell on that matter, another scene completely captured her senses.

Surely, it came out of a fairytale, she thought. A wide, majestic willow tree greeted her from a distance. Right under its leaves, a table covered by a flamboyant white cloth was posted. There sat a group of merry women, chattering about and dining. They seemed to be in the middle of a joyful celebration. Their laughter filled the atmosphere all around. The view was veiled behind a thin mystifying haze, giving it a dreamy feel.

Sarah thought she could walk a little closer to them. She so wanted to join them. She hadn’t desired something that strongly for a while. And so, she allowed her feet the freedom to fulfill her wish.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” startled by the voice that came from behind her, she swiftly spun around to meet the gaze of a seemingly middle-aged man, ”It’s a private party, and they don’t like intruders,” he continued.

“Who are they?” Sarah asked before thinking of a more important question, ”Who are you?”

He chuckled at her awkwardness before answering shortly after, ”You may call me Gareth. As for those,” he hinted at the women afar, ”They are the true keepers of this place,”

“The true keepers?” Sarah was confused.

“To the human eye, I hold that title. Officially at least, but… In reality, all the merits belong to them,” he said.

Sarah didn’t exactly register what he meant by “the merits” until she took another look around the place, ”You mean the fact that this cemetery looks like the perfect description of heaven? if it weren’t for the graves and all…,”

“Are you here to see a loved one? Visitors usually come after sunrise,” he’d ignored her last question and turned around to walk away as he spoke.

Sarah followed after him, ”No, it’s… Complicated,” she looked at the floor as she stated that.

“Say no more. We all have our demons, but this is a safe zone,” he said. She knew he had a smile on his face, even without seeing it.

“A safe zone?” Sarah questioned, incredulous. Was there a possibility that the man understood her struggle? She thought she was being presumptuous, seeing that he hadn't said much yet. For years she’d felt so lonely and isolated, that the thought of someone understanding her seemed like a high hanging fruit, too much out of her reach.

“Whatever your torments are, they stay at the entrance when you come here,” he said.

“Do you… Have torments?” she asked before reconsidering her words, finding that she could have crossed a line, ”I mean… Something that follows you wherever you go? I am sorry if I am overstepping,”

“You are overstepping,” he paused, then he added, ”I stay inside the graveyard because within here, the sun doesn’t burn me during the day,” he answered her regardless.

“I have voices in my head,” she said, a sentence to which he raised an eyebrow, so she decided to clarify, ”That’s my torment, ever since I turned sixteen,” she thought it was only fair for him to know of her deepest and darkest secret, after he’d done told her his, “So, this is…. A totally safe zone? It’s true?”

“Whatever strange happenings take place in this town; they all stop at the graveyard’s gates. It seems the witches want a peaceful place to rest after they bite the dust,” he said.

“The witches?” Sarah asked.

“Oh yes! This town crawls with their kind. They just keep their heads down,”

“Are you…One?” she asked reluctantly.

“No,” he said simply.

“Are you the only one that… Lives here?” she said.

“No, there’s Travis but he mostly only confines himself here on full moons,” he answered.

“What happens to him on full moons?”

“What creature do you think are most affected by the powers of a full moon?” he stopped in his tracks and turned slightly towards Sarah, to look at her expression upon hearing his question.

“Werewolves?” Sarah only sounded half shocked by that revelation. She was born and raised in GrayBird town, the existence of werewolves and witches wasn’t about to shake her core.

“Did you ever wonder what kind of creature you were? Mademoiselle?” By then, he’d started walking again.

Sarah realized that she hadn’t told him her name still. She wondered how rude he must've thought she was, but then again, he didn’t seem bothered by it at all, “Sarah, my name is… Sarah, and no, I've never wondered about my nature before. Truthfully, I always thought I was a lunatic so…,”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. What kind of creature burns under the sun? Now that’s a question you should worry yourself with,” he said, suddenly stopping in front of her.

Sarah was so fascinated by all the discoveries she’d made that night, all those amazing things hidden in such an uncanny place that she'd forgotten she was speaking to a complete stranger. He’d led her away from the willow tree and the witches. He kept facing the same way, didn’t turn around. He just stood stiff in a disturbing manner and remained silent.

She remembered that before her, a woman had entered the graveyard, only to disappear without a trace. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she'd caught no sign of the woman since she crossed the threshold of the cemetery, which didn’t make sense… Even in GrayBird.

Then she remembered, one minute detail she’d brushed off the moment she laid eyes on the magnificent tree earlier. The metallic smell… Sarah felt her stomach drop to her heels, her blood cluttering in her veins.

“Vampires?” she uttered as he turned around to face her.