The Breathing Buried

“I refuse to be a graveyard of forgotten laughter and abandoned dreams”

I couldn’t breathe!

Something was wrong. It had been wrong for days. The air in my house felt heavier, pressing against my skin like unseen hands. The floor beneath my feet felt unstable, as if the ground itself refused to hold me. My room, once familiar, now felt off—like a distorted version of itself, subtly rearranged by some force I couldn’t see.

I wasn’t scared. No, it was something worse. A creeping unease.

My mind raced, trying to make sense of it. I went over every detail—every object in my room, every sound in the house, every fleeting thought that passed through my mind. But nothing explained the suffocating weight in my chest, the way my body felt disconnected, floating.

Then, I saw it. Standing in discomfort, through my second-floor window, the lawn stretched below, dark and undisturbed. And suddenly, I remembered.

A violent jolt shot through me, like my brain had been forcibly rewired. My fingers twitched, my breath came in sharp gasps. I staggered back, hands trembling. My knees nearly buckled as the memory surged forward, merciless and vivid.

I had buried a body there. A child’s body.

The realization didn’t creep in—it slammed into me. I saw it in flashes. My hands, dirt-stained and shaking. The hollow weight of the shovel in my grip. The child’s limp form cradled by the earth, its small fingers curled unnaturally. My own ragged breathing as I shoveled the last heap of soil over its still face.

How had I forgotten? How had I buried the memory as easily as I buried the child?

A sickening heat spread through my chest, snapping me back into the present. I had to see it. I had to dig it up. Before I knew it, I was outside. The wind was colder than I remembered, biting into my skin, but I barely felt it. My hands gripped the shovel with a strength I didn’t recognize.

“It’ll just be bones. Just bones. Just proof that it’s over.”

Dirt flew in every direction, my breaths coming out in sharp, uneven bursts. Then, my shovel hit something.

I froze.

Slowly, with hands that felt disconnected from my body, I reached down and brushed away the dirt. My stomach twisted into knots, my pulse a deafening roar in my ears. I expected rotting flesh, empty eye sockets, the stench of decay.

But what I found was worse.

A child laid in the grave, its small frame eerily still. Its face was blurred, shifting like a smear on a fogged-up mirror. Its head tilted slightly, as if listening. As if aware. It was alive. Or at least, it seemed alive.

A wave of nausea rolled over me. This wasn’t possible. I had killed it. I had buried it. It should have been dead.

And yet, it breathed.

“You…” My voice cracked. “You’re alive.. you’re not supposed to be here.”

The child’s mouth stretched into a slow, unnatural smile.

I don’t know what possessed me, but I reached out. Maybe I thought I could fix this—undo what I had done, rewrite the past with my own hands. My fingertips brushed the child’s ice-cold skin.

“I can fix this. I can bring you back.”

(Child tilts its head.) “Why? You buried me.”

“I didn’t mean to—“ my voice cracked. “I didn’t know what I was doing!”

(Child, smiling, mentioned in a whispering voice) “But you did. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

A moment of complete silence then, my world collapsed.

A sudden force ripped through me, pulling, draining—something clawing its way out of my body. My knees buckled, my mouth opening in a silent scream. My vision darkened at the edges as the child tore the soul from my flesh, drinking in my existence like a starving thing.

(My voice weakens.) “No… I don’t want to disappear…”

“But you already did, said the child”

Through the haze, I watched in horror as its form shifted. Limbs stretched. Bones realigned. Flesh re-formed. And then—I saw myself. The child wasn’t just a child. It was me. My past self. The version of me I had buried, discarded, erased.

I fell backward, gasping, my body growing weaker with each second. The blurred-faced child—myself—stood over me, tilting its head. Its hand curled around the shovel.

Pushed me in the same pit from where I took it out from.

The last thing I saw was dirt cascading over my face, filling my mouth, my nose. Cold, suffocating. And then, there was nothing. Above the grave, I stood, brushing the soil from my hands. My new body felt warm, alive, real. I flexed my fingers, breathing in the crisp air.

(Softly, looking at the grave.) “Sleep well, me.”

I turned back toward the house, stepping into my old life. And beneath the earth, the real me faded into darkness.