Lina's story was simple, and she didn't know the details of what had happened very well. But her tone and expression were frantic throughout, like a little animal being chased by a beast, running for its life without any real determination to survive.
"Uncle brought me back to town. The people there were gone. Everyone had turned into ghosts. Everyone... Everyone was crying... Daddy and Mommy were crying too... No one paid any attention to me... Uncle and his friends took everyone's bodies to the cemetery and buried them one by one, putting up gravestones. It took a long time to finish. The cemetery grew much larger, with gravestones everywhere... like... like a forest of gravestones..." Lina's gaze was unfocused, as if fixed on some distant place. "After we were buried, we didn't ascend to heaven or find peace. Uncle and the others didn't know what to do. They went to find the church and ask for important people like the bishop to come. They said they'd find a way. They left... and never came back... We stayed here for many years... The mayor kept track of the dates, one day after another... Some people tried to leave town, but after walking out and entering the forest, they would eventually return to town. Some said Uncle and the others couldn't do anything either. They had no way to help us, so they must have done something outside to trap us here. We'd never find peace... For a while, everyone was terrifying. Everyone..."
Lina lowered her head and couldn't go on.
It was easy to imagine how desperate it must have been for a group of hopeless ghosts, bound to their homeland, to cling to hope while watching time pass and their town grow desolate and bleak.
Perhaps Lina had been