You pull your car into the vacant parking lot, stopping it and taking a moment to sit and think. It’s quiet and still, and in the dark night you see mist twisting in and out of the headlights. You consider briefly whether it’s still worth going at this time of night, but at your eyes strain for the headstone far off in the dark you feel going home isn’t an option anymore. You reach for the bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat, and momentarily clutch the flashlight also there. You pause for a moment and then release the light, figuring you’ll just leave the headlights on- your destination is a mere 30 feet away, and you won’t be long.
Stepping out of the car, you swing the door shut and tread softly over to the grave feeling the light mist swirl around you. The grave belongs to your distant cousin. The two of you weren’t very close, but you missed the funeral and guilt had forced to you pay your respects. You straighten your black tie and brush a bit of blond hair out of your face.
You hear the grass squish beneath your shoes and suddenly you step in a particularly muddy spot. You feel your foot swing out from underneath you and suddenly you’re on the ground with your face in the dirt. Trying to get back up only results in more mud everywhere and now you’re lying on your side. The sludge has already fully soaked through your cloths.
Disgusted and upset, you prop yourself up on one arm- at least you attempt to, but as your fingers hit the dirt they sink down and you find your arm elbow-deep. Wondering where all of this dirt came from in the first place, you stain your eyes only to find that you’ve mistakenly walked directly on top of a freshly filled grave. The headlights of your car are still on, but the headstones cast shadows on what little bits of the scene are visible. You try to read the name on the headstone but fail. Guilt tinges your frustration once again, as you feel bad about disturbing this person’s burial. You recite a silent apology in your mind.
You return to attempting to free your arm from the muck but it only goes deeper in your struggle. Panic sets it. Thrashing about, you feel your legs begin to sink down as well and you start to hopelessly call for help. It’s late and nobody is around, so your cries are in vain.
The cold mud makes you shake and you sink farther as you now lay not on the ground but rather halfway inside of it. The fear of sinking is transformed into a very different and more gripping terror as you believe you feel something from within the dirt brush against your arm.
A humanoid hand takes hold of your wrist and you begin to scream. Hoping, just desperately, that somebody will hear and save you from this nightmare. You try to pull against the hand but it’s deathly vice grip is inescapable. You feel the mud begin to close in around you as you sink. Your scream grates into your throat as the mud reaches past your collar bone and traces it’s way up your neck. The panic gripping you becomes a silent one as your mouth floods and your entire face is under the ground.
You feel the movement of earth around you, now dark and mute as you’re dragged deeper and deeper by the hand of what to you seems like the devil itself. New waves of fear course through you as you realise you're much more concerning threat is the lack of oxygen. Your lungs burn, begging and pleading for you to just open your mouth and breath in but you can’t. You know you can’t because if you do, you’ll choke and gag and it will only make things worse. You do not breath. You cannot breath. A sudden tug on your captured arm and then the pressure closing in on you is gone. Your arm is free, as are you- you no longer feel the ground pressing against your every limb.
For a moment you lie there, shaking and gasping as the air replenishes your lungs. It’s pitch black but you feel soft cushioning underneath you. You sigh at the belief that the nightmare was only that- a figment of your overtired imagination as you had drifted off to sleep. The terror subsides and you attempt to sit up.
Your head slams into another cushioned surface directly above you. Numb, you place the palms of your hands against the surface and push. It doesn’t budge. Your elbow digs into the side and find the same thing.
“No…” the words feel like venom on your lips. “No! No! No!” You punch at the walls and scream in a mad rush of adrenaline. You’re crying and spitting and screaming and nothing is changing. The air smells like the Earth you’re buried in, and the initial comfort of what you had assumed was a bed is gone now, replaced by the unique and uncommon panic that accompanies finding oneself trapped in a coffin.

Six feet above your hysteria, someone who isn’t you stands up covered in filth and flashes a wicked grin. Someone who isn’t you straights their black tie and brushes a bit of blond hair out of their face. They walk across the grass, out of the cemetery and get into your car. While you continue to scream inaudibly in your deranged fit, someone who isn’t you drives away from the cemetery in your clothes, in your car, and with your face.