The night was as dark as ink. Mist coiled thickly over the valley, swallowing the pale beams of the construction floodlights.
Every strike of the shovel against stone rang out sharply, like steel scraping across the nerves of the earth.
"Hold on! I think we've hit something!"
The workers crowded together. As the soil was cleared away, the edge of an ancient coffin emerged.
The wood was cracked and rotting, its yellowed talisman papers peeling off. Even so, faint traces of distorted runes could still be seen burned into the wood.
The air turned heavy; a damp, fetid stench slithered into their noses, making their skin crawl.
"Should we…call the police?" one muttered.
The foreman hesitated, then waved his hand. "Open it."
A crowbar forced the coffin apart with a splintering creak.
And then—all of them fell silent.
Inside lay a corpse. But its face was disturbingly intact.
The skin, pale and taut, looked almost alive, as if the body was merely asleep.
What unsettled them most was the faint curve at the lips—like a cruel smile frozen across time.
"Christ…how long has this thing been here?" one worker whispered, fumbling out his phone. His trembling fingers pressed record.
The instant the flash lit up the coffin, a whisper stirred in the wind, brushing across their ears:
—"At last… you've come…"
The men scattered in panic. None of them noticed that the short, shaky recording had already been uploaded—anonymously—to a hidden corner of the dark web
Dark Web · Forum
A dimly lit room. The glow of a computer screen reflected off the protagonist's face as he absentmindedly browsed.
One click led him into a forum he had never seen before. The background was pitch black, the threads a tangle of shifting text.
A new post was pinned at the top:
[Anonymous A] Have you heard? That video from the valley…
[Anonymous B] What video?
[Anonymous C] Don't watch it! A friend of a friend clicked it. Next day, he was dead—eyes bulging, face twisted like he died screaming.
[Anonymous D] Please. Fake crap like that is everywhere.
[Anonymous C] Fake? Try it yourself. They say that corpse… never really died.
Replies poured in, the thread climbing with eerie speed.
The protagonist hesitated, pulse racing, then clicked the link.
The screen went black. Silent.
Then, slowly, a blurred face emerged.
It was the same corpse—motionless, lips curved faintly.
But in the final second, its eyelids fluttered…
—and opened.
At that instant, a whisper curled against his ear, so close it could have come from the shadows behind him:
"You… have seen it too."