Chapter Text
Oh, the graveyard. The cliché of it all. Satanic panic. Goth kid picnics. Yet, here you were, spread on a blanket, looking up at the stars, here on your favorite patch of earth. A cliché, but damnit, this was your cliché. This graveyard was old, older than the church, older than the town, maybe. How that could be, no one ever said, but the age of the stone and the odd symbols carved that belonged to no religion you'd ever heard of spoke for themselves. Most feared the place, even the local teens, who opted for more familiar haunts. This place was yours. The first time you'd stumbled across it was a gloomy winter day. You'd called in sick from work—you knew in your bones that if you went in, you'd end the day crying, so instead you walked out your front door and kept walking, through civilization, through the dark wood, in wind and snow, until you'd found yourself surrounded in a citadel of the dead blanketed in ice. The stark beauty of it had captured you then, and in every season since the place had revealed new secrets to you. It was most pleasant in autumn like it was now, before the chill set in, yet after the sticky heat of summer. The graves had no family names you recognized. They sounded like Latin, or something close to it. Though, the Romans never set foot here... did they? The most mysterious of all was, of course, who you laid by before the stars—the sepulchre at the heart of the graves and tombs that gleamed in the moonlight. The stone was old, yet retained its luster as night blooming flowers and ivy crawled up its columned sides like veins. Its round dome made you think of the moon on nights like this. You had a feeling that there was something carved or inset on top of the structure but you'd never dare climb up to see. There was something in your gut that told you such disrespect would have consequences. You simply kept it cleared of dead vines, swept debris from the base. It was the least you could do.
It offered you a few clues. The pillars that supported the dome were decorated with small dancing skeletons and bats that spiraled from the base to the cap. Some of the skeletons were in rather vulgar and crude positions that had turned you red when you first realized what they were doing. A more libertine time, perhaps. Beneath the vines were panels of reliefs with life sized figures carved, similar to an Egyptian tomb. The scenes' meanings were opaque to you, couched in symbolism you didn't understand, but there was one figure who appeared in every panel that you'd taken to picturing as your... friend? It appeared to be a man who wore a mask like a skull about the top half of his face with piercing green-white eyes. The eyes had been set with bits of dyed glass and remained bright, even as color had leeched from the rest of him. He changed from relief to relief; in one, he was monstrous, with great bat-like wings and claws and a curling tail. In another, he was arrayed like a holy man in billowing robes while creatures bowed at his feet. "PERPETUA" was engraved above the door that barred entrance to the burial chamber below. You'd not yet dared to descend into the bowels. One day, when it felt appropriate. When you were invited. But who would invite you? Despite the tingle of fear the place inspired, there was a quiet and still here you never could find anywhere else. Something in the back of your mind whispered that you belonged here. You did your best to shake it off. Who wants to hear they belong with the dead? Still, Perpetua, or whoever he was, was your most trusted confidant. Lucky him.
"It's a beautiful night, isn't it?" You hummed while your fingers carded through the long grass. "Crisp. The stars are bright. I wonder what the stars looked like when you were alive. There must have been more of them." The rustle in the trees answered you. "When I die, there will be less. And less still, when I watch over the living who come to my grave. The world changes so much, and yet... we stay the same, don't we?" You sighed through your nose. You had often drifted off to sleep here imagining what Perpetua looked like based on the carvings. You pictured him lean, shade and shadow, silver and black in robes of another era. Skeletal. Perhaps that was presumptive. If Perpetua cared, he made no note of it. If anything, this patch of earth beneath you was always warmer than the rest of the grounds, like some hulking creature had nested there just before you came. You shuddered to think of it. But you still came. Why? "Today was the same. Rat race. Exhausting. Pointless." Your eyes stung. "Fuck. Damn, I really do hate it." You swiped a hand across your eyes, rubbed the tears onto your blanket. "Sorry. Kind of silly to complain. You're such a good listener, though." You stood up, suddenly feeling that if you didn't do something with your hands soon you'd start to cry, and set to clearing the tomb of dead plant matter after you slipped on the gardening gloves you'd brought in your bag.
There wasn't that much to clear; normally, you'd probably wait a few more weeks to get to work, wait until the chill of winter did most of the work for you, but the day was heavy on you, and you needed this. You wondered if Perpetua would find it strange that someone from such a distant time bothered with this. Though, when you thought about it, given that his burial chamber was the largest in the cemetery by far, perhaps he expected generations of descendants to tend to him. He must have been important. "Who were you?" You murmured as you tugged at dried leaves. "Were you a king? A holy man? An artist?" You took a sponge wetted by your water bottle and started to scrub a patch of dirt from the stone. "Did you have a family? Are they down there with you? A lover?" As you came face to face with his gleaming eyes your imagined Perpetua appeared in your mind's eye—darkly handsome with a beckoning hand. Your face flushed a bit at your audacity. Good thing he was dead. "I wish I could have met you. You know so much about me now; it only seems fair." You plopped the sponge to the ground and moved to sweep the entryway with your hands. "I want to know what your voice sounded like. How you laughed. How you cried. How you sang." Warmth started to pool in your chest. God, did you have a crush on a dead man? "Did you dance? I bet you danced. It'd be nice to dance with you." You glanced up at the dancing skeletons on the nearest pillar and bit your lip when your eyes landed on a pair in coitus. How embarrassing. You shook your head, face burning, turning your gaze back to the earth. "You've been a good friend. But this is all I can do for you." The urge to call him by his presumed name almost overtook you then, but it hitched in your throat. There was a finality to it—speaking him into existence—that made you hesitate. You doubted anyone had said his name in hundreds of years. That was sad. Deeply sad. You took a sharp breath, in and out.
"Perpetua. Is that your name?" The winds stilled in the trees, and the silence that filled the graveyard was deafening. No calling of night-birds. No rustling in the brush. No chittering of insects. "Perpetua." You broke the quiet as the name was pulled from you as if by a chain slipping between your lips. A dread settled in your heart, some overwhelming base instinct that screamed that you were very close to the point of no return if you didn't leave this cemetery at this very moment. Go back home, to your apartment, to your soul-sucking job, to your little mortal life. Leave this place. Return. You rose to face the door to Perpetua's sepulchre, trembling hands balled in fists at your sides.
"Perpetua. Let me in?" For a few moments you couldn't bear to breathe as your heart pounded in your chest. Some small doubting voice laughed at your foolishness. A much more powerful one, one that spoke for the most primal of instincts, told you to wait.
The door started to move.
It creaked, inch by inch inward, swinging on rusted hinges that screamed at the effort, but it moved all the same. Behind the door was stairs—you only guessed at the plural because from here, only the first step was visible, the rest plunged in absolute darkness. You had to descend into that ink black. Even as the rest of your body roiled in protest, you refused to turn back, fool that you were. You had no light save for your phone. Somehow, you had the sense that it would offend him if you used it, so it stayed in your pocket. The dark beckoned you, called to you like no other. Or was it him calling? Your feet moved on their own to take the first steps into the pitch, as your hands scrabbled against the stone walls for purchase. It didn't matter if your eyes were open or closed, so you opted to keep them closed, in case of cobwebs and spiders. Each step was colder, colder still, as the warmth of life refused to cross down into this underworld. Except for you, at least. The walls had carvings and tiles inset, you could tell from the textures your hands passed over. Cool to the touch, they sapped the warmth from your fingers, leaving you slightly numb. The stairs seemed to go on for ages, far deeper into the earth than you had dreamed, the air growing stiller and colder the further down you went, until finally, you tried to take a step and were jolted by flat floor meeting your foot sooner than you expected. You opened your eyes, tentatively, and were shocked to find the chamber lit by moonlight sharding down the walls to reveal chaotic scenes of devils and monsters intertwining in seas of flame in the walls. The ceiling was muddied glass that let in the night sky into the subterranean chamber, and it towered so far above you that you had to marvel at the feat of ancient engineering. The shaft of milky light was deadened by a coffin—more like a sarcophagus in size and girth—of heavy stone in the center of the room. Gargoyle-like creatures capped the corners of the lid, guarding the occupant from robbers—or keeping the occupant inside? You shuddered as you approached, clutching your arms in some vain attempt to keep warm. The top of the coffin only had a pentagram inscribed, pointing downward. Simpler than you would have imagined. Without thinking, your hands came to rest on the stone, and in an instant you felt some icy ease settle over you. The sensation was near impossible to describe—relief, terror, longing, curiosity, finality. The only thing that was certain is that you had to open it. You simply had to. Otherwise, this tempest would never leave you.
Otherwise, I'll be down here for eternity.
Coming around to the head of the coffin, you were struck with the insanity of what you were doing. Why defile his tomb like this? You'll only see bones, or ash, or some horrible thing that will scar you for the rest of your days—
You pushed, hard. The stone scraping on itself made a horrible screech that would have made you cover your ears if your hands were free. Still, you pressed on, bit by bit, eyes squeezed shut as you did. You were afraid to look. When you could lean no further, you drew back, clutching the edge of the coffin with white knuckles. You took a few deep breaths, trying to slow your racing heart, useless as it was. Your eyes flew open of their own accord, and when you looked down at the contents of the coffin you saw... him. Perpetua. Not a skeleton. Not ash. Not an empty box. Him. Arms crossed over his chest, he might as well have been sleeping, peaceful as his face looked. Yes, his face, not his skull. His lips were full, his exposed skin black and dull silver, the rest obscured by the same mask you saw before, gleaming metal that caught starlight in its reflective surface. This was impossible. Yet, you couldn't step away, frozen in place by his side. He looked just as you imagined. Handsome. Ethereal. Preserved by some ancient, wonderous mummification procedure. Or...
"Perpetua?" Your voice was so small in this ancient place. He did not stir. "It's... me." Breaths came in shudders. You turned away, tears biting your eyes, feeling foolish. Like a grave robber. Disturbing your friend.
Come to me.
You turned back to bend over him, his serene face panging your heart. There was a haze over your mind, some fog of compulsion and desire that demanded you lean further, closer, until your nose grazed his ice cold mask. You supposed you should have felt repulsed, but he looked so alive, so peaceful, and you just couldn't bear to leave him in the dark all alone again. How long had he lain here with no company? Centuries, at least. Millenia? Before logic could reason with you, you pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. His skin was cold, of course it was, but it wasn't stiff, giving way just a bare milimeter to your lips. You lingered there, your warm breath visible in the cold air of his coffin. "Thank you. I'm sorry." You whispered in his ear, suddenly very pained to think that you were going to close the lid back on top of him. But, on the other hand, perhaps opening it has now exposed him to modern pollutants that will degrade him. It was for the best. You glanced down, for a last look at him.
He was looking back up at you.
You should have screamed, or ran, or crumpled to the ground, anything, but instead, you were frozen in place, feet like lead as the corpse blinked at you. His eyes were just as the façades outside, green and white, but they burned in the dark, glowing like an animal's. He smiled, a jagged thing of snarled teeth, as he slithered out of the opening, pulling and stretching in bands of shadow like his body were but a suggestion, some shape he arranged himself in for convenience. When he drew himself up before you, he started impossibly tall, stretching as high as the vaulted ceiling would allow, stretching his limbs with a creak.
"Ahhh..." He groaned as you heard bones pop and crack. Too many bones. Far too many bones. As quickly as he'd risen he fell, casting down to a size where he could look you in the eyes properly. His sneer had softened into something more tender as he examined you, gaze scanning you over in such a way that it felt invasive. You examined him too; you couldn't tell if the silver bone that jutted from his blackened robes was some ornate armor or if it was his true skeleton, ribs and shoulders glinting in the moonlight. Even now his lip curled a hair, revealing pointed teeth and a smear of black ichor. "Be not afraid." His voice was smooth, lilting, hypnotic, even coming from this terrible being of silver and shadow. Your lips parted to suck in a shallow breath, and you did not miss the way his eyes darted to them. "I am your friend, still. As you are a friend to me." His cooing dulled your fear, so much so that you didn't even notice he'd moved his hand until it was cupping the side of your face. His fingers were long, gleaming obsidian daggers, long enough that with his palm on your cheek their tips curled into your scalp. "Dutiful little thing. No one has tended to my tomb in... hm. I am... not sure, exactly. A very long time. Many dreams ago." You leaned into his touch, hoping the cold would leech the heat burning in your cheeks. You shuddered when his thumb brushed over your lips, sharp and threatening to slice. But he didn't. He was content to watch you, study you like some exotic creature. Of course, some naturalists do long for the vivisection table.
"You're Perpetua?" A foolish question, but the way he shivered at his name warmed your blood.
"Yes, little one." His hold tightened just a hair, just enough to make your heart stutter. His voice wormed its way into your brain, all sense of self preservation fading in his grip. "And how I have waited for you." It was all too much—you tried to turn away, but he would not allow it. Perpetua's hand slipped from your cheek to grip your chin, tilting you up to look at him. The way the moonlight caught the curve of his jaw stunned you in his paralyzing gaze. There was something monstrous about him, despite the soft pout of his lips, despite the twinkle in his glittering eyes. Something that crawled beneath the surface of his skin. "You are right. Humans are the same, in all times, in all places. They fear the strange. The unusual. Like me. Like you." His mouth curled smugly at your watering eyes. "I heard every word, every whisper, every hope and dream, every cruel wish of yours." His claws dug into your fragile skin. "How you longed to be free." He murmured, low in your ear. The fire he stoked blazed through you, shame, fear, desire; all of it threatened to consume you. "As you have freed me, dear one, I would reward you, if you would allow me." He had drawn close enough that your breaths mingled, fire and ice in the air.
You swallowed, the bob of your throat catching on his talons. Somehow, despite his soothing words, despite the tenderness, you knew that you'd already sealed your fate several times over. You'd been doomed to him since the day you were born. "Please." You begged hoarsely. "Please. Please. I... Help me. Save me." His lips curled into a vicious, predatory smile.
"As you wish."