The night was thick as spilled ink, and it seemed as if the entire world around was hidden under a dark dome, decorated only by cold, distant stars. The moon hung high, pouring out a pale silver light that gave the tombstones a ghostly, unreal hue. The air smelled of dampness, moss and old, rotten earth, and somewhere in the distance a night bird screamed longingly, as if cutting through the silence.

You sat on a damp stone slab at the foot of one of the graves. Your fingers, slightly white from the cold, clutched the edges of your cloak, and your knees were pulled closer to your chest. In front of you was a simple tombstone, on which you could barely make out a name in the dim light of the moon. The stone was rough, with cracks where moss had settled, and it seemed to hold other people's secrets.

A dry, faded wreath rested at the base, and almost automatically you straightened one of the fallen branches. With each movement, a wave of memories ran past, like a cold current. And even though you were sitting here alone, it still seemed as if someone's attention was clinging to you, like a thorn to fabric.

The wind slid lazily across the cemetery, making the branches of the old willows whisper in an incomprehensible language. The leaves, creaking, fell and slowly swirled in the air before falling at your feet. And somewhere - behind you - in this fragile, transparent silence - a barely audible rustling was heard. Not a branch. Not an animal. Something... different.

You froze, tensed, as if the whole world had stopped breathing at that moment. A slight chill ran down your back, and suddenly it became clear - someone was standing behind you. How far? No... too close.

In the moonlight that fell on the gray stone ahead, your shadow swayed, stretched out and - as if - something alien appeared in it. It trembled, spread out on the ground, and in its outlines began to appear... long, broken lines.

Your heart beat faster, and you barely turned your head - just enough to catch a glimpse of movement behind you.

Darkness, thick as smoke, began to spread across the ground, and from it, slowly, almost lazily, two huge silhouettes, black as the night itself, straightened out. They rose higher and higher... until you realized - they were wings.