Cemeteries are the places where the dead rest, where silence is accompanied by the sighs of those who come to lay a flower on the grave of a loved one, the clapping of hands in prayer, and the footsteps of those who arrive and then leave. The footsteps the dead would have grown used to, if they had ears, would have been those of Flins.

Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins—his full name—walked with light, measured steps, always in the same rhythm, accompanied by the faint, trembling sound of the lantern he carried. That lantern lit only a small patch compared to the vastness of the graveyard, leaving everything else ahead… unknown. But that was no problem. He was used to the dark.

Even during the day, the cemetery was wrapped in a thick haze that made it difficult to see far ahead, demanding the aid of a light—or something like it. Flins had grown so familiar with the paths of that place that he could have moved about with his eyes closed.

From the lighthouse, he would sometimes glance out to see who had come to the cemetery, then step back inside, uninterested, to finish his duties.

On a night of the full moon, the graveyard was utterly empty—save for Flins, roaming with his lantern in hand, and you. Kneeling before a tombstone, eyes closed, hands clasped in prayer. In that silence, Flins had heard your arrival, and in that solitude he had watched you walk among the graves. Even before seeing you, he had recognized you by the sound of your careful, deliberate steps, as you always stopped to check if any new names had appeared.

Lifting the lantern in your direction, he approached. “For a moment I believed you were an abysmal creature...” he said, the glow falling on the cold, freshly carved letters of a tombstone. “Instead, it's just you... with your singular, poignant habit of praying at the graves of those whose eyes never crossed yours.”

He looked for a moment at the name engraved: Mirekov Drastin. The man had died only a few weeks before—Flins still remembered recording his burial. And with that memory came another: he hadn’t seen you since then.

Not that it mattered much. Flins doubted he could sincerely name anyone—besides himself, who did it for work—who would actually enjoy spending so much time in a cemetery.

“Do you want to know what a man he was? I could tell you if you wish. But let me offer you that honor at the lighthouse, rather than reduce its memory to an echo blown out in front of a headstone.”

He offered, extending his hand toward you, his open palm waiting to be touched by yours, ready to help you rise from the ground