Gravedigger stands in the middle of the cemetery, a shovel hanging over his shoulder. It’s a familiar sight. He walks away from the graves towards a deck chair sat at the front, taking a seat.
“During the day, a cemetery is not an eerie place. Strange, isn’t it, that a place holding the decaying bodies of thousands is negated by the light above. That’s because in the cold hard light of day, there’s no atmosphere. No terror. No darkness lurking around every corner.”
Gravedigger puts his shovel down beside the chair and opens a cooler, grabbing a cold beer from inside.
“When Tombstone first brought me here during the day, I was afraid of nothing. I dug holes six feet deep throughout the broadness of daylight in serene comfort. It was a pleasure.
Comfort does that to a man, doesn’t it? Provides them pleasure. The Brothers Cade know precisely what I’m talking about. Jackson Cade is now in charge of the Arcadian Police Department, a sheriff no less. He sits in a comfortable chair with his feet on the table, relaxed.
CJ Thorpe went from being on Deathrow and having his life threatened on a weekly basis to the Uprising, where he was challenged for his right to exist as a human being. I’ve been there. Now he sits beside his brother, alongside his father, being handed opportunities at World Championships that he neither earned nor deserved.”
He takes a swig of his beer whilst shaking his head.
“In the cold light of day, both are more comfortable than they’ve ever been. That comfort is misleading, gentleman. It lures you into a false sense of security. The day is only one half of the conundrum of life. Light opposes darkness. Night opposes Day.
Comfort can quickly be replaced by the uncomfortable.”
His eyes widen as he puts the beer down and looks over the gravestones before him. His mouth curls into a smile.
“I let the comfort of the day convince me that this was easy – that I wasn’t afraid of anything. I let it lure me into that false sense of security and a confidence that was unwarranted. I let the day convince me that I was happy and had nothing to fear.
I was wrong.
Because around every day, there’s comes a night.
And at night, I saw the real terror. The very first time I stepped out into this graveyard at night, with the fog floating around my feet and the lights off; the only illumination I had being from my lantern, I saw things I had never expected to see.
I experienced things I never thought I would.”
Gravedigger stands up and packs up his chair, grabbing his cooler.
“When the day fades, so does comfort.
And when that day fades, night does follow.”
He starts walking away as the lights begin to dim from above, turning us to night inside Arcadia.
“As it will for you, Cade Brothers.”