The Chant Under the Colossus

I woke up drenched in sweat, the sheets twisted around my legs like grave bindings. The dream had been so vivid, so horribly real. I was walking through the old Wrenfield Cemetery, the one that hugged the hillside behind the abandoned mill. It was a place I knew well; my grandparents were buried there, under the shade of the great oaks. But in the dream, the trees were gone, just stumps and bare earth, and the sky was a sickly, bruised purple. As I walked along the cracked pathway, a sound began to rise, not from the air but from the ground itself, a low chanting that seemed to vibrate through the soles of my feet. Ahead, a cluster of figures stood around a fresh grave, their forms wavering like heat mirages. The priest at the head wore a tarnished gold chasuble, and his face was nothing but a swirl of grey mist, yet I could see a smile that was too wide, too full of teeth. The mourners, likewise, were indistinct, their voices a jumble of guttural syllables that sounded like profanity in a language I had never heard. I knew in my dream that this was wrong; the cemetery had been closed for burial since the 1920s, and I had said as much, my voice sounding hollow and loud in the unnatural silence between chants. At that, the priest’s head snapped toward me, and that smile split into an impossible grin, and the chanting rose to a fever pitch, the voices now distorted, shrieking in a way that pierced my skull. I turned and fled, my legs heavy as if wading through mud, until I tripped over a broken headstone and woke up gasping.

The next morning, I needed to see the place. The dream felt less like a nightmare and more like a summons. I grabbed my camera and drove to the cemetery, which was now a local historical landmark, overgrown with brambles and ivy. The iron gates were chained, but a gap in the fence allowed easy access. The day was overcast, and the air was thick with the smell of damp earth and decay. I walked the familiar path, noting the absence of the great oaks that had been felled years ago due to disease. The place was more bare than I remembered, the graves and monuments standing in stark relief against the grey sky. As I approached the point in my dream where I had heard the chanting, a chill ran down my spine. There, just ahead, was a grave that I had never noticed before—a small, slate headstone with a name and dates that had been worn smooth by time, the engravings barely legible. I crouched down, brushing away the lichen, and read the name: ALISTAIR GRIMES, 1864–1884. A boy of twenty. A chill settled over me, but it was the date that made my blood turn cold: the same day my dream had placed the funeral, exactly one hundred years ago.

I stood up, trying to shake off the unease. It was a coincidence, I told myself. The dream had probably been influenced by something I had read or seen. But as I turned to leave, I noticed a fresh mound of earth at the base of the headstone, darker than the surrounding soil, as if it had been recently turned. There were also footprints in the soft ground, leading away from the grave and toward the old, ruined mill that stood at the edge of the cemetery. My curiosity, a fatal flaw, got the better of me. I followed the tracks, pushing through the tall weeds, until I reached the mill’s gaping entrance. The interior was dark and smelled like rotting wood and stagnant water. I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight, casting a weak beam into the gloom. The mill had been used for grain milling in the 19th century, but it had been abandoned for decades, and the machinery had been stripped long ago. Yet, in the center of the room, I saw something that made my heart stutter: a circle of stones arranged in a perfect ring, and in the middle, a tarnished silver object. I stepped closer and saw that it was a chalice, encrusted with dirt and something that looked disturbingly like dried blood. I knelt down to examine it, and as my fingers touched its cold surface, I heard a faint whisper, barely audible, whispering my name.

I yanked my hand back as if burned and scrambled to my feet. The whisper grew louder, more insistent, now joined by other voices, a chorus of whispers that seemed to come from all around me, from the walls, from the floor, from the very air. I saw, in the dim light, shapes forming at the edges of my vision, indistinct and wavering, just like the mourners in my dream. I ran. I didn’t stop until I burst out of the mill and into the harsh daylight, my lungs burning, my heart pounding. The sounds ceased, and the cemetery was silent again. But when I looked down, I saw that my hands were covered in dark, viscous dirt—or was it something else? I wiped them on my jeans, but the smell of old soil and copper stayed with me.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the events of the day. The whisper in the mill had sounded so familiar, like a voice I had known in a past life. I finally drifted off, only to find myself back in the cemetery, but the dream was different this time. I was standing on the very spot where the funeral had been, and the grave was open. Alistair Grimes’s headstone was gone, and in its place was a gaping black hole. From the darkness, a voice rose, a voice that was my own, deep and distorted, chanting words I did not understand but somehow felt in my bones. I realized, with horror, that I was the priest in the dream, the demonic grin split across my face, and the mourners were all around me, their faces blurred, but their voices rising in a crescendo of profanity and pleas. I woke up screaming, but even as I did, I could hear the chanting continue, not in my ears, but in my mind, a mantra that would not fade. And when I went to the bathroom to splash water on my face, I caught my reflection in the mirror, and for just a moment, my mouth curved into that same impossible grin.