The coordinates took him to a village that time had passed by.
The road curved between rotting trees and broken signposts, then ended at a rusted gate where the name Cravestow had once been painted—but now was scratched out completely. Only the wind moved here. No voices. No dogs. Just stillness.
He stepped through the gate.
A woman behind a shop window caught sight of him—and dropped the curtain like a guillotine.
Two children stared from a cracked porch, wide-eyed and unblinking. One of them whispered, "It's him." The other said, "No—it's what's left."
He found the grave behind a church with shattered stained glass and vines choking the steeple.
The cemetery was barely marked. But the coordinates led him to a headstone made of charred wood. Nothing carved, no flowers. Just a name scorched into the surface:
MARCUS CLAY Died: Unknown Buried: Twice
He stared at it.
Something cold prickled behind his ears. A sound, low and distant—like breathing through wet cloth. Then a voice behind him:
"You shouldn't be here."
He turned.
An old man stood at the edge of the graveyard, leaning on a rusted cane. His eyes were yellowed, his voice cracked like glass under pressure.
"You're one of the twins, aren't you? They said you died in the fire."
He didn't answer.
Didn't move.
The old man stepped closer. "But if you're Marcus... who's the one in the cellar?"
That night, the dreams returned—only they weren't his.
A flickering hallway. Blood on tile. A boy screaming as something black surged under his skin. Medical monitors beeping out of sync. And always—always—that number:
M13
He woke on the church floor, drenched in sweat.
Something scratched at the inside of the chapel wall.
From behind the altar.
He approached slowly.
Pulled back the torn fabric.
There, burned into the stone beneath centuries of dust, was a single word scrawled in dried crimson:
"WELCOME BACK."