The Guardians

No one visits the cemetery anymore. Rotting flowers sparsely dot the landscape, melancholy remnants of forgotten grief. Branches of cracks snake through the once pristine stone road. The plant life also runs wild—ivies sticking their tendrils in decaying headstones, weeds and grass climbing knee-high, and worms nibbling away at corpses and coffins, unseen.

Two stone guardian angels stand at the gate of the cemetery. Their bodies stand frozen in a mournful stance: their two clashing swords are raised high, but their faces hang low, as if repenting. Where there once had been wings, only stumps of grey feathers remain, carved delicately with the realism of a photograph.

Soft footsteps trod up the path to the cemetery as two boys and a girl make their way through. Feet trip over the cracks in the stone.

“Benji, you good?” the older boy asked.

A boy around eight dusted off his knees and scowled. “Yeah, Evan,” he replied mockingly. “I don’t need you to baby me. I’m fine.”

Evan sighed. “Let’s not make a scene, okay?”

“Okay, whatever.”

The girl smacked Benji on the back. “Be nice to your brother. This isn’t an amusement park.”

“Fine,” he muttered. His eyes squeezed shut from something more than simply getting scolded. He clutched the single, pink carnation he had in his small hand.

Evie noticed Benji’s reaction and turned back to him. “I know you’re scared to come here, but she probably misses you a lot. You miss her too, right?”

Benji nodded.

“Then chin up, and let’s go. Mom will be waiting for us, okay?”

“Okay.”

“How come he only listens to Evie?” Evan mumbled to himself.

Overhearing, Evie stretched her arm up to Evan’s head and tapped it twice. “Because I’m the one and only amazing sister he has. And I’m the oldest.”

Soon, they arrived at the angels, and the rest of the neglected cemetery stretched into view. This was the best we could afford. The desolate silence made Evie want to sob and she felt her cheerful exterior cracking before they even got to the grave.

As the siblings drew closer and closer to the gates, an ominous feeling began weighing on them. Like someone was watching. They anxiously followed the path down, noticing the little details. Was the sun always that low in the sky? The air felt stifling, like a hand was pressing down on their lungs. The birds were silent. Everything had retreated into the forest, ardently watching what would happen to them—a television broadcast no one had consented to.

“The atmosphere here is… something else,” Evan commented nervously. “I told you we should have come with Dad.”

“You know how it would have gone with him here,” Evie replied coldly.

Evan stuck his hands in his pockets and kicked a nearby pebble. The three walked through the gate. “Yeah. But I just want all of us to be together again. Right, Benji?” He was nowhere to be seen. “Benji?”

The sky swallowed the last light, and everything went dark. And in that moment, not a single whisper of doubt ran through their heads—they weren’t in the same cemetery that they entered anymore.

Two towering silhouettes emerge from the shadows at the back of the cemetery. From their backs jutted two jagged protrusions.

“What’s going on?” Evan said.

“Benji? Where did he go?” Evie whispered. She began to call for him, “Benj-”

Evan clamped a hand over her mouth.

A voice that came from the dark figures resounded. “Why are you here?” Two voices, perfectly synchronized, resonate as one.

Evan huddled closer to his sister, frozen in fear. However, Evie's eyes hardened with resolve, and she stepped forward. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“We are the guardians of this place.” The raspy voice that sounded like too many radios playing at once sent chills down their spines.

“What did you do with Benji? Where is he?” Evan demanded, also gaining confidence. He could feel the figures’ stares tracing his body, examining the gap between his front teeth, how his hands trembled, and his sloppy outfit.

“You’ll find him later. Why are you here?”

“We’re… Just here to see our mother. She’s coming right now, in fact,” Evan lied.

“That’s not right, is it?” they said, appearing to approach closer.

“No, it is,” Evie jumped in frantically. “She’ll be here to call the cops on you creeps.”

“That’s not right,” they repeated, louder. The temperature of the air seemed to drop ten degrees. Boom. Boom. Boom. The giants took three heavy steps closer.

Evie frantically scanned the area for places Benji could be. “Benji, if you’re there, please come out. Let’s go home, and I’ll… make you a whole batch of cookies,” she announced. “Please?”

“You won’t find him here. Not until you answer with the truth. And we will know if you lie.” A step closer. Then another. And another.

Evan wanted to believe Evie had control over the situation, as she had for the past year of their life. She got him and Benji out of bed every morning, made sure there was dinner on the table, and comforted Dad when he needed it. She was always there to figure out a solution through all the struggles. But this was not their ordinary life anymore—it was something strange, something he wasn’t sure they would make it out of.

He gritted his teeth as he watched the barriers surrounding Evie slowly break down as her eyes shook and her hands trembled. His sister had been his anchor since his first memory. It was time to return the favor.

“H-hey. Stop it. Tell me what y-you want from us. Just give Benji b-back,” Evan stuttered. Damn it! Why couldn’t he get his words out, now of all times?

Boom. Boom. Boom. Three more steps

“We have already told you. We want to know: why are you here?” they repeated.

Evan gulped. Why were they here, anyway? The visit had been Evie’s idea, for “reconciliation” or something.

Evie spoke up, voice steady despite her fear. “We’re here to see our mother. She’s been waiting for a while, waiting for us to be ready. Can’t you let us go now?”

“You lie.” Boom. Boom. Boom.

“What the hell are you talking about-”

“You lie. That was not the whole truth. But I will give him one more chance. Why are you here?” The figures loom closer.

“I… I…”

Evan desperately dug through his memories. All five people in his family sitting around a dinner table filled with grilled cheese and tomato soup. His mother laughing with him about his falling off the playground swing trying to do a flip. Sneaking out of bed just to see his parents flirting with each other over wine. His sister baking personalized batches of cookies for everyone on Valentine’s Day.

A fight. Yelling. His mother storming off.

The phone call.

Boom. Boom. Boom. The figures were still shrouded in darkness, but the siblings could now see one trait. Two nearly perfect, chiseled stone faces loomed above them, with detailed lips where you could see every crack in the skin, stiff yet glossy-seeming hair, and smooth skin. But what met the siblings’ horrified eyes were two gaping eye sockets as deep as an abyss, waiting for someone to plunge in to swallow them whole.

“Your answer?” the faces asked.

Evan paused. He missed his mother. Evie missed her. Benji missed her. But maybe, deep down, that had not been the reason for their visit.

“We’re here… for reconciliation. For forgiveness.”

Perhaps the suffocated feelings from that night had been eating away at them, disintegrating them from their cores. The regret of inaction was too great to leave alone like rotting produce on the counter, but saying it out loud somehow made Evan feel... lighter.

Then the most unexpected thing occurred. The faces began laughing, cackling. The dry, throaty sound made Evan and Evie cringe.

“Oh, you poor children. Why would you come here to look for that?” they crooned.

And in the next moment, they were back. Back in the neglected, rotting cemetery of the real world.

Evan kicked a nearby pebble. “–I just want all of us to be together again. Right, Benji?”

Benji held Evie’s hand like a scared toddler and nodded.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Evan whispered.

Evie pat Evan’s back. “Well, I second that notion. But not now. I think… Dad needs more time.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Evie, look!” Benji pointed at a nearby gravestone. “There’s Mom’s name.”

The chipped headstone was worn down, and the letters were already beginning to fade. But the setting sun shone its bright orange light right down on the grave, illuminating the small sprouts that had begun to push through the harsh, unforgiving soil.

“Here’s a present.” Benji set down the pink carnation, slightly wilted now, on top of the stone. “We miss you. A lot.”

“You did good, Benji,” Evie said.

I’m sorry, Mom. But you’d probably tell me not to say that, so instead… I hope you’ve forgiven me for what I said.

“Evie.”

“What is it, Benji?”

“I’m hungry. Can we have cookies?”

Evie laughed and wiped away a tear that she didn’t know was in her eye. “Sure. Chocolate chip?”

“The chunky ones.”

“Roger.” Evie saluted.

“Can I place an order too?” Evan asked.

“Shut up.”

The siblings walked out quickly, not wanting to be in a cemetery after sundown. But Evan swore he heard some sort of booming footsteps after they passed the angels, even though almost no one visits the cemetery anymore.