Diehlstadt’s only graveyard sat in complete silence under the rising new moon, engulfing the world in darkness. Not a single shadow was cast over the graves from the rows of tombstones, dating back to Diehlstadt’s founding in the late 18th century. Entering the cemetery through the iron wrought gates, visitors were greeted by tall oak trees, their orange and brown leaves now scattered over the dying grass. The new headstones sat at the front, polished and clean, looming over rectangles of loose soil, while the old ones lingered at the top of the hill. One particular tombstone, a small granite grassmarker, read:
[center][b]In Loving Memory Of
Werner F. Kleist
1962-1985[/b][/center]
 The stillness of the night was broken by a roar in the distance; not that of a beast, as common as it was now in these parts, but from a machine. A pair of lights burned through the night fog, travelling with a sense of urgency; it had been a long journey, and now, so close to the end, they rushed forward in a frantic blitz. Yet, right when the lights reached the heavy gates of the graveyard, they faded into darkness, and the screaming machine fell silent. They were replaced by another muffled scream, however, under six feet of dirt beneath the grave marker of Werner Kelist.

The first sensation, and really the only one, Werner first gained was smell. The sweet stench of rotting wood, mildew, and wet soil filled his nostrils, a nauseating combination. His mind was foggy, like awakening from a deep sleep. [i]What the hell happened?[/i] was his first thought in over thirty years. It didn’t take long for him to remember. The flash of headlights. Squealing tires. Turning over and over and over. He’d just been in a car accident. Werner tried to open his eyes, but they offered heavy resistance; it felt like they were glued shut, Using every muscle in his face, they finally peeled open, but the view remained the same; black. Here Werner began to panic. The car must have been buried into the dirt when he landed. He reached out to grasp the familiar feeling of a leather steering wheel, glass, something, but was only met with a dull [i]thump[/i] as his arms extended just half a foot in front of him; wet wood. Heavy breaths escaped  Werner’s nose, and let out a moan, his voice hoarse and throat dry. He tried to open his mouth to cry for help, but it wouldn’t open. It had been sutured shut in the embalming process. 

Werner fell into a full panic, lashing out his arms and legs in any direction to break free from his confined space, fists pounding against the top of his cheap pine coffin, letting sprinkles of dirt fall in. After a few minutes of this, the young man finally calmed down, though still breathing heavily. Slowly, his battered hands felt around his cage, and he finally came to terms with his situation. Buried. Buried alive. Upon this realization, he tried his best to slow his ragged breaths to conserve the oxygen in the coffin. There couldn’t be much left. He frantically searched around for anything that could be of use, and found a pair of keys in his pants pockets; his dad left them in his coffin, a sort of parting gift. He used the rusty key to cut the sutures in his mouth, allowing him to breathe freely. He then promptly screamed.

When he was content with his screaming, Werner quickly ripped off his suit jacket, which proved to be easy; the back on both his shirt and pants were cut vertically down the middle so the mortician could better dress the corpse. He tied the dry rotted jacket around his head, forming a sort of bag, so he could dig out of his grave and not breathe in dirt. That was the theory, anyway. Since Werner didn’t have the leg room to kick his way out of the coffin, he tucked the two keys between his fingers, wrapped it in some cloth, and began punching away at the top of his coffin, hoping his hands wouldn't become too mangled. Surprisingly, he felt no pain; perhaps it was the adrenaline coursing through his body that dulled the sensation. Dirt began to fall freely into the coffin, and Werner acted quickly. He tore the wood apart, making an opening wide enough for his shoulders, and as the wet soil poured in, he transferred it to the bottom of his coffin. Once there was enough space, he began his ascent, thinking of nothing but the surface. Werner did not grow tired, nor did he feel out of breath, despite the lack of air. He simply put one hand in front of the other and pressed upwards in a blind rush.

The freshly mowed grass below Werner’s grassmarker started to tremble, and soon a bloodied hand burst from the grave like a geyser of flesh. Soon, a body followed, stripped of almost all rotten clothing from the brutal climb. Werner Kleist was born into the world a second time. He let out a final scream before falling onto the freshly turned over soil. It was more comfortable than any bed he’d ever lain on. Werner remained at his grave for almost an hour more, trying to collect his thoughts, but they felt out of reach, like a piece of fruit one branch too high. He tried to remember his parents, the accident, or his girlfriend, but not even their names came to mind. If he just looked beside his own tombstone, he would see two more flanking it, both with the last name Kleist. But Werner could think only of the burning hunger rapidly growing inside him. It wasn’t a feeling of depletion, but a primal, driving force, forcing him off the ground. In a haze, he stalked through the graveyard, searching, but he did not know what his body yearned for in this unfamiliar state. Once Werner felt something brush against his bare leg, however, he instinctively knew what to do. His bloodied hands grabbed the creature tightly and brought it to eye level. A scroungy stray black cat, now hissing and yowling with its ears pulled back, its slanted yellow eyes staring back at him. Werner didn’t have much further time to analyze it before he brought it to his mouth.

There wasn’t much left of the cat when Werner finished feeding, just a pile of fur and bones joined with sinew and bits of flesh. He finally returned to his normal state of consciousness, though he didn’t like what he saw. Werner’s ragged black suit was coated in dirt and sticky blood, and where his ashen grey skin showed he saw scarred flesh. The hands he used to punch through a pine box were broken and battered, but failed to bleed, and Werner still felt no pain. His lethargic gaze turned to the brutalized remains of the cat, and and quickly turned away. This was a bad dream. A hallucination. He would wake up in an upturned car and walk away from the wreckage untouched. Only he didn’t. No matter how hard he closed his eyes, each time they opened he stood in the middle of the graveyard.

A pair of golden lights emerged in the distance, at the entrance to the cemetery. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Werner stumbled towards them, a sensation of deja vu flooding over him. The engine roared to life, sending chills down his spine. He knew that sound. It was one of the last sounds Werner could remember. The roar of a 1974 De Tomaso Pantera’s rear mounted 5.8 liter Ford 351 Cleveland V8. It all came back to Werner, crashing upon him like waves. Adrien. Car lights. Metal crunching. The cold mortuary slab. Coffin nails, ashes to ashes, and sobbing parents. And the car, this car that plummeted off a cliff, now sat before him in mint condition like an eager puppy wanting to play. “Nope. No. Fuck you, no,” Werner rasped, his voice gravelly from disuse. He walked away from the car down the road into town, dirt falling off him with each step. He’d just come back to life somehow, and he wasn’t about to enter the very same thing that got him killed in the first place. No, Werner needed to find someone who could tell him what the hell happened to him, and only one person came to mind. Abioya. The two didn’t see eye-to-eye very often, but his girlfriend’s grandfather was familiar with… Reanimation.

As the sun rose over the horizon, Werner was just about into town when he looked back to the graveyard. In truth, he wasn’t ready to part with the car. Sure, it killed him, but right now it was the only thing he had from before his burial. Well, it actually belonged to some rich man from the hotel he was working at, but that wasn’t important. Oddly enough, the car wasn’t parked at the graveyard anymore, but trailing only a few meters behind Werner, coasting along. “Alright, alright! But I’m not getting in.” He heard the radio tune up, followed by music. [i]Now life is short and it's filled with stuff. So let me know baby when you've had enough. Oh do the dead, turn blue.[/i] "The Cramps? Really? Not cool." The radio fell silent. Diehlstadt felt… Different. Alien. The new buildings looked old and broken down, and the old buildings were gone completely, replaced with new ones. The town wasn’t very active at the moment. Empty streets, no foot traffic, only Werner walking down the sidewalk with the red car following shortly behind. Well, he was alone until a white blur rolled down the opposite side. [i]Oh man, please don’t let it be another cat… I couldn't look it in the face.[/i] Werner crossed the street and looked around, hearing a voice grumbling. “Hello? Anyone there?” he called out, feeling rather silly. That is, until he saw a disembodied head cloaked in blonde hair sitting next to a couple of trash cans, and he screamed almost as loudly as he did upon escaping his grave.