My throat was closed and my airways were probably closed too but I didn't care. I kept on digging as fast as my useless arms would go. My lean body didn't seem to get me nowhere. Not in sports, girls or digging. I closed my eyes and leaned on the shovel. Everything seemed brighter when I closed my eyes, if that makes any sense. Clutching the shovel, I started once more. I stood there after about 10 minutes, drenched in sweat and cursing like there was no tomorrow. A small pile of dirt lay near me and a microscopic hole was curved into the ground. All of the flowers were pushed aside and the moon was urging me on. Slowly, I wiped my forehead and leaned in for another round. The wind would rustle every few minutes and my wild imagination would conjure up another outcome of what I would find when I would open the casket. Ava would either be a skeleton and feeble or she would be a pile of . . . something. What I found was much worse.
I dug and dug into the soft ground until I could barely breathe. My throat dry, my hands covered with blisters and my sneakers brown with dirt. I didn't care though. I wiped my hands on my jeans and started digging again. I shoved the shovel in harder and harder until one of my blisters popped. I cursed loudly then started to dig again.
I shoved the shovel into the ground once more when I hit something hard; a casket. I nervously dug around the hard object until I uncovered a black casket with a white cross on the front. I pulled up the casket with trembling fingers and prayed into the night.
Taking a deep breath, my heart racing, I put the casket on the ground and knelt beside it. I slowly and carefully pulled the casket open and gasped. I jerked from the ground and tried to control my body. My shoulders trembled and my eyes were blurry once more. I screamed but nothing came out. AVA. AVA. AVA. Nothing. Ava was gone.
I quickly walked past the casket and looked inside the hole. Nothing either. My head was swarming and a small buzzing sound overlapped everything my ears processed. Ava wasn't there and I didn't know why. Why would somebody steal Ava, a soulless body? She couldn't have . . . decomposed so quickly. I had a bad feeling something was wrong and it wasn't the sound of a car pulling into the parking lot of the cemetery.
But that was bad too.
