Welcome to the reality of the fear of graveyards...

Most people have this unnerved feeling whenever approaching a graveyard in the dark. Especially when there's fog around. You see it in horror movies all the time. The protagonist or victim walks or runs into a spooky graveyard filled with dead trees on a dark, foggy night. Y'know, right before Dracula rises from his grave or a zombie claws its way out of a grave or a ghost appears out of the fog above the grave of some unfortunate, angry soul. …Lots of things to do with graves, actually, but hey. It is a graveyard after all.

Kids instinctually know something bad or scary is about to happen. We grow up knowing this. We all give it a good eye roll or laugh once we've grown up because it's been done God knows how many times. When you're at home on a couch, nobody takes the fear seriously.

Of course, nobody laughs when you find yourself in an actual spooky graveyard filled with dead trees on a dark, foggy night. You always look over your shoulder, flinch at every twig snap, see things moving and shadows shifting. The fog rolls through, obscuring everything and gently caressing your skin with a touch so light, it's almost not there. All of these things great for horror movie settings, but they don't help the nervous feeling in the pit of your stomach or your pounding heart.

We all write it off as a phobia you never knew you had, or the worry and fear that you'll be kidnapped by some sadistic rapist or hunted by a sick in the head axe murderer. Maybe you even think you had some terrible nightmare once about being stuck in a graveyard with some monster you were afraid of when you were six.

Of course, that's not why you're scared.

You don't properly know you're scared till you look around at the beautiful, decorative statues within the graveyard. Now, the smart ones get this tick in the back of their head. Something that tells them that those statues are to be feared and listen to it. The smart ones leave. Most just brush it off as paranoia and keep going.

But then again, it's a foggy night, and your flashlight's batteries haven't been charged in forever – if you were smart enough to bring a flashlight in the first place – so it's flickering every so often. You shine it at this gravestone or that, catching a glimpse of the statue in the beam of your flashlight. The light flickers, the fog rolls through on a bone chilling breeze, and, for a moment, you swear that you saw the statue move.

Freaked out, you shine that now working perfectly normally flashlight back at it. It's a beautiful statue, graceful but mourning. Its hands are covering its face, in a weeping position. A perfectly normal pose for a graveyard statue. It's also in the shape of an angel. Again, perfectly normal for a graveyard statue.

There's still something off about it, but you really don't want to know, so you ignore it. Which is a bad move, but ignorance is bliss. You hear and feel a whoosh of air behind you, like something passing you at high speed. You whip around, and in your sweep, you catch the pedestal where the weeping angel statue used to be. It's gone now.

Starting to freak out, you turn around and see it standing behind a tree. Or at least, you think you do. Of course, you also think that 'cause it's dark and foggy, and you're all freaked out and probably tired and letting your imagination run away with you. You blink a few times and maybe rub your eyes, and it's gone. You look back at the pedestal and see the statue has returned to it.

You're relieved. In fact, you're so relieved, you don't notice it's not weeping anymore.

You begin to march back to your car – whatever you came here to do just isn't worth it. Your heart starts to pound, your hands get sweaty, your ears start picking up the slightest noises. You begin walking faster. Your sixth sense – the one that lets you know that someone's watching you – starts going off your alarm clock at 6 AM on a Monday and just won't stop.

Frightened almost out of your mind now for no apparent reason, you whirl around, just to prove there's nothing there. Well, there is. A statue, the statue from earlier. It followed you. Its hands are at its sides now, and its blank stare is the most unnerving thing you've ever seen. Sweat rolls down your face, cooled and dried by the wind. The sounds of nature, life, or anything else are drowned out by the sound of your pounding heartbeat in your ears.

Now you're really scared. Now you're frightened enough that your rational mind stops working and you start thinking that if you just stare at it, it'll go away, or it won't move. You shine your flashlight at it, look straight into its blank stare. You continue to stare into its eyes until you get far enough away that you can't see its face in detail anymore.

Unfortunately, by now it doesn't matter what you do because you're already dead; you just don't know it yet. The lucky ones turn and run, and they don't stop till they get tapped in the back by a cold metal hand and wake up in an entirely different time period.

The unlucky ones - the ones who handle this as if it were a horror movie - they look away for a second, then look back. The statue is now in front of them, all snarling teeth and clawed hands and an expression of hate and rage plastered to their stone face.

Now maybe you get away, and maybe you make it home. But the nightmare isn't over yet.

Because you've got something in your eye that you just can't get out. You try everything, but it won't go away. You try sleeping, but you're restless and all you can see is that expression of pure hate. So you go watch TV for a bit, try to calm your nerves.

That thing in your eye hasn't gone away, but now there's a headache to go along with it. You raise your hand to rub your head, but your hands feel like they're marble instead of skin. In fact, you whole body feels like it's made of marble. You don't want to get up, but the headache isn't going away and there's still something in your eye.

You're probably wondering "Why me?" after the ordeal you just had – or think you had, because that stuff doesn't happen to anyone in real life. You do eventually get up, stumble toward the bathroom. Maybe you notice you're starting to forget stuff. What you were watching, where you live, what your friends, family, and coworkers look and sound like. Maybe you've even forgotten their names.

"Okay," you think, "so someone spiked my drink at work," or wherever you were earlier...till you get to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and see what used to be you. Your entire body felt like stone because now it is. You look like whatever attacked you earlier. You have no idea why.

Frantic and frightened again, you try to run to the phone. You find yourself there within nanoseconds of thinking about calling 911. You don't notice the superspeed because you're too busy freaking out. You dial the number, hear the voice on the other end...but you can't speak. You try and try, but no words come. You drop the phone, stagger back towards the bathroom, then stop.

Where were you going? Where are you? Who are you?

All you know is that you're hungry. Ravenously hungry. You need to eat, but you don't need to eat food. No, that won't do. You need energy. Potential energy. And you know how to get it. You knock over a heavy piece of furniture, then listen for footsteps and wait. Hands over your eyes, blank expression underneath your hands, waiting for the next victim.

Silent as a grave.