Lethargy
A/N: I've been searching about catalepsy and lethargy, which a person seems to be dead, but he is alive, he just can't move himself (or herself). This was the most common case of buried-alive people during the Victorian years (1819 – 1901). If you don't like eerie and tragic stories, I recommend you to leave this page, but review all the same.
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October,1883
Katherine looked at the people surrounding her bed. Curious faces examined her motionless expression with growing fear.
"Katherine?" A thunderous voice called her.
Katherine tried to blink but her eyelids didn't even move. She tried to move her legs but they didn't move either.
"Mr. Wagner? Unfortunately, I believe Katherine is dead."
Kurt sat down on the precarious wooden chair and hid his face on his hands, sobbing. Kitty heard the doctor's sentence and desperately tried to move again, but with no success. She could see, she could hear, but she couldn't speak or move.
Henry, the doctor, closed her eyelids. Now, she was locked inside herself. The only sense left for her was hearing.
Kurt, her husband, got up and took her wrist; he had to see for himself that she was no longer living. Her chest wasn't moving, although she was still breathing. He couldn't feel her heart-beat, although she was alive.
"Sir? Where will she be buried?" a short 12 years old boy interrupted him.
"At the graveyard behind the house." Kurt said and stormed out of the room.
Everybody, except two women, left the room after Kurt's exit. The two ladies, a blonde and an olive skinned girl stayed in the room and started to argue over some clothes to dress their mistress.
"Tabitha, what do you think about this white dress?"
"I don't know . . . pink looks better on her. Besides, she's already dead; she won't notice the color of the dress. Amara, get the pink dress, please."
As Amara opened the wardrobe, a tall and pale woman entered the room with the pose of a queen. She had two white stripes locks and a stern look.
"I'll dress the dead woman. Now, leave."
The two peasants left the room with fear and the woman was left alone with Katherine.
"Oh, Kitty . . . my beloved sister-in-law. I wish you were alive." Katherine tried to move again, but with no success.
Marie took the white dress that had fallen on the floor, dusted it and placed it softly on the bed. She was undressing the limp Katherine when a red-haired woman, Kitty's sister, entered the room, sat on the chair beside the bed and caressed her sister's dark hair.
"Kurt told me that when he woke up, she was already dead. Cold, limp and wide-eyed."
Marie didn't even bother to answer and finished her work on Katherine.
"Don't you think she looks beautiful? She looks so peaceful, a real angel."
"Jean, spare me of what you think. And I do believe that no dead person looks beautiful, it's something so . . . she's your sister for Christ's sake."
Jean kept looking at her sister with dreamy eyes, sighed and said:
"Maybe we should go now. The coffin and the flowers are already here."
They left Kitty alone, wrapped on a white sheet and alive.
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The humid and cold air contributed to an eerie atmosphere at the funeral. All Katherine's and Kurt's relatives and friends were wearing black and with false forlornly expressions upon their faces.
The coffin was being slowly covered with the moist earth. Every time earth fell upon the funerary box, Kurt would flinch and sob more that he had sobbed before.
As the grave was being filled, some people left the cemetery and after some minutes there was only Kurt sat on the tomb of his dead wife.
He was thinking of all the things they had had together, including their baby, buried inside its dead mother's womb.
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Inside the coffin, Kitty was slowly recovering her senses and moves. She opened her eyes and found herself cramped in a dark coffin.
Desperately, she struggled to get free, trying hard to open the lid of the coffin. With a growing fear, she heard soft thuds on the coffin and grains of earth slipped inside the small funerary box. With desperation, she found out she was being buried alive!
The image of being eaten by maggots made her hit the top of the coffin more and more. But it didn't even move from its frame.
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The moon was already high on the dark sky and the only sounds were the prayers in Latin of a man walking through the graves, his voice soothing the undead, but his feet thumping and waking the dead ones.
The man carried a shovel and hit it on some of the tombstones when he got scared. A raven watched the young man quietly, but never taking its eyes off him.
He reached the grave that had, recently, been opened and started to work on it again. After some minutes of hard work, he found the coffin and opened it with some violence.
Katherine, who had fallen asleep due to exhaustion, opened her eyes as she saw the light of the moon. She noticed that her husband was kneeling upon her, slowly laying beside her.
"Kurt, no!" she managed speak weakly.
Kurt looked at her, his eyes full of love and concern, placed one hand on her womb and whispered:
"Shh . . . you won't be alone now, my darling. My dead wife." Still soothing her, he closed the lid of the coffin, locking the living away from them.
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The morning came and the sun shone upon the open grave. The grave-digger looked at the dirty coffin beneath his feet and started to work again, covering the funerary box once again, but not without cursing about the damned grave-burglars.
As he worked, a raven took off from the dead tree behind him. The black bird had seen enough, besides it had other deaths to announce.