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Lisa.
From his first stirrings of awareness under the ground, she was there. Her voice was the first thing to come to him, after who knew how long. Stumbling into the cemetery, crashing through the undergrowth covering his grave. She'd been crying. He didn't know what had made her so sad, but the urge to comfort her was an instinctual reflex. It hadn't mattered before, that he was buried and unmoving. He'd been dead, then. Now, he didn't know what he was, other than frustrated. Frustrated that he couldn't go to this girl when she needed him. He felt like it was the most important thing in the world that he help her.
For the first time, being dead was awful.
He felt her, leaning on his gravestone, absently pulling at the ivy climbing it and kicking at the weeds on the dirt that covered him.
How could he feel her, through stone and dirt? How could he feel anything? It didn't matter, only she mattered, her sobs and cries breaking him in a way he shouldn't be able to break.
Eventually, she stopped crying. She slumped to the ground, apparently resting in whatever small patch she'd cleared in her need to fidget through her grief. She sat so close to him, leaning against his gravestone.
So close, but too far. Why was she so far? Why did he feel like he needed to hold her?
“I'm sorry for bothering you like this,” she said through her subsiding sniffles.
Don't be sorry, don't ever be sorry for being near me. You could never bother me.
“I just… I feel so alone.” She continued, and he hoped she'd never stop talking. “My mom is…” she choked slightly, like it hurt her to say. “She's gone. And my dad married this.. I don't know. She hates me. She's horrible. Or maybe I'm horrible.”
You could never be horrible.
“I just don't fit… here. Or anywhere, really. I'm either in the way, or everyone forgets about me. Or maybe they just want to forget about me. But I don't think anyone should be forgotten like that.”
I could never forget you.
“This place.. it looks like you understand what it's like, to be forgotten.”
He could feel her absentmindedly playing with the weeds covering his grave as she spoke. He swore he could feel her fingers in his hair.
She stayed silent for a while, still running her fingers through the weeds, occasionally pulling one up. He hoped there was no poison ivy or anything else in the undergrowth that could hurt her.
“It's kind of nice here,” she finally said, nearly a whisper.
It is, with you here.
He could feel her moving, standing, and he swore he felt his dead heart seize.
Don't go! Please, don't go…
“I don't want you to be forgotten.” Her voice was still quiet and he could feel her turning to face his gravestone. He wondered what it looked like, what she saw, until he felt fingers across his cheek and shivered. A bust, that had to be it. A bust of himself topped his gravestone, and she was brushing her fingers along his stone cheek and he felt it.
“I need to go now, but I'll be back. I'll bring some of my dad's garden tools, get some of this junk cleared.” She was brushing at the leaves and vines covering where he assumed his inscription was and he shivered.
Do whatever you want, just please come back.
“I hope your name is still under there somewhere,” she muttered, pulling at the stubborn vines until she realized she wasn't getting anywhere without some kind of tool to snip them. “Well, whoever you are, rest well until I come back.”
I won't rest at all until you come back.
He felt her walking away, heard the undergrowth shifting above him. Heard her pause just at the edge of his awareness.
“Oh, I'm Lisa, by the way.”
With that she was gone, and he felt the loss keenly, but it was overwhelmed by another feeling that he couldn't describe. The sound of her name, just having her name to hold onto in the dark emptiness, overwhelmed him. As she left, and until she returned, the one word replayed in his head. One word that changed him, grounded him, tied him to the world in a way he never could have anticipated but felt like it was always meant to be.
Lisa.