West of Louisville

September 14th 1871

Journal Entry – October 1, 1871

Somewhere West of Louisville

I dreamed of the pit again.

Not the one behind the church in Boston. Not the fresh one I carved behind the barn in Vermont. This was older. Wider. Hungrier.

I was naked, standing at its edge, barefoot in cold, soft mud. My hands were red—slick and humming like they remembered a pulse. I held something in them. Something soft and hollowed out. A man’s face, peeled from the bone like a fruit skin.

Ma stood beside me. She didn’t speak. Just smiled and smeared ashes across my chest like war paint. Behind her, a line of faceless bodies stood waiting, swaying, headless but still breathing.

I climbed down into the pit. The dirt was warm. Something pulsed beneath it—wet, twitching, and alive. I lay down, and it held me. The blood seeped through my skin and filled my mouth with the taste of iron and honey. I heard the voice again.

“You are not cursed. You are chosen.”

I woke smiling.

The sheets were damp. My fingernails were cracked. And in my pocket—pressed tight against my thigh—was a tooth I don’t remember taking.

— K