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You bear down on the lid and slide it forward a few inches. Your muscles strain and feet slide against the smooth surface of the floor. In the corner of your eye, you catch Emma rocking herself as she stands on the side of the crypt, looking away from the coffin. She hums "Frere Jacques" softly, and you remember your childhood and how the song was used to soothe you both in the long nights after your parents died—the many nights you'd wake up screaming and she'd sing you back to sleep.

With one long shove, you push the lid half of the way off the coffin, and gravity does the rest as it falls to the floor with a loud crash. Inside is the skeletal remains of a man in a navy blue American Cavalry uniform from the Civil War. Lying across his chest is a remarkably well-kept pistol with what looks like a crossbow mechanism. Several steel-tipped bolts sit in a chamber on the gun's slender, curved handle. You lift the pistol crossbow, and a hand touches your arm from in the coffin. You leap back, leaving the crossbow, and a small girl's hand grips the edge of the coffin, then fades.

Your heart thumps in your chest, your mouth is drier than a pile of desert sand, and your skin boils over in sweat. You creep back over to the coffin and see only the old soldier inside. You snatch the crossbow and lead Emma across the room and through an archway further into the catacombs.