Michael clenched his jaw. “So you faked your death? Buried someone else under your name?”

“I had reasons,” he replied. “Debt. Enemies. I ran, thinking I had no one left. But when I found your name in a cemetery staff list last month… I had to be sure.”

Michael’s mind raced. The figure on camera. The grave with his father’s name. The photo that looked just like him.

Everything was real.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

The man looked up, eyes watering. “Nothing. Just to know you lived.”

A long silence. Then Michael sat down.

And they talked — for the first time in thirty years.

As the sun rose behind the old stained-glass windows, it didn’t bring peace. It brought the truth — heavy, raw, undeniable.

Later that morning, Michael quit his job. He didn’t want to guard the dead anymore.

He had a life to reclaim.