It's not a graveyard. Graveyards have bodies.

20250325

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

Everyone said it wasn’t a graveyard. There were no bodies buried in it.
The police had checked.
So it wasn’t a graveyard. It was simply a patch of ground that - so far as countless civil servants had been able to find - didn’t belong to anyone. Which had rows upon rows of tombstones sprouting out of the rough grass.
It’d been fenced off sixty years ago. Which didn’t stop people getting in, particularly teenagers, but did make it disquietingly clear that nobody was transporting large stones inside. You never heard anyone carving, either. And yet stones appeared, with names and dates and quotes etched deep into them.
If you simply wandered the rows, reading, you’d think they were random sentences. Maybe even an elaborate joke. Because so many people’s last words were utterly mundane.
“Three today.” Phillip was hunched over to shield his tablet from the drizzle, painstakingly entering the new locations with slick fingers.
Fred was still shaking. “I can’t even… I’ve known Mrs Carter all my life. What happened? S-she commented on my status just a few days ago, it can’t have…”
Her last words had been “Oh, it’s no trouble”, which didn’t tell you anything. Particularly since there was no way of knowing how much time passed between her saying that and dying. It might be completely unrelated.
Phillip leant over to squeeze his shoulder, the gesture made awkward by their baggy waterproofs. “If she died last night there oughta be a post up by now. Why don’t you go check? And have a sit down. I’ll finish up.”
“Right. Yeah. Sure. I… see you tomorrow.” Fred dashed towards their ladder over the fence, his arms windmilling to keep from slipping on the grass.
“See you tomorrow.” It wasn’t until the words left Phillip’s mouth that he registered them. Was Fred planning on walking home? Phillip had meant ‘why don’t you have a sit down in my car and look on your phone’.
Well, whatever. Wasn’t like this place was the middle of nowhere. The only reason they’d taken the car was the weather.
He turned back to the map and measurements. Checking that each location tag was correct and had the right photo attached. Grumbling under his breath about the damp and the condensation and having to hold the screen at awkward angles under his poncho.
‘Ugh. Can’t wait until we can do this by drone or something.’
But finally it was done and he could get back to the car. He tucked the tablet away with a relieved huff and turned towards the ladder.
It was the colour which caught his eye. The stone was a starker, paler beige than all the others. Because it was dry.
Phillip’s breath caught. Had that appeared while he was standing here? It must have. And he’d missed it!
He squelched over to the new arrival, fumbling the tablet back out for a photo.
Fredrick Miller
08-12-2001 - 25-03-2025
“Shit!”

Prompt was “Your protagonist finds themself in a graveyard where each stone has the deceased’s last words inscribed on it. One gravestone catches their eye.”