Those you've known and lost still walk behind you...
Melchior was gone again, and Moritz was left alone by his overturned gravestone. He sighed, dusted his hands off on his knees (though the gesture was unnecessary) and went to right it again.
The damn stone was always falling over, whoever put it in did a poor job of it. Moritz didn't bother righting it, half the time. It was such an effort to make himself solid enough to pick it back up. It took great concentration, and he felt exhausted afterwards.
He could feel the cold starting to return as he pushed against the gravestone. It began as it always did, with the tips of his toes, then slowly crawling its way up his spine, freezing him from the inside out. Along with the cold came the unpleasant sensation that he was made of cobwebs, eternally crumbling into nonexistence.
Then all at once, the effort became too much and Moritz let go, let himself fall back into his ghost-like state. The stone fell through his fingers and landed with a thud on the grass once more. Damn. No matter, it wasn't like anyone visited him anyway.
Moritz started back towards the church, metaphorical hands in metaphorical pockets. Clumsy even in the afterlife, he managed to trip over a tree root. The moment he felt himself fall, he threw out his hands to catch himself. But what his hands touched wasn't dirt or grass. It was sand.
He barely had time to register this before he hit the ground hard, biting down on his lip in the process. He groaned in pain and swallowed a mouthful of blood, sitting up slowly. He looked around to find that he wasn't in the graveyard at all. He was on a beach, of all places. Not only that, but he was apparently solid enough to trip over something. And moreover, he could bleed.
Moritz Stiefel was alive again.
Typist: Moritz Stiefel's debut, cut for major spoilers for the play and the musical. Late tags are very much welcome!