Opening
A lone, unnamed narrator digs a grave in the frozen woods, body aching, breath steaming, and a corpse waiting beside the hole. Every sound threatens exposure. The scene sets a dark, urgent mystery around identity, motive, and the cost of concealment.
What Happens
Under a moonlit canopy, the narrator shovels through hard ground until blisters rise and muscles burn. They measure depth with grim practicality, calculating how deep to keep animals out and stepping into the pit to reach farther, even as standing inside a grave feels like tempting fate. They think of how much harder the work is now than it was "back then," when they "had a partner to help," and they refuse to stop until the job is done.
A branch snaps—sharp, close—and panic floods in. The narrator freezes, imagining handcuffs, flashing lights, a cell, and the end of everything. The scene makes Deception and Manipulation the engine of the moment: a person hiding the ultimate secret. They rasp out, "Hello?" No answer. Another crack, the crunch of leaves—footsteps? The narrator braces for discovery.
A squirrel darts through the moonlight, snapping a twig as it vanishes. Relief hits hard, and with it the knowledge that time is their enemy. The danger remains. With renewed urgency—and a single imperative pounding in their mind, "I have to bury this body before the sun comes up."—the narrator shovels faster, as the prologue locks in its central mysteries and nods toward Revenge and Justice.
Character Development
The prologue frames the narrator as capable, calculating, and deeply afraid—someone who can plan a burial but can’t silence the fear of getting caught. They remain deliberately unidentified, turning their voice and choices into the story’s first puzzle.
- Determined resilience: Works through pain, cold, and exhaustion without stopping.
- Pragmatic mindset: Measures depth, considers animals, optimizes leverage by standing in the grave.
- Fear-driven vigilance: Imagines arrest and prison at the slightest sound, calls out to test the threat.
- Isolation and secrecy: References a former “partner,” suggesting a broken alliance or betrayal.
- Central enigma: Identity, motive, connection to the body, and the past partnership all remain concealed.
Themes & Symbols
Deception and manipulation drive the scene: the narrator hides a body, lies by omission to the world, and calculates details to erase a crime. The false alarm—the squirrel masquerading as a pursuer—feeds a broader tension between guilt and perception. Appearance versus reality governs the emotional rhythm: what seems like discovery turns out to be nothing, but the fear it unleashes is real and destabilizing.
Symbols do heavy lifting. The grave stands for secrets buried to control the narrative of the past; every shovelful is an attempt to rewrite what happened. The woods at night function as a lawless borderland—removed from society, judgment, and help—mirroring the narrator’s moral wilderness. Physical pain becomes a sensory register of guilt and resolve, turning the body into evidence of crime and commitment alike.
Key Quotes
“I had a partner to help me back then.”
This line plants a mystery and foreshadows conflict: where is the partner now, and why are they gone? It hints at betrayal, danger, or loss, setting up future revelations about shifting alliances and power.
“Hello?”
A single, hoarse word shows the narrator testing the darkness—both literal and moral. It reveals fear, isolation, and a brittle hope that the threat isn’t real, while exposing how thin their control feels.
“I have to bury this body before the sun comes up.”
Urgency and stakes compress into a deadline. The line frames the scene as a race against exposure and signals how the coming day—witness, truth, consequence—endangers the narrator’s plan.
“Blisters popping up on my palms,” “a knife is digging into a muscle,” “a gust of wind cools the layer of sweat.”
These sensory shards ground the moment in pain and physicality, pulling the reader into the body’s exhaustion. They heighten tension and make the concealment feel immediate and irreversible.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
As a prologue, this scene hooks with high stakes and moral ambiguity while withholding identities and motives. It sets the novel’s tone—dark, tense, intimate—and frames the central questions that drive the story forward: Who is the narrator? Who is the victim? What happened to the partner? Why is this burial necessary?
By dropping us in after the crime but before discovery, the book invites a backward investigation into cause and consequence. The result is a tight, propulsive setup that makes every subsequent chapter a search for the truth the narrator is literally trying to bury.