The Hand That Reached From the Grave

The Hand That Reached From the Grave

In a quiet village nestled among Pakistan’s ancient hills, there lived an old man named Saeen Murad. Known for his silence and strength, he worked as a grave digger at the local cemetery. For years, he had dug hundreds of graves — without fear, without question.

But the day he was asked to prepare a grave beside an old, crumbling wall changed everything.


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The graveyard was older than memory. Some graves had names, others only stones. And in the farthest corner stood a ruined enclosure — once a family tomb, now forgotten.

One afternoon, the village cleric asked Saeen Murad to dig a fresh grave for a traveler who had died mysteriously in the mosque. The only space left was near the ruined wall.

Murad nodded and began.

He struck the earth with his shovel. The soil was unusually hard, dry despite the recent rain. As he dug deeper, he noticed pieces of old bricks mixed with the dirt.

Then — the shovel hit something soft.


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He knelt and brushed the dirt away with his hands.

It looked like a piece of thick rope at first. But as more soil cleared, it took the shape of a hand — a human hand, decayed but not skeletal, with nails that looked freshly trimmed.

Murad froze.

The hand wasn’t buried downward — it was reaching outward from inside the grave wall.

Before he could think, the fingers twitched.

He jumped back, dropping his shovel. His breathing turned sharp. He stared in disbelief as the hand moved again — slow, pained, like waking from a long nightmare.


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He ran to the cleric and gasped, “There’s something alive inside the wall!”

Others gathered, skeptical but curious. By the time they returned, the hand was still. Cold. Lifeless again.

A younger man dared to touch it.

Cold as stone.

Yet the hand didn’t look like a relic. It had veins, faint color, and one silver ring on the middle finger — engraved with letters that no one could read.


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The elders whispered. Some said it was a cursed soul, buried alive centuries ago. Others spoke of a sorcerer who had once lived in the village and vanished mysteriously.

The cleric decided they would not dig further. “Seal it again,” he ordered. “Some graves are not meant to be disturbed.”

Reluctantly, they poured soil back, covering the hand. But Murad couldn’t sleep that night.


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At midnight, he heard knocks — soft but steady — outside his mud-brick home.

Three knocks. Silence. Three more.

When he opened the door, no one was there. But on the ground… were muddy fingerprints. The same size as the hand in the grave.


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The next day, a boy from the village went missing.

Then, a woman claimed to have seen a man with no eyes standing near the cemetery wall at dusk.

And then — Murad’s dreams began.

Every night, he saw the hand crawling through tunnels underground. It reached toward him, always closer, always hungrier. In the dream, the hand finally gripped his leg.

He woke with a bruise on the same spot.


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He returned alone to the grave site.

Using a small pick, he quietly chipped at the wall that had hidden the hand. Beneath it, a hollow chamber revealed bones scattered in ritual patterns, symbols etched in ash, and in the center — a corpse sitting upright, its eyes missing, and both hands gone.

The corpse's mouth was wide open, as if frozen mid-scream.

Murad stumbled back.

And the hand… it was no longer in the wall.


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That night, the entire village heard a loud cracking sound from the graveyard.

By morning, the ancient wall had collapsed — the chamber exposed. But inside, there were no bones.

Just a single note, written in black dust:

> “He woke me. You buried me again. Now I walk among you.”




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Murad fell ill.

He whispered strange languages in his sleep. He scratched his arms raw, saying “Get the hand off me!” again and again.

Then one morning, he disappeared — his bed cold, his footprints leading toward the cemetery.

Some say his soul was taken.

Others claim he still digs — in a realm between the living and the dead — forever cursed by the hand he should never have uncovered.


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But if you walk near the old wall on moonless nights... you might still see a hand reach out. Waiting for another Murad. Another mistake.