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He decided he was dead when his family had begun to mourn him. After hours of watching himself lay motionless and cold on the wet grass, someone had found him. When they returned with the entirety of his tribe, all of whom couldn't see or hear him, he knew something was irreversibly wrong.

When he reached out to grab his brother's arm, his hand became like fog and passed through. A horrible pit-feeling had formed in his stomach, and he couldn't help but double over in pain.

Once he regained his strength he pulled himself up and joined the rest of the group, standing in a circle around his own body. They joined hands, and he carefully avoided touching any of them. There they stood for a few more hours, until night had fallen. He recognized this as the beginning of a burial, and somehow, he knew he was dead. No matter how alive he still seemed, he was being mourned. His life, and its subsequent end, were being celebrated and remembered by his family.

When the moon was visible, the tribe began to take their keepsakes. His siblings went first, each kneeling by his corpse and taking a small piece of him. Some took a lock of hair while others took an article of clothing. Some even left trinkets on his body, tucking them away in his furs. He'll admit that they might not all be biological siblings, but they were raised as if they were.

Next were the children of the tribe, very few this time of year. They each took something and paid their respects. He watched the youngest ones, who had never seen death this close, as their hands shook. The older ones held their siblings hands and wouldn't look the at the body directly.

His brother, face hollow and dark under the pale moonlight, picked up his corpse and carried him off. The tribe followed as he led them to the tree were his parents and siblings were buried. There they began to dig a new space, somewhere between his mother and oldest sister.

They laid him down in the ditch, and he couldn't help but notice how alive he still looked. His face was soft, not as if he was dead, but as if he were sleeping. For a moment, he feared this was all a dream and he was watching himself be buried alive. Then he remembered the sickening feeling when he had tried to touch his brother. Never in his life had he felt something like that. Still, knowing the pain it would cause him, he ached to hold his brother. To wrap his arms around him and assure him that it was alright. If he was indeed dead, that would leave his brother to be the last of his parent's children.

The group began to refill the hole. They had fire to prepare and food to cook, after all, they couldn't afford to stand around all night. A few women had already begun to lead their children back to the safe cover of the forest. The others filed out slowly, some staying longer than others. His brother lingered the longest, staring intensely at the mound where his body was buried. Standing beside him, possibly for the last time, he looked up at the sky. When his brother had eventually gone too, the moon remained.

Life didn't change too drastically after his death. Being an observer rather than a participant was a new experience, but not an unwelcome one. He was rather content with the situation until the next winter. It was a harsh and unkind one that drove the tribe to move again. They didn't tend to stay in one place too long, especially not during winter, so he knew this was inevitable. Still, when his brother visited the tree his family was buried to say goodbye until spring, it hurt.

For a long while after that, the only glimmer of hope was that the tribe would return eventually. For the time being, he stayed where he knew was safest. The hut of branches, furs and rocks that he and his siblings were raised in. The place he slept until he knew how to make a hut of his own.

Where, when he was a child, he had awoken in the middle of the night to the wet sounds of chewing. Where he had held his breath until his eyes adjusted to the dark and saw his mother, now motionless and bloodied. He, his brothers and his father, had chased the wolf out of the hut and slaughtered it without a second thought. They buried what they had left of his mother and he kept a tooth of the wolf as a keepsake. Proof that they had avenged the woman who raised him.

Six winters later, his father had succumb to illness in that hut. His last days were not pleasant, as he had been vomiting and irritable. He was hardly capable of speech the morning he had finally passed. His sister insisted they bury him beside their mother, an idea they all agreed to.

The majority of his siblings were lucky enough to die honorably and somewhere less drab. Dark and weathered, the hut did not radiate the same welcoming, familial warmth as it did when he was a child. He couldn't bear to visit it when he was alive, too afraid of the death that lingered there. Now that he had seen his own death, he could handle it. In a way, his parents were here with him. Not literally, obviously, and not even spiritually. But they're somewhere, and he chooses to believe it's with him.

He stayed in the hut, only ever leaving to watch the moon. The weather gradually became kinder, and the hope of his family returning became more real. Flowers bloomed and breezes grew warmer. Snow that had covered the fire pit melted, leaving a circle of wet ash in its place. He recalled the delight of food as red berries spotted the brush. He could almost taste the smoky flavor of meat cooked over fire if he concentrated hard enough.

Day by day, weather got warmer and warmer. Animals who were in the past, too afraid to venture onto lands claimed by the people came to call the forest home. He was astonished when he managed to spook a bird every now and then. He chased wolves away from the huts, keeping the land safe for when his family returned.

Still, the days grew warmer. The nights were shorter. In a way, he could appreciate the moon more now. It was something reliable to end each day with. Sometimes, if he looked for it, the moon was visible during the daytime. Those were always good days, when he could keep track of the moon the whole day round.

Weather continued to warm, before it suddenly cooled. Just as quickly as the summer had come, it was fading. He refused to notice it at first, only truly accepting the autumn when the trees were fully bare. Usually, his tribe would use the fallen leaves as bedding. They had tried kindling at first, but burning leaves created too much smoke.

With the acceptance of fall came the acceptance that his family had not returned. This did not mean they would never return, he told himself, but it was likely. He laid awake at night sometimes, wondering where they could be and what they could be doing. He scared himself with thoughts they could all be dead, and often found himself dreaming about his brothers and sisters. He had nightmares about the night his mother died.

Although he could not succumb to illness, starve, or freeze to death anymore, he dreaded the arrival of winter. Not because he feared death, but because he feared the affirmation that he was alone now. He realized one night that it must have been a year since he had died, and he was overcome with grief. He didn't sleep that night, opting to watch the moon instead.

It wasn't another year until he had accepted his solitude. He appreciated the fact that he would never know what happened to his family. The unanswered question allowed him to come up with his own answers.

For years after that, and even more countless years after that, things began to change. Seasons were changes, but they were temporary and always the same. The summer always returned to winter. These changes were different.

He first noticed these changes when new animals came to occupy the land. He also noticed that there were other animals he hadn't seen in a few hundred years.

When people came back to the land, the true drastic nature of change really set in. New people were nothing like him. They had varieties of foods, clothes, and words. The way they spoke to each other scared him at first, just because it was truly foreign.

When they began to build things, he was amazed. The things they built: tools, buildings or otherwise, stayed around for so much longer than his things. His hut, which was now reduced to a few furs behind a big rock, was truly only good for a season or two. The things they built stayed for years. Still, the years were short.

Now that he spent less time in the forest and more time watching the new people, he started trying their language. He paced around them, hovering near their gatherings, and repeating anything he thought sounded interesting. He didn't understand what most of it meant yet, but he had picked up on a word they used for the light in the sky at night.

"Moon."

He didn't pronounce it just right, but no one was around to correct him, so it didn't matter.

In his time, fire was both a luxury and a neccesity. Difficult to create and maintain, but essential for survival. As the years passed, fire became less of a hassle, but still just as important. It wasn't until a few others had died and joined him that livings learned how to strike a fire at their fingertips. It was scary, not only how easily they used it, but how careless they were with it. Mary was especially repulsed by the living people's tendency to underestimate their power.

People carried "candles" and "lanterns" and "lamps," tools that could hold a fire within it. He watched these tools be of great benefit to livings, but also saw countless homes burn to the ground.

A few more hundred years and a few more dead was when they had learned to light and unlight a fire by flipping a switch. They called these "lightbulbs." He, Robin the dead had started to call him, watched these lightbulbs all day and night. He watched how livings flipped their switches, paying no mind to the marvel of light. They flipped on and off, as if it were as natural as night and day.

One night, Robin watched an unlit lightbulb. He watched, and wondered if it was truly as easy as it looked to flip it on. At that thought, the bulb flickered to life. Startled by this, he jumped back and it flickered back out again. He chose to forget the experience and wandered off to find the rest of the group.

Robin noticed that the ones who joined him constantly lamented about how long they had been dead. Thomas was notorious for this. He flounced about, stringing together verses about the heartache of death. It wasn't all that bad, Robin thought, but how should he know? His time being alive was a fraction of what he had seen. If his existence was a year, his life would be a second. During that second, he was at constant risk of dying. Now, being dead, he has nothing to fear but the things he chooses to. He has no reason to be afraid of the dark, there's nothing in it that could hurt him, but he is. He thinks it could be because he's unconsciously clinging onto life by fearing human things. He also thinks there isn't a reason as to why anyone's afraid of anything.

When Pat died, and Julian a mere ten years later, Mary was surprised. She explained to Robin that there were usually larger gaps in between the deaths. Robin was astonished by this. If you had told him all his housemates had died in the same week, he would believe you. He found that time was very difficult concept to grasp.

When Alison came along, she was the first to really explain to Robin what a "caveman" was. The Captain and Fanny often called him an ape when they were upset with him, and Pat made jokes about a "missing link." He knew that whatever a caveman was, he was one. Alison sat him down with her magic screened thing and scrolled through Vicky Pedia, explaining the concept of a Neanderthal and the Paleolithic era. She called it the Stone Age. He asked if there were pictures, and all they had were paintings. He asked for pictures of cavemen fishing, hunting, and building fires. He pointed out inconsistencies, much to Alison's delight. She was always eager to learn about the ghosts' lives.

Alison told Robin that humans began showing up on British land roughly 50,000 years ago.

"Ok," he said.

"Ok? Robin I've only been alive for, like, 30 years."

"50,000 is just a number. Year is just a word," he shrugged. "Time not important, change is."

Alison hummed and nodded, working to understand what Robin meant. Time was just a unit to measure change to Robin, and he never cared for measurement. Alison was right to emphasize 50,000 years. Things had changed drastically, certainly 50,000 years worth.

Still, after 50,000 years, Robin lays awake sometimes and thinks of his family. He never saw proof that they had died, so he could choose to believe they're still alive if he wanted. Of course, it's impossible, but it's a comfort.