Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The ruins of Ashfen Hollow were a place where even the dead dared not linger.

It was said that when the blood rains fell and the fires swept through the world, something ancient had been awakened in Ashfen—a hunger that could not be sated by death alone. It craved something purer. Something still screaming.

They called it the Burnt Offering.

No one knew what it truly was. Only that those who entered Ashfen never returned whole... if they returned at all.

Cress Vale, a grim-faced survivor marked by ash tattoos, had lost everything to the infection—her home, her family, her sanity. When she heard rumors of an ancient altar still smoking in Ashfen, she didn't hesitate.

Not for salvation.

For revenge.

The closer she drew to the hollow, the more the world seemed to unravel. The trees blackened, their trunks etched with names she had long forgotten. The wind carried the scents of burnt hair and charred flesh. Shadows stalked the edges of her vision, figures locked in poses of agony, forever reaching skyward.

At the heart of Ashfen lay the altar: a monolith of cracked stone, blackened by centuries of fire, surrounded by ash pits. Above it, the sky churned red and black, and the air trembled with a low, endless hum.

Atop the altar, something waited.

A figure.

Not living. Not entirely dead.

Its skin was scorched, its face hidden beneath a crown of smoldering thorns. Flames licked from its ribs and eyes, yet it did not burn away. Its mouth moved slowly, mouthing prayers to a god whose name had been long erased.

The Burnt Offering.

Cress knew the stories: if you dared to speak with the Offering, you could bargain. Trade pain for power. Trade life for revenge. But the price was always more than flesh.

Still, she stepped forward.

The Offering's hollow gaze fell upon her.

Smoke curled from its mouth as it whispered:

"What will you give to be whole?"

Cress drew a dagger from her belt—the same blade she had used to put her infected brother to rest. Her hands shook, but not from fear. From hunger—the same hunger the Offering fed.

"I give my memories," she said. "The pain that makes me remember who I lost."

The altar rumbled. Flames surged. Ash swirled into towering shapes—figures from her past, screaming silently as they burned away into nothingness.

The Offering opened its arms.

The fire engulfed her.

When Cress stumbled from Ashfen Hollow hours later, she bore no scars.

But she remembered nothing—no family, no friends, no grief.

Only a deep, endless emptiness that could never be filled.

Behind her, the altar pulsed once more, brighter than before, as if fed by the soul of the woman who thought she could cheat the hunger.

The Burnt Offering had grown stronger.

It always did.

And somewhere across the Deadlands, the scent of smoke carried a new whisper:

"Bring your pain. Bring your hope. Burn for us."