Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The ground split with a moan that seemed to come from the marrow of the world itself.

Across the shattered lands—where the oceans had turned to tar and forests had crumbled into ash—the tombs opened.

Not by mortal hands, but by the will of something far older and far crueler.

Stone lids, sealed by ancient rites, burst apart. Coffins, chained and weighted to hold back the cursed dead, splintered.

Crypts yawning wide like hungry mouths spewed forth their forgotten occupants into a twilight sky swarming with black, alien stars.

Mara Quinn and Iri Vance stood at the precipice of the Valley of Graves, watching in horror as the earth bled out its oldest sins.

"They were never buried to rest," Iri whispered, clutching the Reliquary of Hearts close. "They were imprisoned."

The things that stumbled free were not mere corpses. They were survivors of ancient wars, sacrifices of cults long turned to dust, kings who had traded their humanity for endless dominion.

Each one wore a crown of rot, each one carried the wisdom of centuries... and the hunger.

As the first wave of the Dead Priests approached, the valley echoed with their endless, keening chant:

"All tombs open. All gates fall. All flesh returns."

The survivors fought with what little strength remained.

Saltfire bombs hurled into the masses burned bright, but the risen dead simply reknitted their broken limbs and surged forward. Blades shattered on ossified bone; bullets passed through without slowing them.

Desperation drove Mara into the heart of the valley, toward the ruined altar of the Forgotten King. Legend spoke of a relic buried beneath the throne—a blade forged to sever soul from body.

There, within a crypt blackened by time, Mara found it: a sword that pulsed like a living thing, wrapped in chains of silver and sorrow.

As she grasped the hilt, visions flooded her mind—visions of a time when gods walked openly, and the dead sang their praises in endless lament.

Meanwhile, Iri Vance faced the Dead Priests alone atop the hill.

He raised the Reliquary high, and a beam of searing violet light exploded outward, cutting through the throng. But for every priest he felled, three more rose, chanting in a tongue that rattled the bones in his body.

The tombs were not just opening in the valley.

They were opening everywhere.

In distant cities drowned beneath black seas.

In mountains hollowed by forgotten empires.

Even the moons above bore witness, their surfaces cracking as tombs hidden within them released their passengers.

Sword in hand, Mara rejoined Iri at the crumbling gates of the valley. Together, they formed the last line of defense against an army that should have never walked again.

"We can't stop them," Mara said, eyes burning.

"We can only slow them," Iri replied grimly. "Long enough to warn the others."

The sky split open with a sound like a choir of weeping children.

The Dead Priests surged forward.

And with a scream that tore the heavens, Mara and Iri charged into the darkness, ready to carve their defiance into the bones of a world unmade.