Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The villagers of Grimhollow whispered of him only in hushed tones—The Ash Prophet, the one who burned out his own eyes to see the true shape of the world. He hadn't aged in decades. His flesh was gray and flaked like charcoal, his voice like dried leaves scraping stone.

And yet, those who sought forbidden truths still came.

Even if they never left.

Tonight, Madame Grin walked the scorched path to his shrine, her lantern sputtering in the midnight fog. The village was dying. Infants born without eyes. Crops that bled when harvested. Something was crawling through the soil beneath their feet—something old.

Only the Prophet might know what it meant.

The shrine was once a chapel, now blackened by soot. The walls bore handprints, burned into the stone like memories too painful to forget. The altar was a slab of obsidian, and behind it sat the Prophet, cross-legged, blind sockets glowing faintly with violet flame.

He did not look up. He never needed to.

"You've brought me rot," he said. "Desperation tastes like salt and ash."

Madame Grin stepped closer, removing her veil. Her lips trembled.

"I need to know what's beneath the graves. The Hollow One… he's waking something."

The Prophet ran his fingers along the grooves in the altar. They shimmered with shifting runes—a language older than time.

"Every root leads to the circle. Every circle births a curse."

She slammed her hand on the altar.

"Tell me!"

The flames in his sockets flared.

"Very well."

With a twitch of his burnt fingers, the air thickened. Smoke poured from the cracks in the floor. Madame Grin fell to her knees, coughing, as visions flooded her mind:

A cathedral turned inside-out.

A child with no mouth screaming from the sky.

A tree of bone that bore lanterns filled with weeping souls.

"This is your price," he whispered. "To see is to share. The curse must pass."

She clutched her head as whispers flooded her ears—not thoughts, but prophecies.

"The roots are not roots. They are veins," he said. "And the heart they feed… is waking."

She opened her eyes.

He was gone.

Only ash remained where he sat, slowly swirling into the shape of an eye that blinked once—then scattered into the wind.

Madame Grin stumbled out of the chapel, her skin dusted in soot, her pupils now ringed with violet fire.

She no longer needed a lantern to see in the dark.

But as she returned to the village, she realized the true horror:

Every time she blinked, something else blinked back.

The curse was hers now.

And behind her, the shrine burned without flame—crumbling slowly into dust, as if it had never existed at all.