Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

They said the chapel bled only once before—on the day it was built. When the cornerstone was laid, a monk had collapsed on the altar steps, blood pouring from his mouth, screaming, "He walks beneath!"

No one listened. Until now.

Clara Veil stood at the edge of the chapel ruins, breath coiling in the winter air. The once-holy site of Saint Braxius was now a shattered husk. The stained glass windows were shards in the snow. The bell tower leaned like a dying sentinel. Yet the stone altar remained untouched—pristine, perfect, and utterly wrong.

She hadn't come by chance.

The whispers had called her name. In her dreams, in puddles, in mirrors. Over and over: "Come to the red stone. Offer. See."

She stepped over broken pews, snow crunching beneath her boots. Blood trailed in patterns—impossible for any human body to lose and still move. And yet the tracks led into the chapel's heart.

There, kneeling before the altar, was a man in robes soaked dark.

He turned slowly.

His eyes were gone. Not torn or gouged—just missing, like they'd never been there. A red grin split his face.

"Sister Clara," he said. "You bear the voice."

She clutched the lantern tighter. "Who are you?"

"I am the one who listens when the Hollow One hums. And tonight, the stone will drink again."

The chapel rumbled.

Beneath the altar, cracks spiderwebbed across the floor. From them rose steam, thick and iron-scented. The man crawled forward and laid his forehead against the stone, whispering in a tongue Clara instinctively knew—yet wished she didn't.

She stepped back.

The blood trails rose. Not splashed or spilled—they rose up, shaping symbols midair. A sigil. An eye. A spiral eating its own tail. Each beat of her heart felt heavier, like gravity had turned inward.

Then the man screamed.

His body spasmed. His back arched unnaturally. Blood poured from his pores, each drop levitating before striking the altar. The stone turned darker. Warmer.

Alive.

Clara's lantern flickered. Shadows began to move against the walls—shadows without bodies.

"Stop it!" she shouted. "You'll bring it through!"

But it was too late.

The stone wept blood now, thick and steady, like a wound reopened after centuries. The sigil blazed red in the air. The shadows began to chant.

Clara threw the lantern.

Glass shattered. Flame burst. The chanting ceased.

Smoke choked the chapel as fire licked the walls. The robed man fell still, smoke curling from his robes.

And beneath the altar, the rumbling stopped.

But Clara knew it wasn't over.

As she turned to leave, she saw a final message seared into the stone, visible only through the rising smoke:

"He stirs when the stone remembers."

And now the stone remembered.

The fire would be blamed on lightning.

But the truth would linger—beneath the stone, beneath the town, beneath the skin of the world.

And the Hollow One would wait.