Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

They say the Forest King walks only once each century—when the Moonwood breathes its coldest breath and the trees creak with ancient hunger. His steps are said to sink the earth, his antlers scrape the stars, and his eyes... his eyes are what beasts fear in their sleep.

No song speaks his true name.

Only the tread marks he leaves behind.

It began with a silence.

Not the gentle hush of snowfall, but the suffocating stillness that choked even the wind. Birds fled. Wolves howled, then vanished. The stream behind the village of Grimlowe froze solid in midsummer.

The elders huddled in the longhouse, clutching runes and muttering prayers. They had seen the signs before—in their fathers' time.

The moss had blackened.

The roots bled sap.

The stones whispered in sleep.

The Forest King was coming.

Renna, a hunter's daughter, had never feared the woods. She walked its paths since she could toddle, played among its shadows, knew its secret glades. But tonight, something felt wrong. The usual rustle of foxes and owls had fallen into a deathlike stillness. The forest watched.

And then came the sound.

Not a roar. Not a footstep.

A rhythm.

Boom.

A pause.

Boom.

Like a drum made of mountains.

Renna crouched low beneath the ferns, heart pounding like a snared rabbit. The ground trembled. A deer burst through the trees, eyes wild, but it stopped mid-stride—frozen in place. No breath. No blink. As if time had given up on it.

Then he came.

The Forest King.

His crown was a twisted rack of golden antlers, tangled with leaves that never wilted. His body, half-man, half-stag, towered above the trees, muscles carved like living wood, hooves as black as obsidian.

His face—if it could be called that—was covered in bark. Where eyes should have been, there were empty holes flickering with blue fire.

Renna didn't dare breathe.

The King stepped past her, his hoof sinking six inches into the soil. Each movement left behind a faint shimmer, as if the air warped from his presence. As he passed, dead trees bloomed in seconds, then withered to ash.

He made his way toward the Heart Tree, the ancient elder of the woods. There, he would perform the rite—the silent ritual no mortal had witnessed and stayed sane.

Renna followed.

She couldn't help it.

She had to see.

At the Heart Tree, the Forest King knelt. From his chest, he pulled a seed glowing like the moon. He whispered in a language made of wind and time, then pressed it into the earth.

A new root spiraled out, fast as lightning, and from it grew another tree—smaller, but pulsing with the same eerie life.

Then he turned.

He looked at her.

And Renna understood: the King was not just a guardian.

He was a judge.

He had seen her soul.

He approved.

And then he was gone—vanished like mist at dawn.

In Grimlowe, the frost lifted.

The birds returned.

And in Renna's palm, where once there was nothing, now lay a glowing seed.

She would be the next Warden of the Wood.

And when the Forest King tread again, she would be waiting.

He does not walk often.

But when he does, the forest remembers.