Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The lanterns lit themselves one by one.

In the catacombs beneath Old Grinvale Cathedral, twelve iron lanterns flickered to life along the arc of a forgotten altar, each suspended above a hooded skeleton resting in a stone alcove. Dust fled the breath of flame, and the stagnant air stirred with an ancient hunger.

Clara Veil felt the pull long before she reached the final stair.

She had dreamt of this place for weeks—a voice murmuring in sleep, guiding her steps beneath the earth, to the realm where light had not touched for centuries. Now, standing beneath the altar's spiked arch, she could see the final lantern. Blackened iron. Unlit. Waiting.

The Thirteenth Lantern.

Beside it stood The Ash Prophet, his once-blind eyes now glowing like molten coals.

"You carry the flame," he rasped, not with voice, but memory.

Clara stepped forward, her hand trembling. In her palm rested a flickering ember—a soul-fragment torn from her own dreams. It pulsed, synchronized with her heartbeat.

The Ash Prophet bowed, robes swirling like smoke. "The lanterns are guardians. Each holds a sin buried in the bones of the Hollow Ones. The thirteenth is the key."

"To what?" she whispered.

"To the gate."

The catacombs rumbled softly, as if the very stone awaited her choice.

She had once been a street performer, a girl with illusions and sleight-of-hand. But this was no trick. Clara had always known something watched her from the mirror's edge, something that whispered her name in rain-slick alleys. It was no accident she had survived the Night of the Bleeding Sky. The Hollow Ones had chosen her long ago.

She raised the ember to the Thirteenth Lantern.

A wind like a scream tore through the crypt.

The other lanterns dimmed. The skeletons began to stir.

One by one, the dead turned their eyeless skulls toward her. From their mouths spilled dark light, snaking toward the central flame.

The lantern ignited.

And Clara fell.

She saw through thirteen pairs of eyes: priests turned mad, saints burned alive, a child who laughed as he opened a vein in the sky. Their sins burned inside her. Their memories etched themselves in blood behind her eyelids.

She understood now. The Thirteenth Lantern was not just a key—it was a door.

And it had opened.

Above, the cathedral's bell tolled thirteen times, though the mechanism had rusted shut decades ago. Citizens paused, listening in horror as the sound echoed through cobbled streets. Windows cracked. Dogs wailed.

And Clara rose from the catacombs, her eyes glowing like twin lanterns.

The Prophet knelt behind her, lips split in ecstasy. "The Herald has come."

In her wake, shadows bled upward like smoke, curling into the sky. Something ancient was stirring, and it wore Clara Veil's smile.