Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

Mira's pulse hammered against her ribs.

"Elena… she thinks you're dead," she whispered, barely able to find her voice.

The man on the altar swallowed hard, the cords in his neck straining. "They wouldn't let me die," he rasped. "They… feed me pieces of them."

The candles sputtered, as if the shadows had exhaled all at once. The thing above the altar moved again—slow, deliberate, dragging its bulk down the wall.

It wasn't a shape Mira could name. Its body was a weave of sinew and bone, crawling in ways a spine shouldn't allow. Where a face should have been, a cluster of small, milk-white eyes blinked in random rhythms.

The tether in her chest went rigid.

Step forward.

Her boots scraped against the stone floor.

The man's eyes widened in panic. "No! Don't—"

A wet click came from the creature. The sound echoed like an insect's mandibles snapping shut. It slid between her and the altar, curling low, the stench of decay rolling off it.

The tether didn't care. Her legs carried her closer until she was near enough to see threads of flesh stretched taut between its ribs. Inside those gaps, something squirmed—tiny, fingerlike protrusions pressing outward against the skin.

"Chosen," the creature hissed—not in the alpha's deep growl, but in a brittle, papery whisper.

Her vision wavered. The altar, the candles, the man—gone. She was somewhere else again.

A plain of endless graves stretched to every horizon, and in the middle stood a single, massive pillar of bone. Chains as thick as tree trunks wrapped around it, and at their center… a figure.

The figure's head turned toward her. No eyes, no mouth—only smooth skin. But she could feel its attention.

Its thoughts slid into her mind like knives:

You are the bridge. Open the way.

The vision shattered.

Mira gasped, finding herself back in the chamber. The creature's chest pressed against hers now, its many eyes all staring into her face. The tether throbbed with unbearable heat.

The man on the altar was crying—no sound, just tears cutting through the grime on his cheeks.

"Mira, please…"

She reached for him, but the creature's clawed limb swept between them, forcing her back. The candles flared, and a circle of bone emerged from the floor around the altar, sealing him inside.

The tether's pull turned into a sharp yank, dragging her attention to a door at the far wall. She hadn't noticed it before—small, cracked, with light flickering beneath it.

The creature stepped aside, as if granting her passage.

Her instincts screamed to run. To take Elena's brother and break through the circle, drag him out. But her body was no longer entirely hers.

One step toward the door.

Then another.

Behind her, she heard the man whisper something just before the door swallowed her in light:

"They're not the worst thing in here…"