Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The dead didn't move at first.

They only stared—hundreds of them—faces slack, flesh in varying stages of ruin, eyes glowing with the same faint light she'd seen in the basin figure.

Mira's breath came in sharp bursts. Her hands were still wet, the black liquid clinging like oil that refused to drip away. The ground beneath her feet pulsed faintly, as if it had a heartbeat.

The tether was different now. Not a pull, but a presence. It hummed inside her skull like a swarm of bees, filling every thought with static.

One of the corpses—a woman with half her jaw missing—took a slow, deliberate step forward. Then another.

They began to move together.

Not like a mob. Like a procession.

The red sky above rippled, and for the first time Mira realized there was something in it—vast shapes, shadowy and fluid, moving just behind the color. One of them shifted, and its outline almost resembled a giant hand reaching down.

The dead parted, making a narrow path. At the far end stood a structure—half ruin, half cathedral. Its spires clawed upward, yet its walls sagged as if melting. A gate of black iron waited, slightly ajar.

The tether urged her forward.

She walked, the dead closing in silently behind her, their shuffling footsteps in perfect unison. Every now and then, one would turn its head toward her, and she'd catch the faintest twitch of a smile.

As she neared the gate, a figure stepped out from behind it. Tall, wrapped in strips of faded red cloth that fluttered as though in water. Its head was covered by a mask carved like a human face—expressionless, yet cracked down the middle.

"Mira," the masked one said, voice deep but strangely melodic.

"You drank. That means the bridge is waking."

Her voice was hoarse. "What… am I bridging?"

The mask tilted. "Life and what waits beneath it. They've been patient, but the gates must open now."

The dead behind her shifted, their heads turning toward the cathedral as though awaiting some signal.

Mira shook her head. "I never agreed—"

The masked figure cut her off with a single, soft clap of its hands.

Instantly, the ground split in a perfect line from where she stood to the cathedral's gate. From the fissure poured a choking fog, pale and cold, wrapping around her ankles.

"You did agree," the voice said. "When you stepped through the first door. When you looked into the mirrors. The living don't walk away from such choices."

The tether flared so violently she almost fell. The red sky deepened, the shadowy forms above pressing closer.

"Mira," the voice said again, but this time it came from every corpse around her. Hundreds of mouths moving in perfect sync.

"It's time to march."

The masked one turned and walked through the gate.

The dead followed.

And with every step she took after them, Mira felt less alive.