Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The fissure sealed over her body with a hiss, swallowing the widow into molten stone. Yet the air still trembled where she had fallen, as if her vow had not gone silent but lingered in the marrow of the land itself.

Elara clutched her son against her chest, rocking him despite the storm's rage overhead. His glow pulsed faintly, uneven, but it was his own. She pressed her blistered lips to his hair, whispering through sobs, "She gave herself for you. Don't let her be forgotten."

Kael knelt by the fissure, his hands still blazing with molten scars. He dragged his nails across the stone, leaving streaks of glowing blood. His voice cracked, not from weakness but from rage. "She didn't fall—she bound herself. If we falter now, we rip her sacrifice apart."

The scarred woman spat ash, her grin ragged and bloodied. "Then let's make her our chain. If she's in the ground, she's with us still. Let the bastard pull, and we'll yank back twice as hard."

The farmer leaned on his drum, his body broken but his hands twitching with stubborn rhythm. He struck once, twice, and the echoes lingered longer than they should have. The fissures answered back—not with his beat, but with hers, the widow's vow reverberating through stone. His eyes widened, wet and shining. "She's not gone. She's playing with me."

Above them, the storm's laugh faltered. Its voice rolled like collapsing towers, mocking yet edged with strain:

"Yes. Bind yourselves. Sink your marrow into chains. You think it holds me—it only makes me whole."

A column of fractured light shot downward, piercing the fissure where the widow had vanished. The ground bucked, throwing Kael backward, but he rolled to his knees again, snarling through clenched teeth. "Not while I breathe."

Elara's son stirred, lifting his face weakly. His eyes glowed like broken glass, yet within them flickered something softer. "I hear her… she's singing beneath us." His voice wavered, but the glow steadied. "She says… it doesn't want her. It fears her."

The scarred woman barked laughter through a cough of blood. "Good. Then let her haunt it. Let her choke it with her silence."

Kael pressed his palms to the earth again, his scars blazing brighter than before, fueled by the widow's echo. "She's still here. Through her, through us—we hold the cage."

Elara lifted her boy, pressing his small hands to the fissure. "Then lend her your light, my son. Give her what she needs to bind it tighter."

The boy's glow seeped into the cracks, spreading outward like roots. The storm howled, its forming body shattering back into dust. For a heartbeat, the laugh fractured into a scream.

Kael rose, chest heaving, and leveled his molten gaze at the sky. "Hear her, Unborn. Every drop you claim, every life you take—it will not be yours. It will be your chain."

And the fissures pulsed with the widow's echo, a heartbeat of defiance, even as the storm gathered to strike again.