Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The storm's scream tore across the sky, a sound not carried by wind but by marrow itself. Every bone in the survivors' bodies vibrated, every scar split wider, as if their very skeletons were being pried loose.

Kael staggered to one knee, coughing smoke instead of breath. His molten scars flickered like dying embers, but his eyes burned hotter. "It's changing. The chains only made it shed one skin."

The fissures pulsed erratically now, their hum breaking into static jolts. The widow's echo still lingered, but it trembled beneath a growing pressure, as though a deeper weight pressed against her vow.

Elara clutched her son, his glow dimming under the ash falling from the sky. The flakes hissed where they landed, burning like acid, eating pits into the ground. She tried to shield him, but her arms blistered, skin sloughing in streaks. "It's not lightning anymore," she rasped. "It's… breath."

The scarred woman ripped her sparking arm free from the earth, her grin feral despite the smoke pouring from her nostrils. She swept the air with her broken haft like it was a weapon, scattering the falling ash. "Let it choke me. I'll spit it back in its face."

The farmer slammed his drum, desperate, the beats rattling off-time. The ash muffled the sound, swallowing each strike before it could echo. His eyes widened in panic. "It's eating the sound—taking it into itself!"

Above them, the storm's voice returned, guttural and vast, layered like collapsing caverns:

"Chains are marrow. Echoes are bone. Ash is breath. You breathe me now."

Kael forced himself upright, veins glowing beneath scorched skin. He grabbed a fistful of burning ash and crushed it in his palm, the molten scars consuming it. His roar shook the ground: "Then I'll breathe fire back into you!" He exhaled, and from his throat spilled not smoke but light, a torrent of searing flame that split the ash veil.

The fissures surged at his defiance, the widow's echo strengthening for a heartbeat, humming in unison with his fire.

Elara's son raised trembling fingers toward the sky, his glow now faint but steady. "She says… the ash is hollow. It can't fill itself—it steals from us." His eyes burned brighter. "So don't give it breath. Burn it empty."

The scarred woman barked a broken laugh, coughing blood. "Starve the bastard? That I can do." She pressed her charred arm into the ground, forcing her fire-starved flesh to drink the ash pouring over her. Her body shook, convulsing, then spat the stolen breath back as sparks that lit the fissures anew.

The storm writhed, its ash-cloud body twisting, unraveling at the edges. The scream rose again, no longer furious but strained, frayed.

Kael, chest heaving, raised his blistered hand to the sky. "Widow, hold with us. Chains, echo, fire—burn it hollow."

For the first time, the storm faltered, not in retreat but in hesitation.

And in that pause, the battlefield held its breath.