Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The scream shook the sky until even the stars seemed to shiver. The mask's cracks widened, jagged as lightning scars, spilling light that writhed like trapped spirits. From within poured faces—thousands, layered over one another, eyes glowing with grief and fury. Their mouths opened together, not in silence, but in song.

It was a song of hunger.

The farmer stumbled back from his drum, clutching his ears as blood trickled down his neck. "It's… it's singing through them. Every soul it stole—it's making them its choir."

Elara shielded her son, her body trembling as the boy's glow flickered in rhythm with the terrible harmony. His small voice cracked: "They're calling me. They… know my name." His chest arched toward the sky as if pulled by invisible strings.

Kael roared, seizing the boy's hand, his molten scars burning brighter than ever. "Don't answer! That song isn't yours—it's theirs!" He looked to the fissures, his teeth grit so hard they bled. "Widow! Echo louder!"

The fissures pulsed, the widow's vow rising in counter-hum—a steady heartbeat pounding against the storm's endless choir. For a moment the stolen song faltered, fractured by her rhythm.

The scarred woman staggered forward, her half-dead arm still burning with ash-fire. She thrust it toward the mask, snarling through gritted teeth. "If it wants a choir, then let it hear us!" She screamed, a raw, jagged sound, forcing her broken voice against the storm's harmony. Her cry tore her throat bloody, but it wove into the fissures, joining the widow's echo.

The farmer caught her defiance. His hands shook, but he struck the drum again—off-beat, clashing, imperfect. The sound grated against the stolen choir, shredding its harmony into discord. "Sing wrong! Break its song apart!" he gasped.

Elara pressed her lips to her son's ear, rocking him, whispering fiercely: "Your name belongs here, not there. Say it—say it to me."

The boy's lips quivered, then moved: "Mother." The word was faint, but it cut through the storm like a knife. His glow steadied, pulsing warm instead of cold.

The mask writhed, its cracks deepening, stolen faces twisting as the discord grew. The storm's voice bellowed through them all:

"You unmake the weave. You tear what I have gathered. But even torn, they are mine!"

Kael hurled both arms upward, his scars blazing like molten chains. "Not yours. Not anymore!" He pulled, and the fissures answered, dragging light upward into the fractures of the mask. The widow's echo throbbed, the scarred woman's scream raked the air, the farmer's broken rhythm split the harmony—and Elara's boy glowed brighter, his light reaching the cracks.

The storm-face convulsed. Some of the stolen faces inside screamed—not with hunger, but with release—as shards of the mask broke away, dissolving into ash.

But for every soul freed, others clawed forward, pressing against the cracks, desperate to remain bound. The song wavered between salvation and damnation, tearing itself apart.

Kael's knees buckled, his scars splitting deeper. "Hold! Don't let it close!"

The sky shuddered, its mask a ruin of voices, each one screaming to be heard.