Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The night was silent for the first time since the siege began. Silent—but not still.

Outside the tower, the dead stood in ranks, shoulder to shoulder, their heads tilted toward the horizon as if listening for Damien's next thought. The fog swirled around them like a living sea, the battlefield littered with shredded wings and the broken carcass of the Tyrannosaur.

Zara pressed herself against the wall, her breath shallow. Damien stood at the center of the chamber, one hand raised, his eyes glowing like embers in a dying hearth. The crimson runes flickered with every pulse of his heart.

"Damien…" Her voice cracked. "Please, stop this. You're scaring me."

He lowered his hand slowly. The army outside collapsed to their knees in eerie unison, waiting. A shiver ran through him, equal parts exhaustion and ecstasy. "They hear me," he said, his voice low, almost reverent. "Every thought. Every command. They are mine now."

"No." Zara shook her head violently. "You're theirs. Look at you—you bleed when they bleed, you move when they move. You think you've bound them, but Damien… you're the one in chains."

The Keeper's voice slithered between them, quiet yet cutting. "She is not wrong."

Damien turned sharply, his gaze burning. "What do you mean?"

The Keeper stepped closer, his hood casting deep shadows across his gaunt face. "The bond is a chain that runs both ways. You command them, yes, but their hunger gnaws at you. With each battle, each death you feed into them, the chain tightens. You will feel their thirst in your marrow until you cannot tell where they end and you begin."

Zara's hands shook as she reached for Damien's arm. "Please—listen to him. Before it's too late."

But Damien pulled away, staring out through the fractured roof at the blood-soaked fog. His voice was harsh, defiant. "Too late was before this night. Too late was when the world drowned in corpses and beasts older than time itself. If I am chained, then I will drag the world with me into war."

A sound stirred from the mist below—a deep, guttural bellow unlike the Tyrannosaur's roar. It was lower, older, vibrating through the stone like the groan of the earth itself. The dead outside shuddered, their bodies twitching violently.

Damien staggered, clutching his chest. His eyes rolled back for a moment as the binding stretched taut, connecting him to something vast, something buried. His breath came ragged, words forced through clenched teeth. "There's… something else. Beneath the fog. Something waking."

The Keeper's face hardened, pale eyes narrowing. "The chains falter. Another of the old blood stirs."

Zara grabbed Damien's face in her trembling hands, forcing him to look at her. "Then break the bond before it drags you down with it!"

Damien's eyes flared, crimson and unyielding. "No. I'll bind it too."

The tower shook violently, dust and stone raining down, as if the earth itself recoiled from his vow.

And in the distance, the roar came again—deeper, hungrier, closer.