Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition
Chapter 765 - 765: Story 765: The Veil of Mourning

Selene Nocturna stood before a tarnished mirror, her reflection a haunting vision of death and divinity entwined. Her cloak, once woven with the whispers of the damned, now bore new sigils—etched in fresh rot, pulsating with an unseen curse. The transformation was almost complete.

She raised a delicate, clawed hand to the edges of her hood, pulling it back just enough for the dim, unnatural glow of her eyes to pierce through the gloom. Her once-blonde locks had darkened, streaked with the crimson of old sins.

"Mourning robes for the Pale Widow," she murmured, admiring the elegance of decay.

A rasping breath slithered through the chamber.

She turned.

One of her Unhallowed, a knight reforged in ruin, stood at the threshold. Its jaw barely held together, and yet, it spoke.

"The veil is lifted, Mother of Rot. The wraiths whisper your name."

Selene smiled, stepping forward with effortless grace. She had long awaited this moment—the time when the veil between life and undeath would be nothing more than a brittle thread.

"Then it is time to greet them."

The Rotting Cathedral's grand hall was bathed in spectral light, a sickly blue haze thick with the echoes of the forgotten. Selene strode forward, the weight of her presence bending the air around her.

Before her, a procession of the deceased stood in silent reverence. Their bodies, wrapped in the remnants of funeral garb, swayed as if caught in a breath of wind that no longer touched the living.

At the heart of the procession, the Veilborn Wraiths took form—phantoms sculpted from sorrow, their faces obscured beneath gauze-like shadows.

"You summon us, Widow of the Pale Night," one of them intoned, its voice hollow, eternal.

Selene dipped her head. "The veil is thinnest. The world mourns, and I shall show it why."

The wraiths whispered, a symphony of lamentations.

"What would you ask of us?"

Selene lifted her arms, her fingertips pulsing with necrotic energy. The air thickened, the walls wept blackened ichor.

"A kingdom built not of stone and steel, but of bone and sorrow. A dominion where the dead no longer whisper, but wail in triumph."

The wraiths stirred, their ethereal forms trembling with anticipation.

"Then we shall weep, Selene Nocturna. And the world shall drown in mourning."

Selene's lips curled into a wicked grin. Her army was no longer flesh-bound. It was spectral, eternal—woven from the cries of the forgotten.

The Pale Widow had ascended.

And the world was not ready.