Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition
Chapter 941 - 941: Story 941: The Forsaken Gateway

The iron gate groaned as it yawned open, revealing nothing but swirling darkness beyond. The Hollow Junction trembled, ancient stones cracking beneath an unseen force. The Hollow Man lurched forward, its mass of writhing flesh dragging across the floor, mouthed screams overlapping like a broken choir.

Draven didn't hesitate. He fired into the thing's shifting body, but the bullets vanished, swallowed by the void of its flesh. It wasn't dying. It wasn't even living.

"The book—use it!" Zara shouted, hacking through the skeletal hands still trying to drag them down.

Mira clutched the Cursed Book, its pages fluttering violently as if something inside was waking. The whispers from its depths merged with the Junction's wailing spirits, growing into an unbearable crescendo of agony.

The Trainmaster merely watched, his skeletal grin stretching wider. "You were never meant to leave."

Then the shadows moved.

From the darkness beyond the gate, something stepped forward. Thin. Small. A girl.

Her dress was tattered, her face hidden beneath a mess of tangled black hair, but when she raised her head, her eyes burned like dying stars.

The Forsaken Girl.

The Hollow Man froze. So did the train's dead, their muttering silenced as she raised her hand toward them. The air grew cold, frost spidering along the station walls.

"Leave," she whispered.

The Hollow Man screamed, its form convulsing violently, before it was ripped backward, dragged into the open gate as if an invisible force had seized it. The Junction itself began to collapse, the lanterns shattering, the station breaking apart like a rotted carcass.

Draven grabbed Mira's arm. "Go! Now!"

The survivors raced toward the collapsing platform, jumping over the splintering ground, avoiding the grasping hands of the dead that refused to let go. Elias barely dodged as a section of the train imploded, sucking itself into nothingness.

Only the Trainmaster remained still, watching as the abyss swallowed everything. His skeletal eyes turned to the Forsaken Girl.

"You are the key," he murmured. "And the lock."

She tilted her head. "And you are already dead."

With a flick of her fingers, the Trainmaster crumbled into dust, his essence pulled into the darkness just as the gate slammed shut behind them.

Then everything went silent.

The survivors collapsed on the cold earth. The Hollow Junction was gone, leaving them in the middle of nowhere, beneath a sky too full of stars.

Zara wiped blood from her cheek. "Where the hell are we?"

Mira turned to the Forsaken Girl, who simply stared at her with those haunting, starless eyes.

"Somewhere worse," she whispered.

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