The town of Black Hollow had been dying long before the Pale Widow arrived. The air was thick with decay, the streets deserted, save for those too sick to flee. Rats scurried between the bodies of the fallen, their eyes gleaming with an unnatural hunger. No one knew when the sickness had begun, only that it spread like wildfire—first fevers, then black veins creeping beneath the skin, and finally, the whispers.
At first, they were only faint murmurs in the ears of the infected. But soon, the voices spoke of ancient secrets, of forgotten gods and the promise of eternal life. Those who listened too long lost their minds. And then, they rose again.
Deep within the ruins of The Rotting Cathedral, Selene Nocturna watched her work unfold. Cloaked in shadows, she traced symbols in the dirt, her pale fingers dripping with a viscous black ichor. The plague was taking hold, twisting flesh and bone into something far worse than mere death.
A figure staggered into the cathedral, his breathing ragged. Captain Aldric, a soldier from the last remaining Black Hollow militia, collapsed before her, his once-strong frame reduced to a husk of trembling flesh. "What… are you?" he croaked, his body wracked with fever.
Selene knelt beside him, tilting his chin with a single, clawed finger. "A question better asked of yourself," she whispered, her voice like silk soaked in venom. "Tell me, Captain—how does it feel to hear them calling?"
Aldric's bloodshot eyes widened. The whispers—the ones he had fought so hard to ignore—became deafening. They spoke in a tongue he could not understand, but their meaning was clear. Obey. Serve. Become.
"No…" he rasped, struggling against the pull of her magic.
Selene sighed, almost disappointed. "Poor thing," she murmured, pressing a vial of plague alchemy to his lips. "Drink, and be freed of choice."
The liquid burned as it slid down his throat. Within moments, his convulsions ceased. His breathing slowed. His skin cracked, dark veins slithering like worms beneath his flesh. And then, as his heart stopped, his lips curled into a smile.
Selene rose, watching as Aldric stood once more—not as a man, but as something reborn in her image. "Go," she commanded. "The Widow's Choir must grow."
From the town below, the first screams rang out. The plague had spread, and Black Hollow would soon be hers.