The flickering torchlight cast long, trembling shadows across the ruined chapel walls of Black Hollow. The once-sacred space had been overtaken by decay, fungal overgrowth, and the stench of something long dead but never truly at rest.
Kruger tightened his grip on his rifle, his squad forming a defensive line behind him. The reanimated corpses of the fallen townfolk stood unnervingly still, their glowing eyes locked onto the hooded figure before them.
Selene Nocturna—The Pale Widow.
But she was not the same haunting specter they had seen moments before. No, now she smiled.
A wicked, bloodstained grin stretched across her face, jagged with cruel delight. Her golden hair, streaked with filth, spilled from beneath her hood, framing her sharp features. Her blackened lips, her gleaming teeth smeared with something dark and fresh, made her look less like a woman and more like a demon in disguise.
"Are you afraid, General?" she asked, tilting her head with unsettling amusement. Her voice carried a melody, a hypnotic lilt that crawled under the skin.
Kruger steadied his breath, but he could feel the weight of her voice, pressing against his thoughts, clawing into his resolve.
"This isn't a battle, it's a trap," Vale muttered beside him, eyes darting between the unmoving undead.
"No," Kruger replied. "It's a test."
Selene's grin widened. "Clever man."
She stepped forward, moving with the unnatural grace of a shadow slipping between candlelight. In her pale, skeletal hands, she held a vial of sickly green liquid, pulsing with eerie luminescence. She rolled it between her fingers, watching the liquid swirl, before suddenly tossing it to the ground.
The glass shattered. A thick black mist erupted, crawling over the stone like living tendrils.
Kruger and his men recoiled, covering their mouths, but it was already inside them—a sweet, rotting scent that sent a wave of dizziness through their minds.
One of the soldiers, Corporal Reyes, staggered forward. His body twitched violently, his veins darkening beneath his skin.
"No… no, no, no—" he gasped, clawing at his throat as his own shadow began to move on its own, peeling away from his feet like a living specter.
Selene laughed softly. "A gift," she whispered. "My alchemy does more than rot flesh—it unravels the soul."
Reyes's body twisted unnaturally. His shadow lunged, consuming him in an instant, leaving only a hollowed husk standing there, whispering in a voice that was no longer his own.
The bullet struck nothing—Reyes was already gone.
Selene giggled, stepping backward into the darkness, her golden hair vanishing into the black. "We'll play again soon, General."
Then, with a whispering sigh, she and her army of shadows disappeared, leaving only silence… and the distant, echoing sound of laughter.