The candlelight in The Rotting Cathedral flickered, casting sickly shadows over the damp stone walls. The scent of decay was thick in the air—a mixture of damp earth, old parchment, and something far more putrid.
Selene Nocturna sat upon her high seat, a throne of bone and rusted iron, her lips curled into an almost serene smile. Her hood obscured most of her face, but the dark ichor staining her pale lips hinted at the feast she had just indulged in.
Before her, a body lay crumpled—a man who had once been a devoted priest, now nothing but a hollow husk. His skin had been drained of color, shriveled like old parchment, his mouth frozen in a scream that had never finished.
Selene sighed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
"He was not enough," she muttered, her voice smooth yet filled with quiet hunger.
At her feet, a young woman knelt, her freshly-turned form still twitching from the transformation. The same girl from before—the one Selene had remade in her own vision.
She gazed up at her mistress, her once-soft features now sharpened by undeath. Her lips, once pink and full, were now tinged with the same dark ichor. Her new hunger was evident in the way her fingers curled against the stone floor.
"What… am I?" the girl rasped.
Selene leaned forward, caressing the girl's cheek with gloved fingers.
"You are an extension of me," she whispered, "A beautiful fragment of my will."
The girl's breath hitched—a reflex, unnecessary now, yet still lingering. She stared at her hands, at the faint traces of dark mist that still clung to her fingertips.
"It… it feels like I am rotting."
Selene laughed, low and sweet.
"Oh, my dear… you are. That is the beauty of it."
She rose from her throne, her cloak of tattered silk trailing behind her as she walked toward the great stained-glass window overlooking the ruined city below.
Beyond the shattered glass, the night stretched endlessly, broken only by the dim glow of lanterns carried by the living—the foolish, unsuspecting souls who still believed they were safe.
"But rot is not the end, little one. It is the beginning."
With a slow, deliberate motion, she raised her hand. A pulse of necrotic energy rippled through the air, and below, the graves trembled.
One by one, the long-dead began to stir.
Bones scraped against the earth, withered hands broke free from their earthen prisons, and the soft, agonized moans of the awakened began to fill the night.
Selene turned back to her new creation.
"Tonight, we feast properly."
The girl swallowed hard, her hunger clawing at her insides.
She rose to her feet and followed her mistress into the night.