Story 731: The Smiling Plague

Selene Nocturna sat upon the decaying throne of the Rotting Cathedral, her fingers idly toying with a writhing insect—a pale, necrotic locust, its exoskeleton pulsating as if filled with some plague-born fluid.

The corpse at her feet twitched.

Not quite dead, not quite alive.

The former inquisitor, Father Lucien, trembled in the remnants of his robes, his skin an unnatural shade of sickly green. His veins bulged like black roots, pulsing with the disease Selene had graciously gifted him.

He should have been dead days ago.

Instead, he knelt before her, teeth chattering in a mixture of pain, devotion, and fear.

"Your god has forsaken you," Selene purred, her lips curling into something resembling a smile, but not quite human. She let the locust crawl onto Lucien’s face, watching with amusement as he shuddered.

He tried to speak, but his tongue was swollen—blackened, split, and oozing.