Story 749: The Howl Plague

The streets of Black Hollow were quiet now—too quiet. The screaming had stopped, the cries of the innocent swallowed by the tide of undeath. But silence did not mean peace.

Selene Nocturna stood at the heart of the devastation, her blackened lips curled into a wicked smile. A storm of laughter bubbled up in her throat, growing louder, more manic, as she surveyed her work.

Bodies trembled on the ground, not dead, not alive—trapped in a state of tormented half-existence. Her new plague was a masterpiece, not simply rotting flesh but corrupting the mind.

A woman, her body half-eaten by sickness, lay at Selene’s feet.

"P-please," the woman wheezed, her once-bright eyes now clouded with the plague.

Selene knelt, brushing a decayed strand of hair from the woman's face. "Oh, darling," she whispered, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. "You’re already dead. You just don’t know it yet."

The woman’s breath hitched, her body seizing as the infection deepened its roots. And then—