Story 762: The Hollow’s Toll

The Rotting Cathedral stood in silence, its walls still humming with the echoes of Kruger’s final scream. His voice, now woven into the Hymn of the Hollow, joined the endless lament of lost souls.

Selene Nocturna smiled, her fingers trailing over the blackened stone. The curse had claimed him, just as it had claimed so many before. Yet, something lingered—an aftertaste in the magic, a defiance that should have crumbled.

She turned, her blood-darkened robes flowing like living shadows.

A disturbance rippled through the cathedral’s ruined halls.

Someone approached.

The air stirred with decay and something older—an intrusion into her domain.

Selene’s smile faltered.

Then she heard it.

Footsteps. Steady. Heavy. Measured.

Not the shuffle of the cursed. Not the wail of the broken.

A predator’s approach.