Story 794: A Banquet of Umbra

The night was thick with the scent of decay. A fog slithered through the streets of the ruined city below The Rotting Cathedral, curling around broken cobblestones like the fingers of the dead. The silence was deceptive—beneath the ground, beneath the cold earth, something stirred.

Selene Nocturna stood at the cathedral’s highest balcony, her tattered cloak billowing as if caught in an unseen breath. Her smile was serene, yet filled with cruel satisfaction. Below, her necrotic energy seeped into the soil, rekindling ancient corpses with a purpose anew.

She tilted her head, listening to the chorus of bones creaking, the soft whimpers of lost souls awakening.

"A banquet awaits," she murmured.

Beside her, the newly-turned girl—**her creation, her fragment, her acolyte—**watched in reverence and fear.

"Mistress, what… will they become?" the girl whispered, her voice trembling.

Selene turned to her, her decayed lips curling.

"What they were meant to be."