Story 1023: Bloodroot Ritual

The forest of Mournvale was forbidden. Not because of beasts or rot—but because it bled.

Every tree oozed crimson sap. Every root twisted like veins through dark earth. Locals whispered that the trees grew not from soil, but from flesh and sacrifice.

At its heart stood the Bloodroot Tree, towering, ancient, pulsing faintly like a living heart. They said it remembered every ritual ever performed beneath its boughs—and demanded more.

Adira had no choice.

Her brother Jalen had been bitten. Not by a zombie, but by something older, deeper—a thing that slithered under the world and surfaced only to feed. The wound wasn’t rotting… it was changing. His eyes had turned black, his breath wheezed in strange syllables, and his shadow no longer matched his shape.

The doctors of the living had failed.

So she turned to the dead.

Led by scraps of old cult journals and whispered rumors, Adira dragged her fevered brother into Mournvale, the path opening like a slit wound before them.