Story 1082: The Preacher’s Husk

In the town of Hollowmere, no one spoke of the church anymore. Once the beating heart of the settlement, it now stood choked in creeping vines and silence, its bell tower crooked like a broken finger pointing skyward. It was said the last sermon echoed through bone and marrow, long after the congregation was gone.

The preacher’s name had been Father Orlin Vex, a man who once wielded scripture like fire. But the plague came—a rot of flesh and soul—and one by one, his flock began to change. Their eyes turned milky, their voices hollow. They wandered the pews as if sleepwalking. Praying to something beneath the chapel floorboards.

Orlin’s faith cracked.

Desperate to save his people, he locked the doors one stormy evening and began what he claimed would be “the sermon of salvation.” No one left that night. The candles were still burning days later. And when the constables broke in, they found no blood, no bodies—only Orlin, standing at the pulpit, unmoving.

He had become a husk.