Story 1098: All Tombs Open

The ground split with a moan that seemed to come from the marrow of the world itself.

Across the shattered lands—where the oceans had turned to tar and forests had crumbled into ash—the tombs opened.

Not by mortal hands, but by the will of something far older and far crueler.

Stone lids, sealed by ancient rites, burst apart. Coffins, chained and weighted to hold back the cursed dead, splintered.

Crypts yawning wide like hungry mouths spewed forth their forgotten occupants into a twilight sky swarming with black, alien stars.

Mara Quinn and Iri Vance stood at the precipice of the Valley of Graves, watching in horror as the earth bled out its oldest sins.

“They were never buried to rest,” Iri whispered, clutching the Reliquary of Hearts close. “They were imprisoned.”

The things that stumbled free were not mere corpses. They were survivors of ancient wars, sacrifices of cults long turned to dust, kings who had traded their humanity for endless dominion.