Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition-Chapter 923 Story The Hollow Refuge
923: Story 923: The Hollow Refuge
923: Story 923: The Hollow Refuge
The world around them lurched.
One moment, they were fleeing the Rotting King, diving into the abyss beyond the gate.
The next, they landed hard on damp soil, the scent of decay thick in the air.
Mira groaned, rolling onto her side.
Draven was already up, shotgun in hand, scanning the shrouded forest around them.
Gnarled trees twisted toward a sky drenched in eerie blue light, their branches resembling clawed hands.
The air felt alive, like it was breathing with them.
Zara wiped blood from her lip, eyes flicking to Elias.
“You good?”
Elias nodded, but his fingers trembled around his revolver.
“Where the hell are we?”
Mira pushed herself up, heart hammering.
She still held the Cursed Book, its pages humming with faint energy.
It had brought them here, but why?
Then—movement.
Draven spun, aiming at a crouching figure just beyond the trees.
A woman, wrapped in tattered cloth, her skin pale and stretched tight over her bones.
Shackles clung to her wrists, rusted and broken.
Her hollow eyes lifted to meet theirs.
Black tears leaked from their corners.
“You should not have come here,” she whispered, her voice fragile as dying embers.
Mira took a step closer.
“Where is here?”
The woman turned her gaze toward the looming structure behind them—a decrepit mansion, its iron gate creaking in the wind.
It was massive, gothic spires piercing the sky, its windows nothing but black voids.
“The Hollow Refuge,” the woman said.
“A place for the lost… and the damned.”
Zara cursed under her breath.
“Well, that sounds welcoming.”
Before anyone could respond, a shriek tore through the silence.
It came from the mansion.
The woman flinched.
“They’re awake.”
From the shadows of the trees, other figures emerged—gaunt, spectral remnants of people long dead.
Their mouths stitched shut, their hands raised in supplication toward the towering estate.
Draven exhaled.
“Of course.
Another haunted nightmare.”
Elias checked his bullets.
“So what’s the move?
We don’t stay out here, right?”
Mira looked back at the Cursed Book.
It had brought them here for a reason.
Something inside that mansion was calling to them.
She turned to the woman.
“If we go in there… will we make it out?”
The woman did not blink.
“You may leave,” she said.
“But you will never be the same.”
A shadow moved behind one of the mansion’s tallest windows.
Watching.
Waiting.
Draven tightened his grip on his shotgun.
“We don’t have a choice, do we?”
The front doors of the Hollow Refuge creaked open on their own.
A cold wind beckoned them inside.
Mira swallowed hard.
“Let’s go.”
They stepped forward, into the darkness beyond the threshold.
And the doors slammed shut behind them.
