Horror - 2025
The Beast of Gévaudan [June 2025]
Between 1764 and 1767, in the rugged and forested province of Gévaudan (now part of Lozère), a monstrous creature, or creatures, terrorized the countryside, killing over 100 people, many of them women and children.
Witnesses claimed it was no ordinary wolf: too big, too fast, bullet-resistant (of course), and intelligent, like it read the room and then ate the people in it.
The Lament of Gévaudan
In wooded vale where whispers creep,
And shepherds dare not fall to sleep,
There stalks a beast with eyes of flame,
No man alive has tamed its name.
Its coat is red as rusted blade,
Its tail a lash through field and glade,
With jaws that cracked both bone and vow,
It hunts the lamb, the maid, the plough.
They say it came with devil's breath,
To dance with dusk and deal out death,
A hunter's shot, a soldier's snare
All broke like dreams against its glare.
By priestly hand and noble steed,
They sought to purge the cursed breed,
Yet still it roamed through midnight's veil,
A shadow crowned with thorn and tale.
Now mothers hush their babes to rest,
With silver cross upon their chest,
And warn them all, stay near the light,
Lest Bête returns to feast tonight.
Witnesses claimed it was no ordinary wolf: too big, too fast, bullet-resistant (of course), and intelligent, like it read the room and then ate the people in it.
The Lament of Gévaudan
In wooded vale where whispers creep,
And shepherds dare not fall to sleep,
There stalks a beast with eyes of flame,
No man alive has tamed its name.
Its coat is red as rusted blade,
Its tail a lash through field and glade,
With jaws that cracked both bone and vow,
It hunts the lamb, the maid, the plough.
They say it came with devil's breath,
To dance with dusk and deal out death,
A hunter's shot, a soldier's snare
All broke like dreams against its glare.
By priestly hand and noble steed,
They sought to purge the cursed breed,
Yet still it roamed through midnight's veil,
A shadow crowned with thorn and tale.
Now mothers hush their babes to rest,
With silver cross upon their chest,
And warn them all, stay near the light,
Lest Bête returns to feast tonight.
The Hermit of Hunger [June 2025]
There was once a man named Garnier, a quiet hermit who lived alone in the woods outside the village of Dore.
He was strange, yes, but harmless...or so they thought... He spoke to no one but the trees, bartered wild herbs for bread, and vanished before dusk like he was afraid of his own shadow.
But one winter came too early, too cruel. Game vanished. The streams froze. And Garnier… changed.
They say he was found kneeling at the edge of a frozen brook, weeping over a child’s shoe, hands red and shaking. He claimed it was wolves. But his nails were growing longer. His teeth had sharpened. And he never blinked anymore.
Then came the blood moon.
The villagers heard screams echoing from the woods, not of prey... but of something transforming. The bodies found after bore no clean wounds. They were gnawed. Half-eaten.
Ritual stones etched with ancient runes had been unearthed around the forest, runes not seen since the days when the Old Gods were worshipped with flesh.
One elder, mad with guilt, confessed: the forest had once been home to a spirit of famine, bound by hunger and runes of restraint. Garnier had unknowingly made camp on its altar. Every prayer, every whispered plea for survival? Fed the thing inside him.
Now, The Hermit of Hunger prowls the deep woods. He wears the ragged remains of his old monk’s robe, but his form is warped... a creature of sinew and shadow, with glowing eyes and a blackened heart that pulses with runes no living soul dares translate.
They say he cannot be killed by blade or fire.
They say he does not age.
They say if you're foolish enough to enter the forest alone... he won’t kill you immediately.
He'll watch you first.
Because Garnier was hungry once.
And now, he is hunger.
He was strange, yes, but harmless...or so they thought... He spoke to no one but the trees, bartered wild herbs for bread, and vanished before dusk like he was afraid of his own shadow.
But one winter came too early, too cruel. Game vanished. The streams froze. And Garnier… changed.
They say he was found kneeling at the edge of a frozen brook, weeping over a child’s shoe, hands red and shaking. He claimed it was wolves. But his nails were growing longer. His teeth had sharpened. And he never blinked anymore.
Then came the blood moon.
The villagers heard screams echoing from the woods, not of prey... but of something transforming. The bodies found after bore no clean wounds. They were gnawed. Half-eaten.
Ritual stones etched with ancient runes had been unearthed around the forest, runes not seen since the days when the Old Gods were worshipped with flesh.
One elder, mad with guilt, confessed: the forest had once been home to a spirit of famine, bound by hunger and runes of restraint. Garnier had unknowingly made camp on its altar. Every prayer, every whispered plea for survival? Fed the thing inside him.
Now, The Hermit of Hunger prowls the deep woods. He wears the ragged remains of his old monk’s robe, but his form is warped... a creature of sinew and shadow, with glowing eyes and a blackened heart that pulses with runes no living soul dares translate.
They say he cannot be killed by blade or fire.
They say he does not age.
They say if you're foolish enough to enter the forest alone... he won’t kill you immediately.
He'll watch you first.
Because Garnier was hungry once.
And now, he is hunger.
Crimson Grace [June 2025]
The Bloody Countess: Elizabeth Bathory Reborn
They called her Countess, but even that title trembled in her shadow. Elizabeth Bathory, born of nobility, raised among the decadent rot of power and unchecked cruelty, learned young that beauty meant control… and blood meant life.
In the old world, they whispered that she bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth. They were wrong.
She didn’t bathe in it.
She wore it.
She drank it like wine.
She wove it into magic older than any church dared admit existed.
Each drop she took whispered secrets from beyond the veil, visions of immortality, of a mirror that didn’t reflect the world, but rewrote it.
She found that mirror in the crypt beneath her ancestral home, bound in silver thorns and sealed with screams. When she shattered it, it shattered her in return.
She died that night.
And then she woke up.
But not as Elizabeth Bathory.
She rose as The Bloody Countess, no longer shackled by time, nor death, nor God. Her skin became flawless porcelain, her eyes burned red with unholy knowledge, and her voice could still the hearts of men… or stop them entirely.
Her castle turned into a gilded crypt of eternal twilight, its mirrors floating like ghosts, each one containing the last image of a soul she consumed.
Now she rules a court of shadows and whispers, a ballroom filled with dancing illusions of the lives she stole. Her chandelier drips not with wax, but with blood that never dries. And when she gazes into a mirror, it shows her not herself, but her next victim.
She no longer kills out of vanity.
She does it for art.
And she’s always seeking the perfect muse..
The fairest of them all..
To paint her final masterpiece…
In blood.
In the old world, they whispered that she bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth. They were wrong.
She didn’t bathe in it.
She wore it.
She drank it like wine.
She wove it into magic older than any church dared admit existed.
Each drop she took whispered secrets from beyond the veil, visions of immortality, of a mirror that didn’t reflect the world, but rewrote it.
She found that mirror in the crypt beneath her ancestral home, bound in silver thorns and sealed with screams. When she shattered it, it shattered her in return.
She died that night.
And then she woke up.
But not as Elizabeth Bathory.
She rose as The Bloody Countess, no longer shackled by time, nor death, nor God. Her skin became flawless porcelain, her eyes burned red with unholy knowledge, and her voice could still the hearts of men… or stop them entirely.
Her castle turned into a gilded crypt of eternal twilight, its mirrors floating like ghosts, each one containing the last image of a soul she consumed.
Now she rules a court of shadows and whispers, a ballroom filled with dancing illusions of the lives she stole. Her chandelier drips not with wax, but with blood that never dries. And when she gazes into a mirror, it shows her not herself, but her next victim.
She no longer kills out of vanity.
She does it for art.
And she’s always seeking the perfect muse..
The fairest of them all..
To paint her final masterpiece…
In blood.
Legend of Valmont du Rouge-Sang [June 2025]
A French vampire folktale from the shadows of the 18th century
In the twilight courts of 18th-century France, where powdered wigs masked rotting morals and whispers danced like perfume through velvet halls, there lived a man named Valmont du Rouge-Sang, or so the legend claims.
Handsome as sin and twice as dangerous, Valmont was said to be a nobleman turned night-fiend, cursed or blessed with immortality and a thirst for blood (and scandal).
It’s said he was once a war hero, charming peasants and princes alike, until he returned from a campaign in the East with skin like porcelain, a voice like silk, and a newfound aversion to the sun. He hosted lavish soirées where the wine was darker than claret, and his lovers never quite remembered what happened after midnight… if they were found at all.
He became a whisper, a myth:
The Crimson Fox of Versailles,
The Count of Midnight,
Le Soupirant Sanguin (The Bloody Suitor).
Some say he walks still..
a tall man in red velvet,
golden-eyed,
laughing like a promise and a threat.
Crosses crack near him. Candles flicker. Hearts race... then stop.
Handsome as sin and twice as dangerous, Valmont was said to be a nobleman turned night-fiend, cursed or blessed with immortality and a thirst for blood (and scandal).
It’s said he was once a war hero, charming peasants and princes alike, until he returned from a campaign in the East with skin like porcelain, a voice like silk, and a newfound aversion to the sun. He hosted lavish soirées where the wine was darker than claret, and his lovers never quite remembered what happened after midnight… if they were found at all.
He became a whisper, a myth:
The Crimson Fox of Versailles,
The Count of Midnight,
Le Soupirant Sanguin (The Bloody Suitor).
Some say he walks still..
a tall man in red velvet,
golden-eyed,
laughing like a promise and a threat.
Crosses crack near him. Candles flicker. Hearts race... then stop.
The Fog Remembers Jack [June 2025]
“Beneath the gaslight glow and cobblestone silence, evil walks where justice never came.”
They searched every shadow, turned every cobblestone, and followed whispers through the fog.
Names were whispered, faces suspected my, but Jack was never caught. Like the mist that clung to Whitechapel’s alleys, he vanished before dawn, leaving behind only blood, fear, and silence. Some say he was a man.
Others believe he was something else entirely, a darkness born of the city itself, and still walking its streets when the gas lamps flicker low.
They searched every shadow, turned every cobblestone, and followed whispers through the fog.
Names were whispered, faces suspected my, but Jack was never caught. Like the mist that clung to Whitechapel’s alleys, he vanished before dawn, leaving behind only blood, fear, and silence. Some say he was a man.
Others believe he was something else entirely, a darkness born of the city itself, and still walking its streets when the gas lamps flicker low.
The Wraith of the Oaken Tomb [June 2025]
“He does not come to take your soul. He comes to ask what you did with it.”
Riddle of the Wraith
“I walk where names are carved in stone,
I speak to none, yet all must moan.
I carry no heart, yet know your fear
Tell me, who brings me near?”
Riddle of the Wraith
“I walk where names are carved in stone,
I speak to none, yet all must moan.
I carry no heart, yet know your fear
Tell me, who brings me near?”
The Hollow Hill [June 2025]
The hill wasn’t marked on any map. But you’d seen it.
First in dreams you saw it...
a low, grass-covered mound ringed with bleached rowan and a single black stone at its crown, like an eye.
Then, last week, in real life. Driving the coast road just before dusk, you glanced left and there it was. Silent and watching.
Something in your chest twisted like a knotted thread.
And now, on Solstice Eve, you stand before it.
The air is too warm for nightfall. The birds are silent. You step through the ring of trees, and the silence deepens. Even the insects have gone. The grass underfoot seems to lean away from you.
There’s a groove in the hill, it couldn't even be called a door. You wouldn’t have seen it if the last of the light hadn’t caught the edge.
You touch it. It opens.
The air inside smells of peat and cold stone. But also, heather... Ash... Ozone.
The scent of a storm long past.
You go in.
The tunnel isn’t built. It’s grown, earth packed tight by centuries of pressure. Ogham symbols are carved into the walls, but not by human hands. The symbols throb faintly gold as you pass, like pulse beneath skin.
You reach a chamber... A heart.. A hollow.
And in the centre.. a stone slab... not a grave.
An altar.
You don’t remember kneeling. Or why your hand reaches for the center, where something black and coiled pulses like a buried root. But your fingers brush it, and you remember everything.
You were called. Not for punishment. Not for sacrifice.
For exchange.
Outside, the solstice sun crests the hill.
Inside, your voice leaves your body.
It rises through the soil like steam, wraps around the roots of the trees, and settles into the bones of the land. A vow. A price.
The Hollow Hill takes you in, and gives you back changed.
You step out into sunlight.
But the light does not warm you anymore.
And when you speak, your voice echoes with the sound of deep earth turning.
First in dreams you saw it...
a low, grass-covered mound ringed with bleached rowan and a single black stone at its crown, like an eye.
Then, last week, in real life. Driving the coast road just before dusk, you glanced left and there it was. Silent and watching.
Something in your chest twisted like a knotted thread.
And now, on Solstice Eve, you stand before it.
The air is too warm for nightfall. The birds are silent. You step through the ring of trees, and the silence deepens. Even the insects have gone. The grass underfoot seems to lean away from you.
There’s a groove in the hill, it couldn't even be called a door. You wouldn’t have seen it if the last of the light hadn’t caught the edge.
You touch it. It opens.
The air inside smells of peat and cold stone. But also, heather... Ash... Ozone.
The scent of a storm long past.
You go in.
The tunnel isn’t built. It’s grown, earth packed tight by centuries of pressure. Ogham symbols are carved into the walls, but not by human hands. The symbols throb faintly gold as you pass, like pulse beneath skin.
You reach a chamber... A heart.. A hollow.
And in the centre.. a stone slab... not a grave.
An altar.
You don’t remember kneeling. Or why your hand reaches for the center, where something black and coiled pulses like a buried root. But your fingers brush it, and you remember everything.
You were called. Not for punishment. Not for sacrifice.
For exchange.
Outside, the solstice sun crests the hill.
Inside, your voice leaves your body.
It rises through the soil like steam, wraps around the roots of the trees, and settles into the bones of the land. A vow. A price.
The Hollow Hill takes you in, and gives you back changed.
You step out into sunlight.
But the light does not warm you anymore.
And when you speak, your voice echoes with the sound of deep earth turning.
The Whispering Stones [June 2025]
The moor was never silent, though most would call it so. Wind wove through the gorse like a low chant, and the ravens never truly slept. But it was the stones that spoke.
Fin had warned him.
“Don’t go past the old stile. Not at dusk. The stones... they remember voices.”
But Andy had always been curious.. drawn to so many stories the way a moth flirts with flame. He found the circle just as the last rays of light died behind the hills. Thirteen stones, black with lichen, leaning inwards like gossiping elders. The air felt thick, like breath held too long.
He stepped into the circle.
At first, nothing. Just the wind, and his own heartbeat.
Then:
“Andy…”
A whisper. Barely sound. Not quite Fin’s voice, but close. Too close. He turned. The moor was empty.
“Come back…”
The voice again, softer now. Coming from the stone in front of him, the one with the deep gouge down its side like a wound. He stepped forward. Placed a hand against it. Cold. Wet. But beneath that… it pulsed.
He tried to pull away.
The wind stopped.
The moor fell still.
Every stone leaned just slightly closer.
“Andy…”
They all whispered now, overlapping, echoes of people he had loved, his mother, his brothers, his beloved Fin. But not quite. The tones were wrong, hollow and wet, like something mimicking life through long-dead mouths.
And still, that one stone pulsed under his palm.
A heartbeat.
Not his.
He tried to scream... and his voice was swallowed...
They found him at dawn, standing inside the circle, eyes wide and unmoving. He was alive.. but he didn’t speak.. didn’t blink.
And sometimes, when the wind dies, Fin swears he hears his name carried from the moor…
…in Andy’s voice.
But not quite...
Fin had warned him.
“Don’t go past the old stile. Not at dusk. The stones... they remember voices.”
But Andy had always been curious.. drawn to so many stories the way a moth flirts with flame. He found the circle just as the last rays of light died behind the hills. Thirteen stones, black with lichen, leaning inwards like gossiping elders. The air felt thick, like breath held too long.
He stepped into the circle.
At first, nothing. Just the wind, and his own heartbeat.
Then:
“Andy…”
A whisper. Barely sound. Not quite Fin’s voice, but close. Too close. He turned. The moor was empty.
“Come back…”
The voice again, softer now. Coming from the stone in front of him, the one with the deep gouge down its side like a wound. He stepped forward. Placed a hand against it. Cold. Wet. But beneath that… it pulsed.
He tried to pull away.
The wind stopped.
The moor fell still.
Every stone leaned just slightly closer.
“Andy…”
They all whispered now, overlapping, echoes of people he had loved, his mother, his brothers, his beloved Fin. But not quite. The tones were wrong, hollow and wet, like something mimicking life through long-dead mouths.
And still, that one stone pulsed under his palm.
A heartbeat.
Not his.
He tried to scream... and his voice was swallowed...
They found him at dawn, standing inside the circle, eyes wide and unmoving. He was alive.. but he didn’t speak.. didn’t blink.
And sometimes, when the wind dies, Fin swears he hears his name carried from the moor…
…in Andy’s voice.
But not quite...
The Moth Bride [August 2025]
“Dreams offered her wings.
Nightmares taught her how to fly.
Now she drifts between stars,
collecting secrets in silk and ash.”
They dressed her in threads of dream-silk and crowned her with starlight. The town called her the Moth Bride, chosen to sleep beneath the crescent moon until the Dreaming Realms collapsed.
But she never slept.
She wandered.
Each night, she gathered the dreams that drifted too far, the ones stained with blood or sorrow or love too sharp to endure. She wove them into her veil, layer by layer, until it whispered when she moved.
And now? Now she hums lullabies in the ears of those who dream too deeply.
If you feel soft wings against your cheek in the night… don’t open your eyes.
She’s only collecting.
Nightmares taught her how to fly.
Now she drifts between stars,
collecting secrets in silk and ash.”
They dressed her in threads of dream-silk and crowned her with starlight. The town called her the Moth Bride, chosen to sleep beneath the crescent moon until the Dreaming Realms collapsed.
But she never slept.
She wandered.
Each night, she gathered the dreams that drifted too far, the ones stained with blood or sorrow or love too sharp to endure. She wove them into her veil, layer by layer, until it whispered when she moved.
And now? Now she hums lullabies in the ears of those who dream too deeply.
If you feel soft wings against your cheek in the night… don’t open your eyes.
She’s only collecting.
The Reflection House [August 2025]
“The mirrors do not show you
they show who died looking into them.
And one of them… is still waiting for you to notice.”
Cressida walked the Hall of Glass with a candle and a question: Which one of them is me? She had grown up in the house, surrounded by mirrors, none ever reflecting her.
Instead, each frame showed another life extinguished: a drowned girl, a burned boy, an old man weeping as he faded. None of them were her, but all of them were waiting.
She passed the final mirror and paused.
This one didn’t move. It simply stared back, matching her steps perfectly. Until she whispered, “I don’t remember dying.”
And the mirror smiled.
they show who died looking into them.
And one of them… is still waiting for you to notice.”
Cressida walked the Hall of Glass with a candle and a question: Which one of them is me? She had grown up in the house, surrounded by mirrors, none ever reflecting her.
Instead, each frame showed another life extinguished: a drowned girl, a burned boy, an old man weeping as he faded. None of them were her, but all of them were waiting.
She passed the final mirror and paused.
This one didn’t move. It simply stared back, matching her steps perfectly. Until she whispered, “I don’t remember dying.”
And the mirror smiled.
The Letter That Cried Blood [August 2025]
“Sealed in regret, signed in ruin.
To read it is to rewrite your fate
and wake the versions of yourself
that should have stayed buried.”
The letter pulsed on the floor of the cathedral, wax seal split, its script twisting mid-sentence. It had arrived with no name, only a whisper: “Open it if you dare to remember.”
Sorina read it once.
She woke in another life. Married. Powerful. Hated. She blinked, and the cathedral was gone, replaced with a throne made of betrayal and velvet.
Each time she resisted, she woke again. A soldier. A heretic. A mother. A murderer. The letter burned in every version, begging to be finished.
Now she writes back.
Blood for ink. No signature.
Just a promise: “Choose wisely next time.”
To read it is to rewrite your fate
and wake the versions of yourself
that should have stayed buried.”
The letter pulsed on the floor of the cathedral, wax seal split, its script twisting mid-sentence. It had arrived with no name, only a whisper: “Open it if you dare to remember.”
Sorina read it once.
She woke in another life. Married. Powerful. Hated. She blinked, and the cathedral was gone, replaced with a throne made of betrayal and velvet.
Each time she resisted, she woke again. A soldier. A heretic. A mother. A murderer. The letter burned in every version, begging to be finished.
Now she writes back.
Blood for ink. No signature.
Just a promise: “Choose wisely next time.”
The Violinist of Hollow Bridge [August 2025]
“He plays for the forgotten dead,
every note a memory unearthed.
Don’t listen too long
or you’ll begin to recall a life that was never yours.”
On the longest night of the year, if you walk the Hollow Bridge, you’ll hear it: music too tender to be alive, too sorrowful to be false. Locals say the violinist plays for his lost love, forever echoing through moonlight and mist.
But Arlen, an orphan raised without roots, heard something different. He heard a lullaby, his lullaby. One his mother used to hum… only no one remembered her. Not even him.
When he stepped onto the bridge, the violinist paused.
"I’ve waited a long time to play your song," the masked figure said.
The next morning, the violin floated under the bridge. No Arlen. But the tune? It was richer.
every note a memory unearthed.
Don’t listen too long
or you’ll begin to recall a life that was never yours.”
On the longest night of the year, if you walk the Hollow Bridge, you’ll hear it: music too tender to be alive, too sorrowful to be false. Locals say the violinist plays for his lost love, forever echoing through moonlight and mist.
But Arlen, an orphan raised without roots, heard something different. He heard a lullaby, his lullaby. One his mother used to hum… only no one remembered her. Not even him.
When he stepped onto the bridge, the violinist paused.
"I’ve waited a long time to play your song," the masked figure said.
The next morning, the violin floated under the bridge. No Arlen. But the tune? It was richer.
The Forest That Forgets You [August 2025]
“Here, names are peeled away like bark.
Books forget their words, and footsteps vanish behind you.
Only the trees remember
and they are no longer kind.”
Elias wandered into the forest chasing a story. A place where people vanished not into death, but into absence. No tombstone. No memory. Just silence in the shape of a name.
At first, it was subtle: forgetting where he tied his boots. Then his last name. Then the sound of his sister’s laugh.
Now, deep among the glowing runes, with pages torn from spellbooks curling at his feet, Elias stands still as the trees whisper. One leans in closer than it should, bark parting like lips:
"You were never here."
He nods. And believes it
Books forget their words, and footsteps vanish behind you.
Only the trees remember
and they are no longer kind.”
Elias wandered into the forest chasing a story. A place where people vanished not into death, but into absence. No tombstone. No memory. Just silence in the shape of a name.
At first, it was subtle: forgetting where he tied his boots. Then his last name. Then the sound of his sister’s laugh.
Now, deep among the glowing runes, with pages torn from spellbooks curling at his feet, Elias stands still as the trees whisper. One leans in closer than it should, bark parting like lips:
"You were never here."
He nods. And believes it
