Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

They say the old forest near Graven Ridge devours memory.

Not all at once—but piece by piece. A name first. A face next. And then everything that made you you.

At the center of that decaying maze stood a towering totem, carved not from wood, but from bone and sorrow.

Each face etched into it was screaming.

Juno hadn't meant to find it. Her group had fled the plague-worn city, drawn into the deep wilderness by a faint radio signal promising sanctuary.

But when the static turned to whispers and the map led nowhere, they were left with only the forest.

And it was already too late.

They saw the totem on the third day. Twisted faces of humans and beasts fused together, mouths agape as if howling into the ether. The ground around it pulsed, riddled with forgotten relics—jagged dolls, cracked lanterns, a child's ribcage carved into a flute.

Juno stepped too close. She heard her name.

Only it wasn't hers anymore.

The totem called out with a voice built from thousands of stolen memories.

Juno turned—and her friends no longer recognized her. Not her face. Not her voice.

Not even her name.

She was becoming part of the Forgotten.

They tried to run, but the woods shifted.

Roots snared their legs. Shadows whispered new names into their ears, overwriting the old.

"You are not who you remember being."

Every branch, every crow, echoed the chant.

Then the first fell—Mara—her body stiffening as black lines etched across her skin, carving a new face, a new memory.

Into the totem she went.

One by one, the forest claimed them. Their identities stolen, rewritten, and entombed in that grotesque pillar of memory and loss.

Juno, though… she resisted.

She tied her name to a thread of truth—scratched it in blood across her arm, chanted it through chattering teeth.

She ran.

But the forest was cruel.

She emerged days later into daylight, a survivor.

Yet when a scavenger found her near the road and asked her name...

She opened her mouth.

Nothing came.

Not her name. Not a sound.

Only the memory of faces screaming from a totem in the trees.

The totem still stands.

Every year, it grows taller. New faces join the cursed spire. A monument to those who wandered too far into silence.

If you ever lose your way near Graven Ridge and find yourself in a forest that feels like it's breathing…

Turn back.

Before your name becomes a whisper…

…and your soul, just another face on the Totem of the Forgotten.