Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

They found her wandering the outskirts of Ebonreach, a twisted patch of forgotten land where crops grew backwards and bones rose instead of weeds. A girl, maybe twelve, barefoot and whispering to herself, her dress torn and eyes like scorched glass.

When the townsfolk asked her name, she only said:

"I am where the crows sleep now."

They took her in, but they shouldn't have.

The girl—who they called Marla—never ate. Never blinked. At night, she stood by the windowsill, arms twitching, skin rippling like something was trapped beneath it. On the third day, the doctor tried to examine her.

He opened her shirt and recoiled.

Her chest was shifting. Feathers. Black and wet. Pressing from the inside.

They burned his clinic after he screamed himself to death.

As panic spread, Marla wandered the woods again. Wherever she walked, the sky darkened, and the crows came—not flying, but crawling, dragging themselves from beneath the dirt, eyes full of grave-soil and hate.

And the skin on Marla's arms tore—not bleeding, but splitting open like hatching eggs.

One by one, the crows emerged from her.

Living.

Screaming.

Starving.

The town priest tried to exorcise her. He lit candles, drew holy sigils, whispered dead prayers. Marla laughed—an awful sound, not her voice, but a thousand wings beating at once. She turned her head fully backwards, and said:

"The black birds feed on regret. Yours is an endless feast."

That night, the priest was found upside down on the steeple cross, throat stuffed with feathers, eyes pecked out.

Only one old woman knew the truth.

"She's not a girl," she whispered. "She's a Nest."

Long ago, a coven of bone-witches cast a spell to punish greed. They birthed creatures that carried the dead's sins—hollow bodies stitched with talon and shadow.

Crows of memory. Carrion of guilt.

And now, every sin ever buried in Ebonreach clawed its way out through Marla.

The villagers made a choice.

At dawn, they surrounded her in the cornfield. No weapons—just silence. She watched them, head cocked, fingers twitching. Her skin rippled, feathers writhing under the flesh.

She whispered:

"You left them down there too long. Now they want your eyes."

The sky cracked.

A thousand crows erupted from her like a dam bursting. Beaks sharp as glass. Wings laced with ash.

They tore the town apart in twelve minutes.

Ebonreach is gone now. Only crows remain.

If you find a girl on the edge of a dying field, barefoot and whispering, don't ask her name. Don't let her follow you.

And whatever you do...

Don't look under her skin.