The sky was a wound. No longer black, no longer starless—but bleeding light that had no source, no warmth, no mercy. From the rift above, the Dead Star pulsed once more. Not a sun. Not a celestial body. A heart—ancient, godless, and dead—still beating in defiance of silence. The chant began with no mouth to start it. Low. Vibrating through the bones of the world. The Hollow Ones—no longer walking, no longer needing to—hovered in slow spirals around the fallen cities. Their shapes indistinct, made of memory and failure, shaped like grief. Each one chanted in a different voice: a lover's last breath, a child's forgotten song, a scream stifled too long. At the center of all, beneath the collapsed cathedral, Clara stood. Or what remained of her. Her arms had become chains of light, tethering her to the altar—the Throat of the World, where the chant was focused. Her eyes were stars extinguished. Her voice sang backward. She was no longer just Hollow. Evelyn's mask cracked in half. From the fracture, black moths poured, each whispering a sin. She stepped forward and offered Clara the final relic: a page written in flesh, inked in blood that never dried. Clara read it without eyes. It was the final verse. "When the last voice falters, And the last star dies, And the world forget its shape." The chant grew louder. Cities disintegrated, not from fire, but from absence. Time became a suggestion. Language curled and died. Oceans turned to mirrors, and mountains inverted into pits. The world was ending not in fury. Jasper—somehow still a man, scarred and trembling—stood at the edge of the collapsing forest, watching the sky peel open. He held a photograph. Torn, wet, fading. Clara's smile still remained. He screamed her name. The chant wavered for a moment. And for a breath, a whisper, the Hollow paused. She remembered the wind through the orchard. The way her mother lit candles on rainy days. Jasper's hand in hers on the bridge. The laughter. The humanity. Then, she closed her eyes. And sang the final note. The Dead Star screamed. Not in sound—but in truth. Reality shattered like glass, each shard a different version of the world, a different memory, a different lie. Somewhere, in another place that was never born, a child dreams beneath a silver tree. Above, the sky holds no stars. Only a crack. Through which something once came. "Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition 12" — Concluded The Hollow Ones thank you. You were always meant to join them.