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It looked at her and wept bloody tears.
She woke up and went to the tree. Hugged its trunk. Pressed her forehead to the bark.
“How much longer?” she whispered.
The faces were silent.
Only one voice, deep within, replied: “Until the next one comes.”
Charlotte lived in silence. The silence between the heartbeats of those she killed. Between her own breaths. Between days. Between months.
She didn’t feel time. Only the hunger of the tree. As if it were her own.
Then one day, he appeared. His name was Dane. A wanderer. A writer. With ash-colored beard and kind eyes. He photographed abandoned places. Searched for lost meanings, for symbols, for the mystical.
He saw her by the road, standing among wet pine trees in a long coat, her gaze distant.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” he asked.
“No one is from around here,” Charlotte replied.
He smiled. Said it had been a long time since he met someone who looked inward, not just forward.
He offered her coffee.
She said yes.
She didn’t know why she didn’t kill him that night.
He stayed a couple of days. Then a week.
They lived in an old abandoned house in the village. He patched the roof, lit fires in the hearth, read her poetry. He asked about her past, and she made up stories.
Sometimes, she almost forgot about the tree. About what she had become. She wanted to forget. To start over.
But when the moon turned full, the roots clawed their way from the earth. The faces on the tree twisted in hunger. Charlotte’s skin cracked. Her breath smelled of decay.
She tried to hide it from Dane. But she couldn’t hide for long. The changes were too obvious.
“Who are you?” he asked one day. “What’s happening to you?”
She didn’t answer.
He waited. He stayed.
The next full moon, Charlotte didn’t kill anyone. She walked to the tree, ready to tell it: no more. She was prepared to die.
The bark split, the roots pulsed, the faces screamed, the tree trembled.
She didn’t know Dane had followed her. He saw everything.
He found an axe in the house and headed towards the tree.
Charlotte saw him – but didn’t stop him.
He held her. Kissed her.
“I’ll set you free,” he said.
Then he turned to the tree and swung the axe. Once. Twice. Again.
The tree howled. The faces began to fade.
One final strike – and the tree fell.
Its life drained, the bark cracked. The branches bled black smoke.
And Charlotte… began to disappear. She didn’t fight it. She just held Dane’s hand.
He didn’t know. Didn’t realize, that she and the tree were one. And when he finally understood – it was too late.
Moments later, it was over.
All that remained was the dead tree – and a silhouette of ash on the ground.
That night the witch came. She held a human skull.
From the fallen branches, she picked a single black seed, placed it inside the skull, and buried it in the earth.
Snake Bertha smiled.
The Night Choir
It all began in late October, just as the leaves turned the color of dying flames.
Every night, around three a.m., a strange sound drifted from the forest that stretched beyond the small town of Everfield, on the edge of Ash Fern National Park. It wasn’t the wind. It wasn’t animals. Not even the distant hum of trucks on the highway.
It was singing. Children’s voices. Dozens of them.
They sang lullabies in tones and shades unknown to the earthly world, as if the melodies had been born somewhere in the depths of the underworld. The singing was always soft. But everyone heard it – even the deaf. It could be felt through the body, like a vibration in the air. And once you heard it, you never forgot. The melody clung to your bones.
At first, it was simply strange. Nothing more. No one, except the curious teenagers sneaking through the woods, made any effort to find the source of the singing.
But then, one night, the choir spoke a name.
“Deborah.”
Quiet. Clear. As if spoken from the very earth itself.
The next day, Deborah Klein, a 37-year-old librarian, died while tying her shoelaces. The doctors said it was a brain aneurysm. A tragic coincidence.
The following night, the choir sang another name.
“Matthew.”
And twenty-four hours later, Matthew Finch, a former school bus driver, collapsed in the supermarket parking lot. Blood poured from his eyes.
By the end of the week, the choir had sung four more names. And four more were dead.
Young. Old. Healthy. Sick. It made no difference.
The police didn’t know what to do. Neither did the mayor. Even the priest was silent.State authorities were called in. Scientists arrived, sound specialists, even a pair of paranormal investigators from New Mexico.
They set up microphones all throughout the forest.
Nothing. The recordings captured only silence.
But the people could still hear the choir. And the choir kept singing names. And the people kept dying.
The first to flee the town were those with enough money to buy a house elsewhere. They packed their suitcases, hurriedly loading their families into cars, never slowing down for a single stop sign, as if the devil himself were chasing them.
One of them – Katherine Beale – heard her name after she had already reached her sister’s house in in Georgia. She died in the bathroom mirror, fingers digging into her throat, mouth frozen mid-scream.
That’s when the townsfolk understood. It didn’t matter where you went. Everyone who had lived in Everfield was already marked. There was no escaping fate.
Fear spread like mold. Unstoppable.
The church held nightly vigils. Candles. Latin prayers. Trembling fingers locked in circles.
At the same time, residents began leaving offerings in the forest: small gifts. Toys, berries, old dolls. Some even whispered into the trees, begging.
Children were kept home from school. The streets emptied after sunset. The town had changed. Even the animals avoided the woods. Birds stopped nesting near the edge. Coyotes refused to howl.
And every night, at exactly 3:00 AM, those voices returned. Soft. Childlike. Sometimes whispering. Sometimes giggling. But always singing. And always – a new name.
***
One evening, as the red sun sank behind the hills, a black car drove into Everfield.
It was an old vehicle, but well-kept. Its windows were tinted dark, and the engine made almost no sound.
It parked in front of the abandoned motel at the edge of town.
From it stepped a man. Tall. Thin. Clad in a long, dark-gray robe that looked older than any fashion. His eyes were a strange pale green, and when he spoke, it felt as though the words didn’t come from his mouth – but from somewhere far, far deeper.
He introduced himself simply: Azem. No last name. No credentials.
“I am not a priest,” he said. “I am not a scientist. I am… a Listener.”
The mayor didn’t want to let him speak. But the people insisted. They had tried everything else.
That night, in the old school gymnasium, under flickering fluorescent lights, the town gathered to listen.
Azem stood not on the stage, not behind a podium – simply among them.
He spoke slowly, almost reverently.
“I have heard this song before,” he said. “A long time ago. In another place. Another land.”
The crowd leaned forward, barely daring to breathe.
“This is not a haunting,” Azem continued. “It is a reminder. A voice rising from the roots of what has been forgotten.”
Someone stood up. The physics teacher.
“You mean it’s… alive?”
Azem nodded.
“It’s very old. Very patient. It sings through the mouths of the unborn. And it marks those who owe.”
“Owe what?” someone asked.
Azem paused for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his voice dropped to almost a whisper.
“Balance. Long ago, a promise was made. And broken. This land belonged to others once – before roads, before fences, before these trees we see now.”
The silence in the room grew heavier than stone.
“You’re talking about a curse,” the mayor said bitterly.
Azem looked him in the eye.
“No,” he said. “I speak of a deity. A goddess. A devourer of souls. And she… is waking.”
***
Among the crowd of villagers was a girl named Isobel Green. Seventeen. Quiet. The kind of girl who smiled with her eyes more often than her lips.
She lived with her parents in a yellow house near the edge of Everfield, only a few streets away from the dark line of trees. Her father worked as a mechanic. Her mother taught piano lessons from their living room.
Isobel had a boyfriend – Caleb Wren. Tall. Soft-spoken. He always smelled faintly of cedar and ink.
They had been together for two years. Everyone said they were inseparable.
But lately, even Caleb couldn’t make her smile.
Because two nights ago, the choir had sung her mother’s name. And the night after – that of her father.
Both now lay cold in the town morgue, their faces frozen in the same expression: confusion… and emptiness.
Isobel hadn’t cried. Hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t torn at her hair like others did. She had simply listened. To the trees. To the silence. And to Azem.
The townsfolk gathered more and more often around the mystic.
He spoke rarely. But when he did, his words came slowly, as if rising from the depths of a very old, very deep well.
He told them of a forgotten tribe that once lived in these forests, long before the settlers arrived. Of a people who worshiped Humauatl – the goddess with the face of a woman and the tongue of a serpent, who was never satisfied.
“She was fed,” Azem said. “Once a year, in the, a child was brought to her – pure, untouched. And in return, the forest remained silent.”
“But the worship ended,” he continued. “The tribe was wiped out. Missionaries. Soldiers. Disease. The cave was sealed. And Humaquatl slept.”
He lifted his eyes – pale, like milk diluted with water. His gaze swept across the room.
“Until now.”
A long, strained silence hung in the air.
At last, someone asked: “What does she want?”
Azem answered at once.
“A gift. A life freely given. One that fulfills the ancient terms. Young. Pure. Untouched. In other words – a virgin.”
The silence turned to horror.
“No one would agree to that,” someone muttered.
“There is no Humauatl,” someone else shouted. “This is madness!”
But deep down, everyone felt that Azem was telling the truth. The choir convinced everyone.
The next evening, Isobel came to Azem. Alone. He was waiting for her behind the old church, standing within a circle of scorched leaves.
“I’ll do it,” she said simply.
He turned slowly, as if he had already known.
“You understand what it means?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I have no one left. Caleb will move on. I’m not afraid of dying. But I am terrified… of hearing his name in that song.”
Azem closed his eyes. For a moment, he looked older than time itself.
“Then come with me,” he whispered.
***
Azem led Isobel deep into the woods.
Past paths long overgrown. Past trees whose bark bore ancient, unknowable symbols. Past stones that vibrated faintly under bare fingers.
At last, they reached the mouth of a cave – a low, black gash at the foot of a moss-choked hill.
“The tribe called it The Thirsting Mouth,” Azem said. “No flame can burn inside. Only blood.”
He lit a single lamp. Its flame burned blue.
Inside, the walls were smooth. Wet. Veined with faintly pulsing lines, like the veins of some vast, sleeping beast. The air smelled of iron… and something sweeter – rotting flowers.
They walked through narrow tunnels, ever deeper, until they entered a vast underground grotto.
And there she stood. Humaquatl.
The statue was immense – twice the height of a man. A woman’s figure, carved from stone darker than midnight, crouched over an altar. Her face was calm. But where her mouth should have been, there protruded a tongue of polished obsidian – long and flat like a sacrificial blade. And at the very tip hung a single drop of blood. Trembling. Waiting.
“Once a year – during the three days following the full moon,” Azem whispered, “such drops are born. Today is one of those days. If the drop falls and finds no victim, Humauatl grows hungry. And then she begins to sing. She sings for an entire year, until the next drop is born. She sings, taking lives, calling names. But if the drop falls upon a victim, Humauatl is appeased – and falls silent.”
Isobel stepped forward.
She took off her shoes. Her coat. She lay upon the altar, folding her hands over her chest. Her lips moved, but Azem could not hear her words.
A prayer. A farewell. Maybe both. The cave held its breath.
And then… the drop fell.
In that very moment, Isobel died. Without a scream. Without a sound. She simply never finished her last breath. Her eyes remained open. Staring – not at the goddess, but through her.
Azem bowed low.
***
And that night, the forest was silent. In the morning, the town awoke to quiet. No voices. No names. Only the wind.
For the first time in many weeks, people stepped out of their homes. The forest was no longer watching. The children laughed again.
Caleb learned everything when it was already too late. He vowed to take revenge on the one who had taken the life of his beloved.
He brought fire. He brought an axe.
When he saw the statue, a mad rage consumed him. He screamed. Until his voice broke.
Then he rushed forward. He struck the statue with the axe. Again. And again. He hurled the axe at the goddess’s head, tried to shatter her tongue. Tried to undo death.
The last thing Caleb saw was a second drop of blood rolling down Humauatl’s tongue. It fell… right onto him.
A second later, he fell dead. Mouth open. Eyes wide. His skin pale as chalk.
The choir vanished. Azem was gone too.
A plaque was hung on the school wall in memory of Isobel. People spoke of her in whispers. They called her the Savior.
Fear faded. Laughter returned to the homes. Children were born.
And a year later, somewhere far away… in another quiet town… the trees began to hum a low, sweet lullaby. In children’s voices. And one night, exactly at 3:00 a.m., another name was called.
They Wanted to Die Beautifully
At the edge of the world, far from the eyes of civilization, in a desolate coastal land hemmed by black cliffs, stood a castle. Majestic, ancient, as if grown from the earth itself, it towered over the sea, guarding its dark secret.
Here lived Count Alberto – a man whose name appeared in no registry, whose blood was as old as the stones beneath his feet.
His castle was the last stop for those who no longer wished to live. His services were known only to those who sought not merely death, but a beautiful death – a ceremonial departure, steeped in theatrical grandeur.
Clients paid outrageous sums to die exactly as they dreamed: some in the passionate embrace of a young lover, others at a royal ball before their beheading, or amidst roaring flames and the solemn chant of monks.
Count Alberto promised to fulfill even the most extravagant desires of those determined to leave this world.
Everyone had their reasons: some suffered from incurable illness; others, marked by a mafia sentence, sought to control their own end; some were simply weary of life, disappointed, disillusioned. And perhaps a few were simply mad.
The Count didn’t care. He was simply fulfilling their wish – their wish to die.
***
One evening, as the sun slipped beneath the horizon and the sea glowed with copper fire, a sleek car pulled up to the castle gates.
Out stepped Madame Letitia.
She wore a long silk cloak trimmed with fur, dark sunglasses shielding her eyes even as night descended. Between her fingers – a slender, elegant cigarette holder.
She gazed up at the castle and smiled. It was exactly as she had envisioned it in her dreams.
Count Alberto greeted her. Tall. Thin. Clad in a long black cloak.
His face seemed carved from stone. And in his eyes – dark, endless depths.
He gave a slight bow.
“Madame Letitia,” he said quietly. “You’ve arrived.”
“Yes, Count,” she replied calmly. “And I hope… not too late.”
She extended her hand, and he brushed his lips lightly across her fingers.
“Allow me to escort you.”
The castle welcomed them with the whispers of ancient tapestries, the creak of old floorboards, the crackle of fire in the hearth.
In the hall stood statues – pale, faceless, gazing inward, trapped in eternal thought.
Portraits hung along the walls – faces long unclaimed by the living.
The Count led Madame Letitia to a small sitting room, where a decanter of wine awaited on a table – deep, ruby-red, like liquid velvet, like blood.
He filled their glasses.
She slipped off her cloak.
Beneath it, a dark gown with a plunging neckline. Her neck shimmered, pearly and smooth.
“Are you certain?” the Count asked, looking her straight in the eye.
“I’m tired,” Letitia said, sipping the wine. “Life has grown heavy… like this night. I’ve lived too many lives in one. I’m tired of wearing masks, tired of playing roles.”
She turned toward the fire.
“I want… to die beautifully.”
“Beautifully?” he asked softly.
“Yes. I want my death… to be a performance.”
The Count nodded.
“Tell me more.”
Letitia leaned back in the chair, exhaling smoke.
“I dream of it… like in old romances. A young lover’s embrace. Together we dissolve into the night. And as dawn breaks… he strangles me in my sleep.”
She smiled faintly.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
The Count inclined his head.
“Very beautiful.”
“I want to die like an actress on stage. Believing, until the end, that it’s all just a game. That my final role is… my best.”
Her gaze held his.
In her eyes – a tiredness, the weariness of a doll who knows she will never be played with again.
“I can arrange it,” the Count said, rising. “Allow me… to introduce those who will fulfill your desire.”
He clapped his hands.
A door opened.
Four young men entered. Tall. Handsome.
Dressed in sleek black silk shirts. Their movements graceful, their faces still.
They stood before Letitia, their gazes fixed ahead.
“These are my… actors,” the Count said, a thin smile curving his lips.
Letitia stood. Stepped closer. Her gaze moved slowly over them.
“They’re beautiful,” she murmured.
She traced a finger along the cheek of one.
“This one,” she pointed to the youngest. “I want him to lead me into my final night.”
The young man gave a slight bow.
The Count nodded quietly.
“Everything shall be as you wish, madame.”
He gestured.
The young man extended his hand. Letitia placed hers in his. Her fingers trembled.
“Take madame to her chamber,” the Count said softly.
And as they disappeared through the doorway, the Count poured himself a glass of wine.
He lifted it.
“To beauty,” he whispered. “Which… always ends the same.”
***
The next day, Madame Letitia made her decision and informed the Count.
“Everything is prepared, madame,” said the Count, his voice calm and final, as he summoned the executor.
The young man arrived.
He was bare-chested, his muscular body gleaming in the flickering candlelight. Madame Letitia felt her pulse quicken, desire rising in her like a forgotten flame.
“Please,” the young man said, gesturing toward the door of the chamber.
Madame Letitia followed him, walking along a corridor lined with rich carpets.
Candles burned on either side, casting golden light against the stone walls.
Her heart beat wildly – like a young girl on her very first date.
“What’s your name?” she asked, looking up at him with a coy smile.
He turned, smiling gently.
“Call me… whatever you wish, madame. Tonight, I am yours.”
She laughed softly.
“You’re so handsome. I… I feel young again. I’ll call you Luciano.”
“You… are radiant, madame,” he said, gently brushing her cheek. “Tonight… you are a goddess.”
She closed her eyes in delight.
“You know just what to say…”
He whispered compliments as they walked, his words weaving around her like silk, wrapping her in their spell.
Her heart sang. She believed every word.
They reached the door. The young man swung it open.
“Please… after you.”
Inside, dozens of candles glowed. On the bed – silken sheets. Everywhere – rose petals.
In the vases – fresh white lilies.
Madame Letitia stepped inside, both hands pressed to her chest.
“Oh… my God… it’s… beautiful…” she whispered. “Like in my dreams…”
She walked slowly through the room, her fingers tracing the bed’s ornate headboard, pausing to smell the flowers, laughing softly.
“So beautiful… so tender… so perfect…”
She turned to the young man.
“Come to me…”
“Soon, madame…” he said quietly. “But first… I want to show you something. Look… over there.”
She turned her gaze toward the corner of the room.
And in that moment – the hammer came down on the back of her skull. A dull, sickening crack.
Madame Letitia collapsed forward, a puppet with cut strings. Her face landing against the silk.
Blood seeped from her head, blooming across the fabric like a dark rose.
The young man looked down at her, his face now cold, impassive.
“Rotten old fool,” he muttered with disdain.
He spat on her corpse. Turned.
And he went out, closing the door behind him.
In the corridor, the Count awaited him.
“Well? How did it go?” the Count asked, a lazy smirk curling his lips.
The young man shrugged.
“She died happy,” he replied evenly.
The Count laughed. The young man laughed too.
And together they walked away, leaving behind the corridors, where the walls wept, and the portraits whispered.
Madame Letitia’s body was carried out the back entrance.
Two silent young men, their faces pale and still as plaster masks, wrapped her carefully in an old, worn sheet.
Blood seeped through in patches, a macabre map spreading across the fabric.
They descended the spiral staircase beneath the castle.
There lay the catacombs. They began with a narrow corridor, smelling of damp and mold, and then opened into a chamber filled with piles of bodies. Men, women. Young and old.
Some still wore rings on their fingers. Some dressed in fine gowns. Others in plain robes.
But all of them – equally discarded.
The young men approached the heap.
Without ceremony, without a word, they threw Madame Letitia’s body atop the others.
Her body landed with a wet thud, slipping slightly down, coming to rest against a half-rotted arm,
against a skull grinning with hollow sockets.
One of the young men sneezed, waving away the stench.
“Rotten old fool,” he repeated with a smirk.
And together they left, leaving her there – among the others, among all those who had dreamed of a beautiful death.
***
The Count stood at the window, gazing out at the endless sea.
The wind howled against the glass. The embers crackled softly in the fireplace.
He held a glass of wine.
A faint, weary smile played at the corners of his lips. He was thinking.
“How ridiculous they are… All of them, the ones who come to me… Each dreaming of a beautiful death. A cinematic finale. As if their dull, miserable, meaningless lives could end in some grand spectacle.”
He took a sip.
“But why? What does a beautiful death change? What does it leave behind? You dream of a ballroom? Of love? Of one final kiss? Fools. Death has no stage. Death is nothing but the final period.”
He turned toward the hall.
Candle shadows slithered across the portraits.
“They pay me for a lie,” the Count said aloud. “I give them that lie. They pay for a dream. I sell them the dream. But they all die the same.”
He smiled faintly.
“And it doesn’t matter who I kill… they wanted it. I am only the executor.”
He walked to a large armchair. Sat down. Closed his eyes.
And in that silence – among the bitterness of wine and the scent of smoke – he felt righteous.