She Walks Among the Hollow Congregation

The sky bleeds orange above the dead wood. Bare branches claw upward through the haze like the fingers of something buried alive, and the air smells of ash and old stone and things that stopped breathing long ago.

They stand in rows — the Hollow Congregation — tall and grey and rotting, their bodies half-collapsed into themselves, their skulls stretched wide in permanent screaming grins. Eyes burn red in their sunken faces. They do not move. They wait. They have always been waiting.

She walks toward them in a red coat.

No one sent her. No prophecy named her. She carries nothing but herself, and she does not slow her steps. The congregation watches — a hundred burning eyes tracking her approach — and something in their ancient, hollow chests recognizes what stands before them, though none could say what it is.

She stops. The silence is total. And then, very slowly, the one at the center lowers its gaze.