Whispers in the Village
The road to Hollowmere was silent save for the crunch of my boots and the rasp of wind through the trees. Villages like this always stink of rot and fear, though this one seemed to have drowned in both.
When I arrived, no children played in the mud. No blacksmith hammered in the square. Only shut doors, shuttered windows, and eyes peering through cracks in wood. They led me no further than the outskirts, as if crossing into their own streets was a curse.
"The Bride waits there," an old man croaked, pointing to the chapel ruins across the fields. "We hear her sobs after dark. She takes those foolish enough to follow. Livestock, too. Gone."
They pushed a pouch of silver into my hand like a desperate offering, not a payment. I've seen that look before — when coin buys hope instead of service.
I asked them the tale, and though their voices wavered, they spoke it anyway: a woman, betrayed on her wedding day, bound in silk, and buried alive in the woods. Her screams carried through the chapel bells, but no one came. Now, she walks. Now, she mourns. Now, she kills.
Such stories spread like plague, half lies and half truth. But her name was never spoken above a whisper, and that told me enough.
Night was coming. And the weeping would follow.
Preparations
The village looked sickly, as though the earth itself had grown tired of feeding it. The homes leaned like weary men, the fields bore only brittle stalks, and the air—thin, brittle, wrong—pressed heavy on my lungs. Everywhere I walked, eyes followed me from cracks in doorways and shuttered windows, but not a soul dared speak.
It wasn't until I entered the tavern that a voice finally broke the silence. An old man sat alone, his spoon circling a bowl of broth as though afraid to stop. Without raising his head, he rasped, "She walks at dusk. White dress, veil torn. Those who follow her path never return."
Another, already drunk, laughed bitterly. "Superstitions," he spat. "But the bells—oh yes, the bells—they toll with no hand upon the rope." His laughter dissolved into a cough that left him pale.
I left them and sought the abandoned church at the edge of town. The door moaned as it opened, revealing an altar buried beneath offerings—ribbons, cracked mirrors, locks of hair tied in trembling knots. Faith had long fled this place. Fear was the only god left.
Scratched into the altar, deep and desperate, were words that chilled me:
BRIDE HUNGERS.
I traced the grooves, still sharp, still fresh.
Then the wind shifted. A single bell tolled—soft, hollow—though the tower above me was empty.
That was when I knew the villagers were not exaggerating.
Ashes of the Church
I searched the church as dusk bled across the sky. Cobwebs draped the rafters like funeral veils, and every creak of the floorboards echoed too loudly. In a rotted confessional I found a ledger, its ink smeared by damp but legible enough. It spoke of a wedding night that ended in blood.
A nobleman's daughter, promised to a lord. Yet the groom never came. Instead, raiders set fire to the village. The bride, abandoned and trapped in the chapel, was found the next morning hanging from the bell rope, her gown soaked in smoke and grief. The priest had written only two words before the book ended, scorched at the edges:
"She waits."
I felt the cold before I heard it. A draft cut through the ruined walls, carrying the faintest whisper. A woman's voice—soft, mournful, and terribly close. My hand went to my sword, its runes pulsing faintly at her presence. But when I turned, there was no one. Only a veil, white and tattered, drifting on the stone floor.
I didn't pick it up.
The Graveyard
Graveyards speak louder than the living if you know how to listen. I walked among tilting stones, the names weathered into ghosts themselves. Birds did not sing here. No crickets dared.
The bride's grave stood apart, marked by a cracked angel, its face eroded smooth. Offerings lay at its base: wilted flowers, dolls with missing eyes, even teeth strung on thread. Desperation, superstition, bargaining with what they could not fight.
I knelt, pressing a talisman into the soil—an old charm of protection, one my foster mother once used. The ground shivered. Just faintly, but enough that I knew she had noticed me.
That night, I dreamt of bells. They tolled endlessly, shaking me awake in a cold sweat. My familiar—today in the shape of a black fox—watched me with wary eyes. He never growled without reason.
A Veil in the Fields
I decided to test her reach. At dusk I walked the fields, the stalks whispering as though warning me away. My sword shimmered in my hand, reshaping into a bow of crackling light. The first arrow, tipped with blessed ash, I loosed into the mist.
The air split open in a shriek not made by mortal lungs. Then, ahead of me, she appeared—no flesh, only silhouette. A bride's form draped in tatters, veil floating as if underwater. Where her face should have been, only hollow dark.
She didn't advance. She only lifted a hand, and in her palm glowed a burning ring—an unbroken wedding band, seared into eternity. When I blinked, she was gone.
But the ring was not. It lay in the soil at my feet, hot enough to blister my skin.
The Widow's Tale
I returned to the tavern, demanding truth. The villagers shrank from me, but an old widow, her voice rasping with drink and years, spoke.
"The Bride does not kill outright," she said. "She binds. She drags men into her procession. They march, all dressed in veils of ash, until their bones give way. My son… my son wore her chain."
She pulled back her sleeve, showing me the ring-shaped scar around her wrist. Not from marriage. From something that bound her flesh like fire.
"The bells," she whispered, tears gathering. "When you hear them, run. For every toll is a step closer."
But I would not run. I had come to sever the Bride's procession, not to join it.
Midnight Procession
The night was a black ocean, and in its depths, I saw her court. Figures moving through the mist, faceless, stumbling in torn garments. Dozens, maybe more—husbands that never were, grooms stolen from their homes, men dragged from their sleep.
They moved to the bells, each toll pulling them forward. The Bride walked at their head, veil trailing like a river of death.
I whispered to my familiar. He shifted into a raven and flew ahead, scattering ash with each beat of his wings. The grooms did not falter. They did not see him.
But she saw me. Her head turned, hollow sockets locking onto mine. And the bells grew louder.
The Veil Burns
I cast a circle of salt and flame, talismans sparking as I poured potion after potion onto my blade. The sword hissed, alive with enchantments.
She entered the circle without fear. The veils of her followers brushed against the flames but did not burn. Only when I struck did she scream—her form tearing like fabric, her veil blackening at the edges.
But pain was not defeat. She lashed out with the bell rope itself, spectral and choking. It coiled around my throat, dragging me toward the procession. My familiar slashed at it, changing form mid-leap into a wolf of fire. His teeth tore the rope, but the sound of bells rang in my skull long after it broke.
Breaking the Ring
Her power was bound to the ring she carried—the wedding band never worn, never claimed. I realized then what bound her: not vengeance, but denial. She had died waiting. And so she hunted still.
I drew my whip form, lashing it across her hand. The ring fell, searing the soil. The ground split with it, screams of the dead pouring from beneath. Her form wavered, unraveling into ribbons of smoke.
The procession faltered. One by one, the faceless grooms collapsed, their bodies crumbling into dust. The bells tolled one final time, then silence claimed the night.
The Bride's Silence
I buried the ring beneath consecrated earth, sealing it with wards stronger than stone. The church bells have not rung since. The village, though scarred, began to breathe again. Children played outside. Windows opened to the sun.
But I know this truth: her hunger is not gone. Spirits such as hers never vanish—they linger, waiting for cracks in the wards, for weakness in memory. Someday, another hunter may hear her bells.
As I left, my familiar trotting beside me in the shape of a hound, I glanced back. For a heartbeat, I thought I saw her veil at the edge of the forest.
But perhaps it was only the wind.
Either way, I tightened my grip on the sword. There will always be another monster, another shadow in the dark. And I will always walk toward it.