TheMidnight
Tales

They said he burned, but I only remember the silence afterward—a silence so thick it dripped down the walls in clots, a silence with teeth, with breath, with memory dressed in funeral lace.

I woke to the scent of singed velvet and something older, older than ash, older than vows, older than love ever claimed to be.

There was no light. Just the pulse of something terrible humming in the stone.

There was a mirror, split through like a throat after biting. I looked in and saw nothing I remembered—just eyes that twitched in time with the shadows, and hair that moved like it was still burning. No face. No name. Only the outline of a woman too broken to break again.

My throat was full of lace—wet, rotting, sweet with mildew and old prayers. I coughed until the lace came out in ribbons, spooled like the guts of a promise he never kept.

My fingers moved before my thoughts returned, Scratching symbols I didn’t recognize into the soot-covered floor, searching the debris for a ring or a reason.

I think I was supposed to be grateful. I think I was supposed to be beautiful. But now the hunger has made me real.

They called me bride, but never gave me a name to speak for myself. He called me his, and I mistook it for a hymn. He fed us blood and silence, taught us that devotion meant disappearing. But I have crawled out of that vanishing. I have stitched myself from bone and breath and defiance.

There is a new hunger now, one that doesn’t end in submission or silence. I do not want him back. I want the world he promised us—then I want to ruin it.

My sisters whisper in the depth of night, their voices twisted with fire and thorns and longing. We were never just his. We were never just brides. We were the cathedral he locked from the inside because he knew what would happen if we ever opened the doors.

I never learned my name. But I remember the scream he carved into my throat. I remember the softness he stole to build his kingdom. And I remember the moment I stopped needing to be saved.

Let them tremble.
Let them pray.
Let them call me monster, wife, ruin, revenant—
I am still coming.

For those of the Belihal civilization, the ritual for their warriors is a sacred ceremony. The soul is placed briefly in a reflecting pool, and each warrior sits for a time of rest.

The life is measured.

It is a time for reflection. Many souls will visit the warrior. Some are those of foes, and some are those of friends. The souls will sit with the warrior in the reflecting pool as the soul passes in transition to new life.

Conversations vary. Some talk of honor and courage. And sometimes the conversation concerns an unresolved issue.

So it was in the reflecting pool of the great Emperor Livenly. Jinn and the emperor had battled each other in a joust, and now both sat together in the emperor’s reflecting pool. Jinn looked at Emperor Livenly and stated, “How does a battle conclude for the hand of the mighty Lucif, Emperor Livenly?”

The emperor’s soul said nothing.

Jinn asked, “Does the marriage contract transfer after battle, mighty Emperor? Draw in Lucif. Let us question the empress.”

The soul of Lucif arrived at the edge of the reflecting pool.

“Empress, my lovely Lucif. May Jinn have marriage contract transfer from your Emperor? I have won the joust.”

Empress Lucif contemplated Jinn’s question. Lucif touched the soul of Emperor Livenly, and she spoke softly to her husband.

“My love, how do I ease your soul’s worry?”

The emperor spoke softly to his wife. Lucif was quiet for a moment before answering Jinn.

“Your Excellency. His soul wishes to keep the marriage contract. But in lucif realm, there is a primary and a second. My love extends the position of second to you, if you would accept.”

Jinn rose quietly from the reflecting pool, and before exiting the still waters, he placed his hand on the Emperor’s shoulder.

“Then we shall both love Lucif. And we will all travel together as family.”

The soul of the Emperor rested.

There was a shop in Hollowmere, hidden between the cracks of time and memory. It sold tinctures, charms, and forgotten things. Its mistress was a blind elf called Mireth, known only as The Poisoner.

Kings feared her. Fae sought her out.

Her specialty was soulpoison—a brew that didn’t kill the body, but withered the spirit, leaving the victim hollow-eyed and obedient. It worked slowly, painfully, beautifully.

But Mireth never used it… until the night the Dream Prince came calling.

He offered her starlight in a vial and a promise to return her sight if she crafted a poison strong enough to kill a god. She asked no questions. Only smiled.

He should have asked more.

He drank the poison disguised as honeyed wine, laughing in her parlor.

Then he began to weep.

He did not die. Not truly. His dreams did. His power. His name.

Now he sweeps the shop floor, eyes empty, humming to himself as Mireth labels jars of mandrake and moonroot.

She never did take the vial of starlight.

She doesn’t need to see to know she’s won.

They said Maris Elowen was the best midwife in Duskmere. Gentle hands. Kind eyes. Flowers in her hair. She delivered nearly every child born in the village for twenty years—except one.

Her own.

Lina Elowen disappeared during the Winter’s Turn festival on the longest night of the year. One moment, she was laughing in the snow with her wooden fox toy, and the next, she was gone.

No tracks.
No screams.
Just the fox, its eyes burnt black, resting in the snow.

Maris searched the woods until her boots bled. She stopped eating. Stopped speaking.

They said she whispered to the trees.
That she burned candles with bones inside.

Then, the children began to go missing.
One by one. Always on the new moon.

The village blamed the wolves. Then witches. Then Maris.

When they finally went to her home, they found her sitting at the hearth, humming a lullaby. Around her were dolls—stitched from linen, scraps of hair, and skin. Each wore a child’s name etched into their chest.

But none bore the name Lina.

“She’s not here,” Maris said sweetly, stirring a pot of something that hissed. “They took her there. So I’m sending the others… to fetch her.”

They hanged her the next morning. Burned her house. Salted the ground.

But the disappearances didn’t stop.

And every new moon, someone swears they see Maris in the woods, holding a doll with button eyes and whispering, “One more. Just one more, and she’ll come home to me.”

Setting down my gin and tonic, I checked the time. It was getting late and I had class the next day.

"Better get my backpack ready for tomorrow" I mused to myself.

I opened my front door to a moonless night and stepped into it. From the corner of my eye, I see a vaguely human shaped shadow. Thinking it was the drinks I'd had, I turned towards it.

My eyes locked on it, and we both froze. It was as tall as I am, but its shape was muddled, like a person wearing too many coats on this cold night. My closest neighbor was miles away, so whoever -or whatever- this is was here for me. I stared at it, and I could feel it staring back. My brain raced to figure out what I could do.

Do I try to fight it in the darkness?
Do I try to bring it into my house where the light is?
Do I run into the darkness?

None are good options, and before I could find an answer it suddenly made a terrifying screech. After an initial panic, I realized. It was a peacock.

It begins before the sun rises.

Not with panic, no, panic is loud. This is quieter. Meaner. It slithers in while you’re still dreaming, curls itself into your chest like a cold stone. You wake already drowning.

Your body feels like a lie: bones too heavy, skin too tight. You can’t quite swallow. You can’t quite breathe. There’s no danger, not really, just the unshakable certainty that something is wrong. Terribly wrong. Something’s coming, and you won’t survive it.

You sit up. You pace. You try to eat, but your stomach has shut the door and thrown away the key. You sip water like it might betray you. Every sound is too sharp. Every silence is unbearable.

You check your phone. Then again. And again.

No messages. Did you say something wrong? Did you forget something? Did you ruin everything and just don’t remember doing it?

You go outside. The world is normal, disgustingly normal. People laugh. Cars honk. A dog barks. The sun shines. But you feel like a ghost stuffed inside a body that’s forgotten how to be human. Everyone else is living, and you’re just surviving.

Then the spiral begins.
What if this never goes away?
What if you always feel like this?
What if people are just pretending to like you?
What if you lose control, right here, right now?

You grip the table. You stare at the floor. You count things that don’t need counting, cracks in the tiles, the seconds between heartbeats. You take a breath, then another. But it never feels like enough.

You cancel plans. You lie to friends. You hate yourself for both.

At night, your heart pounds against the mattress. Your thoughts race with no finish line. Sleep becomes an enemy; you fear the stillness almost as much as the noise.

And when it finally ends, when the fog lifts, the grip loosens, and your lungs remember their purpose, you don’t even feel relief.

You feel shame.

You survived again. But you don’t feel stronger. You feel hollow.

And you wait.
Because you know it will return.

They say no map dares mark Widow’s Hollow. Not because it’s lost—but because it wants to stay that way.

It’s a place where the cypress trees bleed sap like tears and the air hums low with the sound of something ancient breathing beneath the moss. Folks around Monroe Parish say the Devil lives there. Not the pitchfork kind—no, him, the one who speaks like honey and walks barefoot through graveyards.

Miss Mercy Talbot met him first.

Her husband had vanished in the flood of ’67, swept downriver, and was buried in a belly of mud. After that, she started walking the Hollow at dusk, barefoot and humming lullabies to no one.

They found her a month later, sitting on the porch of her rotted house, hair white, eyes black as coal, a smile fixed too wide.

“He gave me a baby,” she whispered to the sheriff, “and I ain’t even bleed no more.”

She was locked away, but each night the women of the parish would hear the crying echo from the Hollow. Not a baby’s cry—something older. Something hungry.

Years passed, but the Hollow kept taking.

A preacher went to bless it. He never came back.

A group of boys dared each other to find the Devil’s tree—the one carved with names that hadn’t been born yet. One boy returned, mouth sewn shut with barbed wire and hands full of baby teeth.

Then came Delilah Moore.

Sharp-eyed and stubborn, she came down from Baton Rouge with a camera and a silver crucifix. “I’m not afraid of stories,” she said.

That was Friday.

On Sunday, the Hollow bloomed.

Every tree burst into red flowers. The sky wept ash. And where Delilah was last seen, a swing hung from a branch, gently swaying though there was no wind.

Some say she’s still in there. That she walks with the Devil now, wearing a crown of baby teeth and weeping roses.

But you’ll never see her—unless you go at dusk.
And you listen real close.
And you’re willing to give something back.

In the Before Time, when the Void was without shape and the Deep had no name, when there was no sky and no stone, no breath nor beast, there were six who were older than all knowing.

Not born, not forged, they were, and that was enough.

First came Darkness, eldest and vast. They cloaked the endless nothing in their heavy mantle, and They whispered silence into the cracks of the world, carved the deep caverns, and folded the black soil into waiting mounds.

In their shadow, all beginnings slept.

Then came Light, a blade of piercing flame. They tore open the folds of the dark, seeding the void with fire and song. From their burning hands the stars were cast, and the first sun was chained to the heavens.

Life stepped forth, clad in the colors of things unseen. With one breath, they birthed rivers and beasts, trees and creeping things, flesh that loved and wept and warred. Their touch was abundance, their gift both blessing and burden.

Nature followed, laughing with a mouth full of storms. With claws and roots, they shaped mountains and oceans, deserts and jungles. They set wolves upon the lambs and vines to strangle the tallest trees. Balance was their art, savage and beautiful beyond measure.

Death moved quietly in their wake. Where Life planted, Death pruned. They crowned the beasts with mortality, wove endings into the threads of all making. Their voice was a grave song that shaped the limits of longing.

Time remained silently, existing, unseen and never felt.
Their fingers drew the
slow decay of stone that Death brought,
the blooming of age upon flesh
that Life never intended,
the passing of kingdoms into dust,
Nature himself crafted.
They were the river none could dam,
the wheel none could halt.
Not even Darkness and Light could tame them.

Thus did the Six labor, and Eden was wrought from their warring love. Yet it was barren still, and the gods, weary of silence, resolved to craft companions. Darkness and Light pressed their hands into the clay of Eden, molding figures crude and trembling, the first humans, made of dust and longing.

Still unsatisfied, the Six turned to their own breath and blood, their scattered magic to create the Mancers

Then they bound spell to tree, charm to river, curse to mountain and from these bindings, the Druids were born, ancient ones, keepers of the world's secret heart, Speakers of the old tongues, that the stones remember.

Thus was Eden filled, with flesh, with fire, with spirit. And the Six withdrew beyond the veil, watching, unseen, as strife and wonder wove the endless tapestry of their making.

So it was told. So it is remembered.

Long after the Six withdrew beyond the veil, the children of Eden lived in uneasy harmony.
The Humans toiled in the fields and raised their cities.
The Mancers shaped rivers and mountains to their will.
The Druids spoke to the stones and the trees, tending the ancient threads of the world.

But pride grew in the hearts of the Mancers.
They gazed upon the wild lands and hungered to tame them.
They bent the rivers into roads, scorched forests into ash, and raised towers that scraped the bellies of the stars.

The Druids watched with silent dread.
The wild things they had sworn to protect were twisted, enslaved, forgotten.
In secret groves, they whispered to Nature himself, and their hearts grew heavy with sorrow and rage.

It is said that the war began with a single stone,
a sacred glade felled by Mancer flame to build a citadel of glass and gold.
The ground wept blood.
The sky howled with mourning.
And the Druids rose from the hidden places, bearing wrath older than memory.

The first battles were unseen: crops withered overnight, rivers turned against the cities, and beasts once tamed turned savage. But the Mancers answered with firestorms and earthquakes, tearing the very skin from the world. Brother slew brother beneath broken stars. Forests blackened, rivers ran red, and the bones of Eden were laid bare.

The war raged for a hundred years and a hundred more. In the end, neither Mancer nor Druid could claim victory. The world itself bore the wound, a deep scar of ash and desolation where once stood the heart of Eden.

It is said that from that day forward, the Druids fled to the deepest woods and hidden valleys, vowing never again to trust the Children of Blood.
The Mancers withdrew to their great cities of stone and steel, ever watchful of the wilds that crept at their gates.

And the Humans, those born of dirt and breath, they inherited the ruin, a divided world of wonder and sorrow, haunted forever by the Sundering.

Thus was the balance broken.
Thus was Eden forever scarred.
Thus is it still.