Chapter 13 – When Corpses Dream
The smell hit Rin before the village came into view—an acrid blend of rot, mildew, and something unnaturally sweet, like overripe fruit left to ferment in the sun. He crested the ridge overlooking the valley, where sagging thatched roofs clung to crumbling homes and narrow dirt paths twisted like veins through the plague-wracked hamlet. Mist clung to the earth as if mourning it, and no birds sang overhead. The sun refused to shine here.
He descended slowly, wary of the stillness. Too still.
The village of Wei's Hollow had no guards, no dogs barking at the scent of an outsider. The wind scraped hollowly through broken wind chimes. Doors hung ajar. Rice paddies overflowed with blackened water and bloated stalks. And yet... he could feel the pulse of souls, a humming beneath reality, quiet and disjointed.
They were alive.
And yet they weren't.
He entered the square where a shrine once stood, now collapsed inward, its offering bowls filled with dry blood. Villagers shuffled about with vacant eyes and brittle smiles, movements too fluid to be natural. They greeted him with gestures of shallow hospitality—an old man offered tea that no longer steamed; a woman handed him a flower wilted beyond recognition, her face locked in a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
They were too calm.
They were already dead.
Rin's breath misted though the air was warm. His Death Sense writhed against something intangible. These villagers had died long ago—but their spirits remained tethered. This place pulsed with a death that hadn't finished dying. Something deeper than flesh. A loop, coiled around the soul.
And then night fell.
The transformation was slow, but it came like the turning of a page.