It happened in Ashbrook - Chapter Eight: The Sky Splits

The heavens peeled apart like torn fabric, exposing a depthless void beyond the stars. Lightning, black and jagged, crawled across the sky without thunder. The people of Ashbrook dropped to their knees, hands clasped over their heads, as if instinct told them to bow.

From the rupture descended shapes—tall, elongated shadows that twisted and folded like limbs without joints. They were not fully formed, wavering as if caught between this world and another. But they radiated presence, a suffocating weight pressing against every chest, making lungs strain for air.

At the centre of it all stood Timothy. His broken body moved unnaturally, each step jerking, as if strings pulled him from above. The glow inside him pulsed brighter, syncing with the rift above. His voice, though his throat should not have been capable of sound, carried across the ruined fields.

“He was waiting. He was thirsty. The tower was his cup. You’ve spilled him out, and now he drinks you instead.”

The sheriff raised his rifle with shaking hands and fired. The shot cracked through the air, striking Timothy square in the chest. The boy staggered but did not fall. Instead, the wound opened wider, splitting into a mouth filled with light. The bullet clinked against unseen teeth before vanishing into the radiance.

The doctor, his face streaked with blood, whispered, “He’s becoming the vessel. The tower was never his true body. It was only the latch. Now… now the latch is gone.”

The ground quaked. Cornfields writhed, stalks twisting together into grotesque forms—arms, torsos, faces. The crops themselves were becoming worshippers. Their rustling became a chant, thousands of papery voices saying one word again and again: “Thirst.”

Panic spread through the survivors. Some fled into the night, vanishing into the whispering fields. Others stood frozen, unable to comprehend what their eyes saw.

The sheriff shouted, “Back to town! Move!” But his command faltered under the weight of the spectacle. Because above the rift, something larger than the shadows began to emerge.

It was the Tall One.

At first, only his fingers appeared, impossibly long, curling down from the sky as if gripping the edges of the tear. Each was lined with dozens of joints, bending in ways that defied anatomy. Then came his arms, shoulders, and at last, the shape of a head—featureless but for a gaping cavity where a face should be.

The void within his head sucked in the starlight, bending it like water circling a drain. His body had no clear boundary, merging shadow and substance, tall enough to make the water tower seem like a toy.

Every child in Ashbrook screamed at once, their voices blending into a single piercing note. Their eyes glowed silver, bodies convulsing. Some collapsed; others began walking toward the Tall One as if summoned home. Parents tried to hold them back, but the children fought with inhuman strength, breaking free to join the tide.

The sheriff, bloodied but defiant, lifted his voice over the chaos. “This isn’t over! If he can drink, then maybe he can starve. We don’t feed him! Do you hear me? We don’t feed him!”

But Timothy only laughed, light pouring from his torn body, his voice echoing like a choir. “You already fed him. Every fear. Every prayer. Every scream. You kept him alive, and now he is full.”

The Tall One’s gaze—or what passed for it—swept over the town. Windows shattered. Church bells rang without being touched. The air itself bent, pulling toward him as if he were the centre of gravity.

And then he spoke, though no mouth moved. His words were carved directly into the minds of every living soul in Ashbrook:

“I am not new. I am the beginning you forgot. I built your tower to sip from you slowly. Now I will drink deep.”

The rift widened further, tearing open the night sky until the stars themselves bled away.

For the first time since the ordeal began, even the sheriff’s resolve cracked. His rifle slipped from his hands. He fell to his knees, whispering: “God help us.”

And for once, there was no answer.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model