The Tall One loomed, blotting out what remained of the stars. His body stretched higher than the rift itself, his limbs vanishing into distances that shouldn’t exist. Each breath from the void of his face drew in the air, tugging at the skin of the living like a cruel tide.The survivors huddled in the wreckage of the church. Broken pews were shoved against the doors, though everyone knew wood could not keep out something like him. The sheriff, his hand wrapped in filthy bandages, pounded a table for attention.
“We can’t fight him head-on,” he said. His voice cracked, but determination simmered beneath it. “But we can cut him off. We starve him, like I said. No screams. No fear. He feeds on reaction. So we deny it to him.”
The doctor shook his head. His eyes were hollow, his coat spattered with blood. “You don’t understand. It isn’t only fear. He feeds on patterns. Rituals. The circles carved into the tower, the harvest dances, even the way we pray. He’s been shaping us for generations. We’re his crop.”
Silence fell. The rain outside had turned black, each droplet staining the wood like ink. Through the cracked stained-glass window, the glow of the Tall One pulsed steadily, a heartbeat larger than the world.
It was the youngest who spoke next. Emily, still alive despite the lesion scars crawling up her neck, lifted her head. Her voice was calm, eerily so. “He’s tied to the tower. You broke it, and now he’s spilling through. But he isn’t whole yet. That’s why he needs us to keep looking, to keep remembering. If we blind ourselves, if we break the pattern, he won’t finish.”
The sheriff leaned forward. “Blind ourselves? What do you mean?”
Emily’s eyes glimmered silver. “He can’t eat what he can’t see. And he only sees through us.”
A chill rippled through the room. Parents instinctively pulled their children closer, though some of the children pushed back, eyes already distant, as though they belonged more to him than their families.
The doctor whispered, “You’re suggesting we… we end ourselves? Starve him by burning the crop?”
Emily didn’t answer. She simply stared, and for the briefest moment, her lips curved into a smile that wasn’t hers.
The sheriff slammed his fist down again. “No. We don’t die for him. We fight him. If he’s tethered to the tower, then maybe there’s something left to destroy.” He pointed toward the wreckage where the water tower once stood. “We find the anchor. We burn it out.”
Reluctantly, the survivors agreed. Better to act than sit and wait for their children to be taken piece by piece. Armed with lanterns, makeshift torches, and the last few bullets left, they stepped back into the storm.
The fields had transformed. Corn stalks were taller than houses now, twisted into shapes resembling ribcages and jaws. They shifted in the wind, opening and closing as though breathing. From within, the children’s voices sang. The same hymn over and over: “He drinks, He drinks, He drinks.”
Pushing through the field was agony. The stalks lashed at exposed skin, leaving burns that smoked and blistered. But they pressed on until they reached the crater where the tower had stood.
There, at the centre, something pulsed. A sphere of flesh and metal, half-organic, half-iron, throbbed like a beating heart. Pipes jutted from it, dripping black fluid into the soil. Symbols carved in concentric rings glowed faintly on its surface.
The doctor staggered closer, awe in his voice. “It’s a root… a seed. The tower was just its stem. This is what he planted here.”
The sheriff didn’t hesitate. He lit his torch and hurled it onto the pulsing mass. Fire licked across its surface, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then the sphere shrieked—not through sound, but directly into their skulls. Blood poured from noses and ears. Some collapsed instantly, twitching on the ground.
The Tall One reeled above, his vast frame convulsing, limbs bending into impossible knots. The sky itself warped, stars returning for brief flashes before being swallowed again.
“He feels it!” the sheriff roared. “Keep burning it!”
More torches flew, flames spreading across the grotesque seed. The children’s hymn faltered into screams. The cornfield writhed violently, stalks snapping, whipping like serpents. One parent was seized, pulled into the earth, his cries cut short.
Still, the fire grew. The seed blistered, rupturing open, spilling black ichor that sizzled as it hit the ground.
And for the first time, the Tall One screamed.
His voice shattered windows across Ashbrook, toppled walls, and split the earth. But the survivors held their ground, faces lit by fire, refusing to bow.
Above them, the rift flickered. The Tall One’s outline dimmed, as though he were being drawn back into the dark.
The sheriff raised his ruined hand, shouting over the chaos: “We can end him here!”
But Timothy appeared at the crater’s edge, his body more light than flesh now. His voice thundered with the Tall One’s echo:
“You think fire kills what was never alive? He will not burn. He will bloom.”
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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