The Hunger In Her Soul
1666 Words
The Hunger In Her Soul
The rain arrived before the darkness did,
slow at first,
like fingers drumming against the skin of the earth,
then harder—
a thousand desperate fists
beating against the windows of Black Hollow Manor.
Inside the house
she waited.
Elena.
Her shadow stretched long beside the candlelight,
thin as a corpse laid beneath white cloth,
and her eyes—
God, her eyes—
held the shape of sleepless graves.
The villagers whispered her name carefully,
as if syllables could bleed.
They said she had buried three husbands.
They said the woods bent around her path.
They said wolves never touched her livestock
because they recognized something ancient
inside her bones.
But no one knew the truth.
Not yet.
Tonight the hunger woke again.
It began beneath her ribs,
a slow twisting serpent
coiling around her heart.
She pressed pale fingers to her stomach,
breathing hard,
trying to remember prayers
her mother once spoke beside dying fires.
The prayers no longer worked.
Outside, thunder rolled across the hills
like coffins dragged over stone.
Elena rose from her chair.
The floorboards groaned beneath her bare feet,
and somewhere deep inside the house
a door creaked open
though no hands had touched it.
She froze.
The sound came again.
Creeeak.
Slow.
Patient.
Alive.
The manor had many rooms she no longer entered,
rooms sealed with chains and scripture,
rooms where mirrors were covered in black cloth
to keep certain reflections from watching.
Yet tonight the sound echoed
from the forbidden corridor.
The east wing.
Her throat tightened.
“No,” she whispered.
But the hunger answered.
It pulsed through her veins
like black fire.
She grabbed the candleholder
and stepped into the hallway.
Portraits stared down from dust-choked walls.
Their painted eyes seemed wet in the flickering light,
following her as she walked.
The house smelled of mildew and old blood.
Wind battered the windows.
Somewhere upstairs
something moved quickly across the ceiling.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Elena climbed the stairs anyway.
Because she knew.
It had returned.
At the end of the corridor
stood the locked door.
Iron chains wrapped around it
like skeletal fingers.
The scriptures nailed to the wood
had begun to peel away.
And beneath the door—
breathing.
Not human breathing.
Not animal.
Something deeper.
Something starving.
Elena trembled.
The hunger inside her twisted harder,
recognizing the thing beyond the door
the way wolves recognize moonlight.
Then came the voice.
Soft.
Male.
“Let me out.”
Her blood turned cold.
She knew that voice.
Marcus.
Her first husband.
Dead for thirteen years.
The candle flickered violently.
“Please,” the voice whispered again.
“You left me in the dark.”
Elena backed away.
“No…”
“You were hungry then too.”
The chains rattled suddenly.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
The door shuddered.
She nearly dropped the candle.
“You fed on me.”
Marcus laughed softly.
A terrible sound.
Wet.
Broken.
“You said you loved me while my heart stopped beating.”
Elena covered her ears.
But the voice only grew louder.
“You remember the taste, don’t you?”
The hunger answered before she could.
Yes.
Images flooded her mind.
Marcus lying feverish in bed.
Her hands stained red.
His terrified eyes widening
as she bent over him in the darkness.
Not eating flesh.
Something worse.
She had consumed his life.
His fear.
His soul.
And afterward
she felt stronger.
Warmer.
Alive.
That was the curse.
The women in her bloodline carried it for centuries:
a hollow emptiness that could only be filled
by draining others.
Some resisted.
Most became monsters.
Elena had tried to resist.
But hunger always wins eventually.
The chains burst apart.
The door swung inward.
Darkness poured out of the room
like floodwater from a grave.
And Marcus stepped forward.
Or what remained of him.
His skin hung gray and loose,
his jaw crooked unnaturally,
his eyes empty black pits leaking shadow.
Yet he smiled.
“Elena.”
She stumbled backward.
“You’re dead.”
“No,” he replied.
“I’m starving.”
Behind him
other shapes stirred in the darkness.
Her second husband.
The old priest.
The traveler from the winter storm.
Every soul she had consumed.
All waiting.
All hungry.
The candle died.
Now only lightning illuminated the hallway
in violent white flashes.
The dead moved closer.
“Elena,” they whispered together.
“Feed us.”
She turned and ran.
The manor screamed around her.
Doors slammed shut by unseen hands.
Portraits crashed from walls.
Something clawed at her hair from the ceiling shadows.
The hunger inside her grew unbearable now,
tearing through her stomach like knives.
She crashed into the dining hall,
breathing hard.
The long table remained set
though no guests had visited in years.
Rotting plates.
Dust-covered goblets.
Dead flowers black as burned flesh.
At the center of the table
sat a young man.
Alive.
Rainwater dripped from his coat.
A traveler.
Perhaps twenty years old.
He looked frightened.
“I saw the light,” he stammered.
“I thought someone lived here.”
Elena stared at him.
The hunger roared.
She could hear his heartbeat
from across the room.
Strong.
Warm.
Beautiful.
The dead gathered behind her silently.
Watching.
Waiting.
The traveler slowly stood.
“Ma’am…?”
She stepped closer.
He smelled of earth and stormwater.
Human.
Living.
Her mouth filled with copper bitterness.
“You should leave,” she whispered.
But the doors slammed shut.
The young man jumped.
The dead laughed from the darkness.
Marcus emerged behind her,
his hollow eyes fixed on the traveler.
“Feed,” he hissed.
Elena shook violently.
“No…”
The hunger burned hotter.
She could almost see the life inside the young man—
golden threads pulsing beneath his skin.
One touch.
One taste.
That was all it would take.
The traveler backed away.
“There’s something wrong with this house.”
“Yes,” Elena whispered.
The candles relit themselves suddenly.
Every flame burned blue.
The dead circled the room.
The traveler finally saw them.
His scream pierced the manor.
And Elena broke.
The hunger consumed everything human left inside her.
Her body twisted with unnatural force.
Veins darkened beneath her skin.
Her pupils swallowed the whites of her eyes.
The dead whispered eagerly.
“Eat.”
The traveler tried to run.
Too late.
Elena seized him.
His heartbeat thundered against her hands.
Warmth surged into her body instantly,
delicious and terrible.
The young man cried out
as shadows poured from his mouth.
His soul.
She was feeding.
The hunger in her soul drank deeply,
like a beast awakened after endless winter.
His memories flooded into her—
childhood laughter,
his mother’s voice,
summer rivers,
first love beneath golden trees.
Then came the fear.
Pure.
Sharp.
Exquisite.
Elena gasped with monstrous pleasure.
The dead moaned around her.
More.
More.
MORE.
But suddenly—
she saw herself through his fading eyes.
Not a woman.
Not cursed.
A predator.
An abyss wearing human skin.
And for the first time in years
she felt horror greater than hunger.
The traveler weakened in her grasp.
“No…” she whispered.
Marcus stepped closer.
“Finish it.”
Elena looked at the dying boy.
Tears burned down her face.
The hunger fought viciously now,
clawing inside her skull.
Feed.
Feed.
Feed.
She screamed.
The windows exploded inward.
Wind howled through the manor.
Lightning split the sky.
And Elena made her choice.
She released the traveler.
The dead shrieked in fury.
Marcus lunged toward the boy instead,
but Elena threw herself between them.
“No more!”
The hunger turned on her instantly.
Agony ripped through her veins.
It hated denial.
The curse demanded feeding.
Her body collapsed to the floor.
The dead surrounded her.
“You belong to us,” they hissed.
Elena convulsed violently.
Darkness poured from her mouth like smoke.
The manor trembled.
Walls cracked.
Somewhere beneath the house
something ancient awakened.
The true source of the curse.
A heartbeat echoed underground.
Massive.
Hungry.
The floor split open.
Black roots erupted upward,
writhing like serpents.
The dead screamed as the roots seized them,
dragging them into the abyss below.
Marcus clawed toward Elena desperately.
“You cannot escape hunger!”
Then he vanished into darkness.
The traveler crawled toward the broken doorway.
“Elena!”
But she could barely hear him now.
The hunger had reached her heart.
Soon there would be nothing left.
She looked at the terrified young man
and managed a faint smile.
“Run.”
He fled into the storm.
Elena remained alone inside the collapsing manor.
The roots wrapped around her ankles gently,
almost lovingly.
The ancient heartbeat below called to her.
Mother.
Daughter.
Feed.
She understood then.
The curse was alive.
Older than religion.
Older than kingdoms.
A thing sleeping beneath the earth,
wearing generations of women
like borrowed flesh.
And it would never stop hungering.
Never.
The house groaned one final time.
Rain poured through the shattered roof.
Elena closed her eyes.
Memories flickered through her fading mind—
her mother singing softly,
sunlight across river stones,
what love once felt like before the darkness entered her blood.
For one brief moment
the hunger weakened.
And in that fragile silence
she whispered a final prayer.
Not for salvation.
For ending.
The roots tightened.
The floor beneath her opened wide.
Darkness swallowed her whole.
Then—
silence.
By morning
Black Hollow Manor was gone.
Only ruins remained beside the hill.
Villagers searched the ashes carefully,
crossing themselves as they whispered Elena’s name.
But they found no body.
Only strange marks in the earth,
like enormous claws
dragging themselves deeper underground.
And sometimes,
during violent storms,
travelers still claim they hear a woman crying
beneath the soil.
Not from pain.
From hunger.
Because some curses never die.
They wait.
They starve.
And somewhere in the darkness below the world,
Elena’s eyes are still open.
Still black.
Still searching.
For another soul
warm enough
to feed the endless thing
living inside her.
- Writer
