“RISE AND SHINE, FILTH.”
The shout cracked like a whip through the Pumpkin Patch. Metal doors screeched open as guards began dragging chains, unlocking pits, and yanking blankets off bone-thin backs.
I jolted up, breath sharp. My neck still stiff from where the executioner’s blade should’ve taken my head.
Cindy was already on her feet.
She didn’t stretch. She didn’t yawn. She just stood like a soldier, sharp, alert, and somehow still pretty, even in dirt and ruin.
“You hear that?” she murmured.
“Yeah,” I growled. “Samantha’s got visitors.”
Samantha Gretchen
The Wicked Stepmother. Stripped of her noble title, but crowned queen of the Pumpkin Patch, the plantation where dreams went to starve.
She didn’t rule with magic. She ruled with menace. With teeth too white, eyes too calm, and a voice sweet enough to curdle milk.
The sun hadn’t even risen, but her voice rang out over the rusted intercoms embedded in the walls of the slave pits.
"Rise and shine!,” she shouted, her voice laced in cruelty. “Time to stretch those aching limbs and earn your keep."
We shuffled from our bunkers, some limping, others already bleeding from yesterday.
Cindy was beside me. Her jaw clenched.
Samantha emerged moments later on her elevated walkway above the main courtyard, draped in velvet and venom. She wore a sickening orange gown that shimmered like the skin of a rotting gourd, paired with gold chains and sharp heels that clicked like clockwork with every step. Her hair was stacked high in a twisted updo, jewels glinting through the strands.
And behind her stood her muscle, hulking guards with sewn-shut lips and glassy eyes. Corpses stitched back together, kept upright with a cocktail of dark magic and hate.
When one slave groaned too loud from a broken rib, she didn’t blink.
She smiled.
Snap.
A single finger flick. That’s all it took.
A guard moved instantly. No words. No hesitation.
The groaning stopped.
A wet crunch echoed. A breathless silence followed.
Cindy’s fists clenched. “She keep playin’ like that, she gon’ catch hands and heels.”
“Patience,” I whispered. “Let her do as she pleases.”
Samantha leaned over the railing and grinned.
“We’ve got visitors today,” she said sweetly. “Royal ones. So let’s make a good impression, shall we? No spit, no limp, and if one of you so much as looks at the queen wrong... I’ll peel you open like the fruit you were too dumb to pack properly.”
She turned, heels echoing off the catwalk.
The sky was gray as bone. Rain threatened. And the air carried a smell worse than rot.
“Form up!” barked a Pumpkin Patch overseer. “NOW.”
We were herded like cattle into a crooked courtyard with vines growing up rusted iron. The walls cracked. The world is cold. And the noise of approaching wheels... unmistakable.
A chariot, red and gold and ridiculous, rolled in, pulled by four headless flamingo steeds. At the helm: Queen Lydia of Hearts. Thin as a whip. Eyes like garnets. Lips redder than spilled wine. Her gown bled behind her, a train of velvet soaked in a thousand crushed roses.
And flanking her?
The Club Suits. The bottom-tier guards in her army, wannabe elites with overcompensation issues. They wore patchy armor marked with black spade-shaped stains, clearly castoffs from higher-ranked troops.
One strutted forward like he was ten feet tall. “Attention! Her Majesty has graced us with her presence, ”
“Shut up, Club,” Lydia said, waving her hand dismissively. “You talk like a goat choking on tulle.”
The soldier flinched. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Lydia’s eyes scanned us like spoiled meat.
“One of you,” she purred, “sent me a gift. A sweet little box of oranges. From your precious plantation, yes? And yet... among the golden fruit was a blemish.”
She held it up, a moldy, squashed orange in her gloved hand like it was evidence of treason.
Cindy muttered under her breath, “Ain’t no way this chick just rolled up over citrus.”
“She’s needs a sacrifice for the king’,” I murmured back knowingly.
“What makes you say that?”
Lydia paced slowly. “You dare insult royalty with decay? You offend me with rot?” Her eyes sharpened. “I want the one responsible. Now.”
Samantha stepped forward, her hairstyle casting a shadow over her smug, painted face. “Of course, my queen. I’ve already begun the investigation, ”
“No.” Lydia cut her off putting one hand up in her face. “I came all the way down to this wretched garbage heap to pick the slave myself.”
The line of us stiffened. My undead body didn’t shiver, I wasn’t moved. I knew what this was, as I was subject to it just a little while before this. The king was in need of blood to be spilled, so that he could advance in Father Winters ranks.
“This is your moment, freaks,” she cooed. “Step forward. Confess. Tell me who sent the rot... or I’ll pluck five random souls and carve answers from their flesh.”
Silence.
“ No one, kill them all.”
Immediately the soldiers moved. Then a girl no older than fourteen, two pits down, started sobbing uncontrollably and loud.
“No-no-no please, please leave them alone. It was me! ” she trembled, falling to her knees. “I-I packed the oranges! But I didn’t mean, please, it must’ve been buried underneath I swear, ”
Lydia’s face didn’t move.
“Clubs,” she said calmly. “Take her.”
They descended.
Cindy’s eyes flashed. “Hell nah, ” she growled and stepped forward, but I caught her wrist.
“Don’t,” I said. “We can’t take all of them.”
“She’s just a kid!” Cindy hissed.
“Cindy!”
The Club Suits dragged the girl away screaming.
Lydia watched us the whole time, smiling as if taking mental pictures of our faces.
“This is what rot does,” she whispered. “It spreads.”
She crushed the orange under her heel. Then she looked us in the eye, as if that were a message, a warning. Then left us with the smell.
And silence.
The second Lydia’s ridiculous chariot wheeled out of sight, the overseers were on us.
“BACK TO WORK!” one barked, slamming a rusted staff against the side of a shed. “LET THAT BE A LESSON TO ALL OF YOU!”
The crowd broke apart like ash in wind. No one spoke. No one cried. We just moved, heads down, limbs dragging, hope bleeding from the seams.
Cindy didn’t move right away.
She stared at the crushed orange.
Then, with a breath sharp enough to cut, she spun on her heel and stormed toward the fields.
I followed her without a word.
The Pumpkin Patch stretched like a bad dream, twisted vines, thorns, overgrown roots, and pumpkins that pulsed like they were alive. We were handed rusted shears and burlap sacks, and the moment we hit the vines, Cindy went off.
“Naw, see, that’s some bullsh, ” she snapped, hacking at a vine hard enough to splatter pumpkin guts across her stitched sleeves. “Ain’t no way she dragged her raggedy royal ass down here over a damn fruit! She came for blood. That’s what she wanted. She just needed a reason.”
I stayed quiet, clipping the vines beside her.
“She didn’t even blink, Crypt!” Cindy spat. “That girl was, what, fifteen? Still got dreams and baby fat and everything, and now she’s gone. Just gone. And for what? A mistake?!”
“Cindt..” I started in a low tone.
“ You murdered a child! Bravo, Queen Heartless.” She slashed another vine. Her hands were shaking.
“And you just stood there, She just stood there,” Cindy continued, voice tightening. “Like it ain’t even her plantation. Like she don’t run this whole graveyard. She didn’t even try to defend that girl. She ain’t got no spine, no soul, no, ”
Her voice cracked.
She froze mid-swing.
I glanced over, and her shoulders were trembling.
“I hate this place, Crypt,” she whispered. “I hate it so much. Every day we survive here like that’s some kind of win. But surviving ain’t the same as living.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks, carving tracks through the dirt on her face.
“I’m so tired of watching good people die,” she choked out. “I’m tired of waking up wondering who’s next. I keep actin’ tough like I don’t feel it, but I do. I do.”
She dropped her shears and sank to her knees in the vines.
“I just wanna be free. I just… I want to know what it feels like to….”
I knelt beside her, unsure of what to say. My undead hands didn’t know comfort, didn’t know warmth, but I rested one on her back anyway.
“Cindy,” I said. “Look at me.”
She looked up reluctantly, hearing the seriousness in my voice.
“Freedom is just around the corner.”
She stared into my eyes for a moment, as if searching for something. Then, she leaned into me, quiet.
The wind blew through the Patch, cold and sharp. And somewhere far off, the girl’s screams still echoed in my head. It was just my motivation, my excuse, to do what I was about to do soon.
Night hit the Pumpkin Patch like a hammer.
The overseers locked the gates. The guards paced the perimeter like stitched-up gargoyles. And inside the barracks, the slaves collapsed into rotten straw, twisted dreams, and the kind of sleep that never really rested anything.
I didn’t sleep.
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Not with revenge twisting in my gut like a knife.
I never could.
When I planned… when I moved… I did it with fire in my bones and style on my sleeve. That’s what the Royal Family admired most about me. Father Winter especially. They loved how I performed. Every mission, a masterpiece. Every kill, a work of art.
I didn’t just follow orders. I made them beautiful.
And that’s the part that burns the most.
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It wasn’t heroism. It wasn’t justice.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPvLEXGDlzZ
It was mind control. A curse. A manipulation so deep, I mistook it for destiny.
I was a puppet in a golden cage, dancing to a song I never wrote, killing millions in the name of monsters who wore crowns.
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Now I’m on the other side.
Stripped of the title. Undead and rotting. A slave in the mud.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1OKTMcIIlx
But wide awake.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeObY8DbbKY
Awake enough to hate them.
So no, I couldn’t sleep.
Not with blood in my eyes.
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Because if she ever found out who I really was…
She’d hate me.40Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ85E1niqrSz
No, she’d kill me.
And I wouldn’t even blame her.
I sat in the shadows near the crumbled wall of my pit, one eye on the stars, the other on the blueprint forming in my head.
A plan.
Half suicide, half miracle.
But it was the only thing keeping me from going fully hollow.
Behind me, a soft voice stirred.
“...Crypt?”
I turned. Cindy sat up in her corner, braids draped over her shoulders, eyes half-lidded but sharp enough to cut glass.
“You good?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “You ain’t moved since we got back. Look like you tryna solve the whole world’s problems in your head.”
I smirked. “Just restless.”
She squinted at me. “Uh huh. That kind of ‘restless’ where you start countin’ guards or that ‘restless’ where you start thinkin’ about takin’ a bite outta the fence?”
“Little of both.”
She chuckled lightly but tilted her head. “What’s cookin’ in that undead brain of yours, hmm?”
I looked at her for a long second before speaking, smooth, casual, but deliberate.
“You ever… feel different?” I asked. “Like maybe there’s something inside you that don’t match the world around you?”
Her brow arched. “Different how?”
“Like maybe you got... gifts. Powers. Things you don’t talk about ‘cause this place would chew it up or cut it outta you.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “That’s oddly specific for a ‘restless’ question.”
I just shrugged, cool as the night air. “Just makin’ conversation.”
She hesitated, biting her lip.
“…Yeah. I got a little sumthin’,” she finally said, voice low. “Nothing flashy. But when I touch broken things, sometimes… they fix. Not all the way. Not big stuff. But small stuff, stitches, strings, cracked things. I think it’s why my body holds together like it does.”
My eyes flicked to the embroidery on her arms, those delicate, ornate seams holding her patchwork skin like a masterpiece.
She looked away, embarrassed. “Didn’t think it mattered. Ain’t like I’m out here breathing fire or lifting mountains.”
“It matters,” I said, voice steady. “Trust me.”
She studied me. “Why you askin’, Crypt?”
“Just curious,” I said, leaning back against the wall. “That's all..t.”
A silence settled.
Then I added, “You should get some rest.”
She narrowed her eyes, like she didn’t buy it, but didn’t press.
“Night.”
“Mhmm.”
She smiled weakly, laid back down. I sat there and started to doze.The last thing I remember, is the blue glow of my eyes shining on my palms before it came.
Darkness.
Cindy Valentine
The air that morning was thick with smoke.
It slapped me right across the face, sharper than a whip crack. I couldn’t even catch my breath. The smell of burning wood and flesh hit me first, making my stomach churn. Then, the sound, crackling, like dry bones snapping under pressure. The whole damn place felt like it was waking up in flames. And hell, it sure was.
“Cindy!” Someone yelled through the haze, but it was hard to make out who with all the screaming and chaos around me.
I snapped awake, body on alert before my brain even processed what was happening. My heart was pounding in my chest, but I didn’t have time to freak out.
The plantation was on fire.
The crops were burning, thick black smoke rising into the air. The guards' barracks were burning, flames licking at the sky. But it wasn’t just the fire. No, it was the sound of those gnashing teeth. The shuffle of feet. The growls that made my blood run cold.
Undead.
I could see ‘em now, like shadows coming outta the earth. Slaves long dead and buried, crawling up from the ground with glowing blue eyes, their limbs jerking like puppets on strings. They weren’t just walking, they were hunting.
I dodged a group of ‘em, my feet moving fast, but I knew I couldn’t outrun the chaos. The air stank of death, the flames roared, and everything was spinning outta control.
“Cindy, get out of here!” someone screamed. I couldn’t tell who. Didn’t matter.
I had no choice. I ran, not stopping for anything. Bodies were falling around me, and zombies were tearing through the guards, ripping ‘em apart like they were nothing. My breath burned in my chest, and my heart raced. I kept moving. Didn’t matter who I had to shove out the way.
And then I saw him.
Crypt.
Standing there, tall and eerie, glowing blue eyes locked on something, or someone.
Samantha. My wicked Stepmother.
She was gasping for air, her hands clawing at his wrist. Her face was pale, the makeup smeared, but it was the terror in her eyes that got to me. She was begging, pleading, like she always did when she was tryin’ to save her own ass.
But it wasn’t her voice I heard.
It was his.
The voice, his voice, was deep, not human. It sent chills down my spine like a beast was growling from the depths of the earth.
“Charming,” Samantha gasped, almost choking on the words. “Please… don’t… don’t do this…”
My feet froze to the ground.
Charming?
My blood ran cold in an instant.
I didn’t understand. Not at first. But something inside me clicked, something I didn’t want to face. I knew that name.
Prince Charming.
The Prince Charming. The one they warned us about, the one who supposedly saved the day in all the stories, the one they sang praises for. The same damn man who took out armies, who slaughtered hundreds without blinking an eye. He was supposed to be a hero. The face of justice. The guy who ruled with a smile and a sword.
The monster.
And now, standing there, in the middle of this nightmare... it was him. Crypt. The one I’d been talking to. The one I’d befriended.
He was the villain all along.
My legs felt like lead, my heart pounding in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or scream or run.
Samantha’s voice cracked again, pulling me back to reality. “Cindy... please... help me...”
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t help her. Not after everything she’d done. Not after she sent my mama to her grave, not after everything she put us through.
But damn, hearing her call my name like that... it hurt.
I turned around, my feet moving before my brain could stop them. I wasn’t thinking straight. I couldn’t.
I ran. I didn’t look back. Not when the truth was burning inside me like wildfire.
I heard her screaming, Samantha’s desperate cries fading into the distance, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. My head was spinning. My heart was racing.
The woods were close. The trees were my only chance at getting away. I could lose myself there. I could disappear, forget everything for a while.
But I didn’t look back.
Not even once.
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