Shadowed Crown

In my previous life, I was born at the stroke of a cold, pitch-black midnight on New Year's Day, an omen the old town whispered about. They called me a Deathbringer's child, destined to guide the souls of the stillborn to rest.

From the age of six, I carried small coffins alone to the graveyard by the church, burying them in silence.

Each time, when I reached into the velvet shroud that wrapped the tiny casket, I would find a golden coin resting inside.

My mother sold those coins for money, buying my brother a grand mansion, while leaving me behind in the crumbling family house to keep doing the work.

No one expected the world of Haunts to descend. However, those coins turned out to be tokens of command, keys that bound the Haunts of the apocalypse to my will.

With them, I became the Empress of the End, feared by all, ruling with every resource at my command.

In my previous life, when the Haunts world descended, I had just returned from burying someone in the open grounds next to the church.

The wind that night was so chilly it seemed to slice through my bones.

The front door was left ajar, allowing the ice cold air in, as my mom and brother sat stone-faced on the old house's chairs.

Their faces were ghostly white, void of any emotion.

A shiver of fear ran through me as I shakily offered a gold bar. "Mom, don't you and bro usually only come by at noon?"

Mom's eyes did not even flicker as she took the gold bar from my hand.

Instead of smiling, she hurled it at my face in a rage, her voice raspy with fury.

"Everything's ruined, it's completely ruined! Your brother's supermarket, the food factory, and the orchards, thousands of acres, all snatched away by the Haunts. This is all your fault, you're a jinx. I should've ended you the night you were born!"

The gold bar struck my eye, and a tear mixed with a drop of blood trickled down.

It stung, but the pain in my heart was worse.

I felt like I was plunged into an icy abyss, Mom's words echoed in my head. I whispered to myself, "Didn't you say the gold bar was for me? Was that big house for my brother not enough? You gave him so much… What about me?"

She gazed at the moonlit sky, her smile bright but cruel. Then, she slapped me hard. "You? You get a gold bar for burying a coffin. If your brother could do the job, wouldn't it be better?

"You've laid to rest so many young souls, maybe it's your turn now."

Mom's face twisted into something monstrous, her arms and legs jerking towards me like a puppet on strings.

I sobbed and stumbled backward, "Mom, it's me, Silvia, what are you doing?"

"The Haunts world is here. No one's going to make it out alive. I know how your blood calms the wind. Maybe if we drain it dry, they might spare us."

Her eyes, already wide with greed, became even more frightening as she tossed me aside like a discarded sack of potatoes at the doorstep.

Outside, Mom was yelling into the void, "Take this as my tribute, just please, leave the two inside alone."

The door slammed shut behind me, my fingers bleeding from clawing the door open, but it did not faze whoever, or whatever, was on the other side.

The icy wind laced with whips streaked my face, a strange force rolling over me without consuming me. Instead, it passed right through the door and carved out my mother's insides, leaving her an empty husk.

I was so scared my legs turned to jelly, as I stumbled to what was left of my mom.

I could not scream nor move.

Her hollow eyes stared back as blood tears fell onto my hand.

Out of nowhere, agony exploded in my body, like a knife slashing through my arm.

I looked up to see my brother, holes gouged out of his flesh, licking the blood from his knife with a manic glee.

His voice was so hoarse that it made my ears sting, "I wondered why that thing didn't scoop out your heart. Turns out, your blood was the best shield..."

……

I woke up drenched in sweat, back in my bed. It was a week before the Haunts world descended.

The gold bar from last night's burial was still heavy in my pocket.