Till Death and After

"Till Death and After"

A Horror Love Story

I. The Girl in the Woods

The villagers of Edevane spoke of her in hushed tones, voices trailing off when the wind shifted. Liora. A name carried by the wind like a secret, wrapped in sorrow. Some claimed she had been born under a blood moon. Others swore they had seen her whisper to shadows and flowers that bloomed out of season.

Elias Gray was not one to believe in superstition. A blacksmith’s son, his world was made of steel and fire, not phantoms and fairy tales. But the day his horse bucked near the edge of the forest, sending him tumbling into a thicket of thorns, his life twisted like fate around Liora’s name.

She found him bleeding, delirious. Her hands, pale and cool, touched his wounds. She carried him to a weathered cottage nestled in the heart of the woods—a place that didn’t exist on any map.

Her eyes were the first thing he noticed—pale grey like ash after a fire, rimmed with lashes dark as midnight. Her voice was calm, melodic, but carried a sadness that felt centuries old.

"You should not be here," she whispered, binding his arm.

"You saved me," he replied. "That must mean something."

II. The Courtship of Shadows

Elias returned the next week, and the week after, inventing reasons to visit. Liora, despite her resistance, began to smile. Her walls crumbled slowly, like frost melting under a hesitant spring. She told him of dreams she couldn’t escape, voices she heard at night, of a lover long ago who betrayed her trust and left her to die.

Elias thought it was metaphor. A woman broken by loss.

Until he saw her talking to the mirror.

It whispered back.

He told himself it was a trick of the wind, the way old wood groans, how solitude plays tricks on the mind. He loved her. Deeply. Irrevocably.

Still, every time he touched her, her skin was cold. And sometimes, when she thought he wasn’t watching, her reflection didn’t move with her.

III. The Curse of Liora Vale

One night, beneath the full moon, Elias took her hands in his and asked, “Will you marry me?”

Liora stared at him, trembling. “I am not meant for love,” she said. “My heart is tethered to a curse. I died once already, Elias.”

He laughed, nervous. “Then you came back to me.”

She did not laugh.

“I was murdered here,” she said, voice hollow. “By the man I loved. He feared me. Feared what I was becoming. He drove a knife into my heart and buried me beneath the ash tree behind this house.”

Elias stepped back.

“But I woke,” she continued. “With soil in my mouth, and hatred in my chest. I cannot leave these woods. I cannot die again, not truly. My love is a binding force. And if I love again... if you love me back... I’m afraid you’ll never leave either.”

Elias, heart pounding, said only: “Then let it be so.”

IV. The Burning

The wedding was simple—just them beneath the ash tree, Liora in a black lace gown, Elias with a ring made from twisted iron. When he kissed her, the forest went still. Birds stopped singing. The wind died.

That night, as they lay together, Elias awoke to a voice murmuring in his ear. Not Liora’s. Something ancient. Malicious. It told him to run. That his soul had been claimed.

He tried to leave, boots crunching the leaves just beyond her door. But the trees closed in. The path curved endlessly back to the cottage. And the air grew thick with rot.

When he returned, Liora stood waiting.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You tried to leave me.”

He said nothing. He couldn’t.

The storm rolled in. Thunder cracked the sky. The ash tree groaned as wind lashed its branches. Lightning struck—first the tree, then the cottage. Fire erupted, hungry and swift.

Villagers saw the flames from afar but arrived to nothing but charred wood and silence. No bodies were found. Just scorched earth and ash.

V. Forever

Years passed. Decades.

Children who wandered too close to the ruins returned changed. Eyes hollow. Voices quiet.

Travelers spoke of a couple glimpsed dancing in the clearing during full moons. She, in a gown of shadow. He, with rusted chains around his wrists. Always dancing. Always watching.

If you venture into the woods of Edevane today, they say you can hear the music—the haunting waltz of love that defied death, cursed to play forever.

And if you hear her whisper your name, don’t look back.

Because if you do… you’ll never leave.

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