stake: sebol7
Title: The Extinguished Lantern 💀🎃
Every Halloween, the villagers lit lanterns to keep away the one who came for the darkness — the Keeper of Lights. They said he collected the souls of those whose flames died before dawn.
That year, a boy named Mark laughed at the old stories. He went out into the night with a single lantern, mocking the superstition. But the wind grew colder. The fog thickened. The forest began to whisper.
Then — pffft — his lantern went out.
Silence.
Behind him, footsteps crunched on the dead leaves. A voice, like fire scraping glass, hissed:
“One more light... gone.”
The next morning, the villagers found Mark’s lantern burning again at the forest’s edge — its glass blackened from the inside.
No one ever touched it. And no one ever lets their light go out anymore.
