The Forging of Nightmares

There is a village called Hollowbrook, a place where sunlight never truly breaks through the perpetual gloom. Mist slithers through the cobbled streets, wrapping every home in a cold embrace, and the wind carries whispers of things best left forgotten. Hollowbrook had been cursed for centuries, haunted not by demons from distant lands but by the shadows born from its own darkness. The curse was not an accident—it was carefully crafted by hands once innocent, hearts once pure.

They say villains are not born; they are made. Hollowbrook learned this truth too late.

Once, long ago, there was a man named Eryx, a blacksmith of unparalleled talent. His forge’s fire glowed warm and golden, and his heart was just as bright. Eryx had a wife, Lira, and a son named Dorian. Their home brimmed with laughter, and despite the gloom of Hollowbrook, they lived in a bubble of happiness.

But happiness, in this village, was dangerous.

The village elders, a secretive and superstitious council, had ruled Hollowbrook for generations. They believed in ancient laws, ones that demanded purity and sacrifice. And when the crops failed for the fourth consecutive year, the village looked for a scapegoat. The elders, in their fear and desperation, declared that Lira was the cause, that her joy had invited the wrath of dark spirits. It was said that too much happiness disrupted the balance, inviting the shadows to feast on the living.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the village descended on Eryx’s home one cold autumn night. Torches burned through the fog as the mob dragged Lira from her bed, her cries piercing the stillness. Eryx fought against them, but the villagers held him down as they branded his wife a witch. They threw her into a pit of fire, her screams mingling with the roar of the flames.

Eryx's world burned that night, alongside his wife.

He stood at the edge of the fire, eyes wide, heart shattered, as his son clung to his leg, weeping. The flames reflected in Eryx's gaze, and something inside him broke. The kind man was gone, replaced by a void that could never be filled again.

But the void didn’t remain empty for long.

Days after Lira’s death, a strange storm rolled through Hollowbrook. The villagers found their animals dead, their fields turned to ash. And Eryx vanished. Some said he’d gone mad with grief, others whispered that he had ventured into the forest surrounding Hollowbrook—a place of twisted trees and dark magic, forbidden to all but the most foolish. But no one truly knew.

What the village didn’t realize was that the storm wasn’t a random occurrence. It was a herald. Eryx had found something in the heart of the forest, something ancient and vengeful. The trees whispered to him, taught him the language of curses and the art of crafting nightmares. His forge, once a beacon of light, became a place of darkness. He no longer crafted swords or tools. Eryx began forging horrors—cursed objects, shadows given form, nightmares made real.

His vengeance was slow and deliberate. The first to die were the elders, but they did not die quickly. Their dreams became haunted by visions of fire, of burning alive just as Lira had. They would wake screaming, but the screams wouldn’t stop. One by one, the elders went mad, clawing at their eyes, driven to madness by the nightmares Eryx had forged for them.

But Eryx’s vengeance did not end there. The entire village was guilty. He cursed the land itself, twisting Hollowbrook into a reflection of his own grief. The sun would never fully rise, and the mist would carry the weight of his sorrow. The villagers began to hear whispers in the night—voices calling their names, drawing them into the woods, never to return.

Dorian, now a young man, had been left behind, the last remnant of Eryx’s former life. Unlike his father, Dorian did not seek revenge. He sought redemption. He ventured deep into the forest, searching for the man his father had once been. But what he found was not the loving father who had once held him close—it was a creature of the dark, twisted by grief, burning with fury.

Eryx’s skin was ashen, his eyes glowing with a sickly light. His voice was hollow, as if coming from the depths of a grave.

"Father," Dorian whispered, his voice trembling. "You don’t have to do this."

Eryx’s hollow eyes fixed on him, a flicker of recognition passing through the abyss. "They took her from us," he rasped. "They made me this way. They deserve to suffer."

"But you can stop it," Dorian pleaded. "You’ve become worse than they ever were."

Eryx paused, his mind wrestling with the ghost of his former self. But the darkness had taken root too deeply. With a mournful sigh, he turned away from Dorian. "It’s too late."

The village continued to rot, its people trapped in a waking nightmare, driven mad by the shadows that now ruled them. Eryx’s name became a curse, and Dorian was left with the burden of his father’s legacy. He stayed in Hollowbrook, trying to help the few who survived, but the village was beyond saving.

In the end, Dorian realized that villains are not born—they are shaped by the cruelty of the world. His father had been a good man once, but the village had forged him into something else, something monstrous. The true horror wasn’t the curse itself, but the realization that it could happen to anyone. Hollowbrook was a village of victims—victims of their own fear, hatred, and the unrelenting darkness they created.

The fog never lifted, the sun never rose, and the curse never broke.

The village never knew peace, for the true horror was not the monsters lurking in the shadows—it was the hatred and fear that had made them.