Silent Roads

In the late autumn of 1889, Reports emerging from the remote frontier town of Duskpoint have begun to alarm regional health officials and clergy alike. A strange illness—dubbed by locals as The Hollow Plague—is said to have appeared shortly after the completion of the ill-fated Black Hollow Route, operated briefly by the now-defunct Silent Roads Railway Company. Witnesses claim that afflicted individuals first display signs of fever, confusion, and silence. Within days, they cease speaking entirely, wandering aimlessly as their skin pales and their flesh stiffens. Some are said to fall dead, only to rise again hours later with a vacant stare and unnatural strength. Others waste away until little remains but skin stretched over brittle bone—yet they still move. “I saw my brother walk out of his grave,” said one unnamed gravedigger from Duskpoint. “He didn’t recognize me. His eyes were gone, but he still looked right at me.” Doctors sent to investigate have not returned.