The fog came back at 2:03 a.m.
Mara sat on the edge of her bed, or what she believed was still her bed. The room felt warped. The edges of the walls pulsed faintly, a rhythmic warmth like the breath of some living thing pressing in from all sides. A sensation she couldn't shake, no matter how hard she tried. She hadn't slept in nearly two days, not since her reflection had smiled at her in the mirror. Since she'd found that… thing behind the walls.
The knocks had started again last night. Faint at first, like someone tapping gently beneath the floorboards. Now, they were softer, more subtle, as if the house itself were trying to communicate — or perhaps trying to drag her deeper into its rotting bones. But Mara hadn't heard anything this quiet in days. Not after the constant screams, the constant hums, the constant feeling of something following her.
Her fingers twitched, reaching for the recorder on the nightstand. She had stopped recording the moment she'd walked into this room — it felt pointless. Still, she needed something. Anything.
"2:03 a.m.," she murmured, her voice raw. She could barely speak without feeling like she'd collapse. "Still in Durn Hill. Time has... become unstable. The fog... it's back. The same as before. The same… the same thing."
She shook her head, rubbing her eyes. She'd been awake too long.
The tapping beneath the floor seemed louder, more insistent now. But that wasn't what caught her attention.
It was the reflection.
She had stepped out of the bathroom a moment ago, glancing at herself in the mirror—no, not herself, it. A distortion. Her reflection had lingered just a second longer than it should've. Three seconds, maybe more. The way it held her gaze without her moving, watching her with an intensity she could feel deep in her chest. She'd tried to ignore it, but the way it hung in the glass, as if waiting for her to say something, felt too much like being hunted.
She forced herself to stand, shaking the feeling off. Something was out there. She could sense it. It tugged at her spine, pulling her toward the window.
Outside, everything was gone.
The fog had returned with a force she couldn't describe. It was no ordinary fog — no, this wasn't just mist creeping over the town. This was something alive. A dense, luminous gray that choked the streetlights and curled like fingers around the edges of windows and doors. The air felt thick with it, oppressive, as though the world beyond had just ceased to exist.
Her stomach clenched. This wasn't just fog. This was the kind of fog she'd encountered before. The kind that twisted reality itself. The kind that only came when things in this town—this cursed place—had taken a turn for the worse. A place where memories were wiped away, where people were forgotten, and where the world seemed to bend itself around the most twisted of desires.
She reached for the window and placed her hand against the cold glass, the fog outside thickening in the corners of her vision.
And then, as if the world beyond the window could no longer stand still, a shape appeared.
It wasn't a person.
Too tall. Too thin.
Its limbs scraped the ground as it moved, long, unnatural appendages that looked more like roots than arms. The thing's head turned slowly, its motion mechanical, jerky. It felt wrong. Too wrong.
Her breath hitched. She ducked, pressing herself against the cold wall, trying to swallow down the surge of panic rising in her throat. Was it… was it looking at her? Or had it just caught her moving?
It turned away before she could think any further, and for a moment, the world outside fell silent.
The clock on the wall blinked. 2:03 a.m.
Then reset.
Again, 2:03 a.m.
Again.
A rising sense of nausea crept up her spine. She could hear the groaning of the world around her, like a dying wind chime, stretched and warped by some unseen force. The sound was distant, but familiar. A low, gurgling moan that pressed into her bones. The fog had returned, but not like before. It was different now. She could feel it. Its pull. Its hunger.
She grabbed the recorder and clicked it on.
"This is Agent Mara Ellison," she whispered, voice trembling but sharp. "Still in Durn Hill. Subjective time has become unstable. Witnesses erased. Exits closed. Fog has returned. Manifestations of auditory and visual nature are increasing. No—no, not hallucinations. Manifestations. It feels deliberate. Intentional. The town is alive. Not in the way it was before. It's aware now. It's searching for something."
The recorder clicked and sputtered, the red light blinking against the shadowy stillness of the room.
Then, without warning, something tapped against the glass.
A soft, deliberate tap.
Her heart froze.
She looked up.
A handprint. Pale, thin fingers smeared against the glass. A faint outline, as if something had pressed against it. But no one was there.
Her fingers twitched as she stepped back. She hadn't seen anyone touch the window.
She backed away. The room felt smaller, darker. She turned, and the power cut.
The light flickered, then died.
The motel was plunged into darkness.
Her breath was ragged now, heart thumping so loudly in her chest that it drowned out everything else. The only light was the red glow from the recorder. But it, too, was fading.
And then… the voice.
It wasn't from outside. It was from inside.
A whisper. A barely audible sound.
"…you shouldn't have looked…"
Mara's skin crawled. She spun around, panic surging through her veins.
Nothing.
The bed, the chair, the door. All just… still.
The knocking began again.
It wasn't beneath the floor this time. It wasn't from outside. No. It was inside the walls. Behind them. The sound of something scratching. Something waiting.
Her pulse raced. She couldn't stay in this room. She had to move. Now.
She bolted for the door.
The corridor was pitch-black. Her flashlight flickered once, then died. She pressed her hand against the cold, damp walls, moving forward, step by trembling step, feeling her way down the hall. She could hear the creaks. The groans. The doors opening behind her, their hinges wheezing like the breath of some old, dying thing.
Another door opened behind her.
She didn't turn.
She couldn't.
She knew — if she looked, something would be standing there. Watching her with those wide, empty eyes. It would look almost human. Almost.
But not quite. Not enough.
The hallway stretched on, longer than it had any right to. Too long. Endless.
Her breath quickened, and the floorboards creaked beneath her feet, an eerie sound that made her want to run — but she couldn't. The hall kept pulling her deeper, dragging her down a path she knew she couldn't leave.
Then the sound changed. A scraping noise. Feet dragging across carpet.
Not the hallway behind her.
Ahead.
A new sound. A new presence.
Her flashlight flickered and died again, but she didn't need it to know. She could feel it. The air felt colder, denser. The walls felt like they were closing in around her.
She was moving toward the lobby.
But it wasn't the same lobby she remembered.
The wallpaper was rotting now, falling in tatters. The clock above the counter ticked backward. The man at the front desk… had no face. His features were just an empty blur. But he looked up, his empty gaze meeting hers.
Mara didn't stop.
She shoved through the door and out into the fog.
It swallowed her whole.
The world was a blur of white-gray, the fog so thick she couldn't see more than a few feet in front of her. She stumbled forward, heart racing in her chest, her breath harsh and uneven. She walked for what felt like hours, though her watch never moved past 2:03 a.m.
The fog pulsed around her, thickening with every step. It felt like it was alive, feeding off her every thought, every fear. Every memory she tried to hold onto… it took.
She passed the chapel. The stained-glass windows were shattered, the shards hanging in the air like frozen raindrops. Behind them, a shape stood just out of view. Watching. Waiting.
Her heart skipped.
She walked faster, past the gas station, where the pumps were leaking a thick, black tar-like liquid onto the ground. The man inside the booth blinked, but his eyes reflected nothing. Just an empty, hollow gaze.
Mara moved faster.
At the edge of town, the sign that once read, "Leaving Durn Hill – Come Again!" had changed.
Now, it read:
STILL INSIDE.
Her stomach clenched. She had to escape. She had to get away. But as she stumbled toward the woods, her body collapsed. She couldn't breathe. The air was thick, heavy with something poisonous. She coughed against it, her lungs burning with every inhalation.
And then… footsteps.
Heavy. Wet.
She turned, clenching her fist.
But it wasn't one of them.
It was Sheriff Grady.
He looked different. Older. More broken than before.
"You shouldn't have tried to leave," he said, his voice low and ragged.
"I did leave," Mara rasped. "And the town pulled me back."
He nodded slowly, kneeling beside her. "It doesn't like being forgotten."
"The fog…" she whispered. "What is it?"
"Memory," he murmured. "Condensed. Alive."
She shivered, not sure if she had heard him right.
"You breathe it in," he continued, his eyes hollow with the weight of years spent here. "It rearranges you. It erases what you were. You'll forget who you were. You'll forget why you came. You'll remember things that never happened."
Her body trembled with the weight of his words.
He pulled a flask from his coat and held it out to her. "Drink. It'll clear your head. For a few minutes."
She drank. The burn in her throat was real, raw. Her lungs felt a little lighter, just slightly.
Grady pulled a photo from his jacket.
Mara froze.
It was Samantha. The missing girl. But she was different now. Older, maybe fifteen, sixteen. But her eyes — they were wrong. So wrong. Like she knew more than she should. Her mouth was slightly open, and there was something growing between her teeth.
"I found this last night," Grady whispered. "Under my daughter's bed."
Mara blinked. "I thought your daughter…"
"She disappeared eight years ago. But the room changes. Sometimes I hear her humming."
Her gaze flickered back to the woods, the fog pulsating thicker. Grady's voice broke the silence.
"It's hunting. The Hollow. It needs someone who remembers."
She stood, suddenly certain. "Then we stop it."
Grady shook his head slowly.
"You can't stop something made of forgetting."
She looked back at the motel, now consumed entirely by fog.
And then she saw it. The fog parted for a moment, just long enough to reveal a tree at the edge of the woods.
And on that tree?
Samantha's red scarf, tied tightly around a branch.
Still fluttering.
Still fresh.
Mara took a step toward it.
Then another.
Behind her, Grady whispered, his voice low, "It's under the roots."
The fog closed.