The air inside the Hollow was heavy, damp, and alive with whispers. The other children sat huddled in a circle, their faces pale, their eyes fixed on the shifting shadows that seemed to breathe in the walls. No one dared to speak above a whisper—except Ethan.
He had been watching, studying the way the shadows slithered, how they recoiled from the faintest spark when two stones clashed together. His mind raced, desperate. If I can find a way out… maybe I can bring help. Maybe I can end this.
When the others dozed in uneasy silence, Ethan slipped away. His footsteps were light, his heart thundering in his chest. The Hollow seemed endless, its tunnels twisting like a beast's entrails. Still, he pressed on. He thought he saw a flicker of light ahead, pale and distant.
He ran.
That was when the shadows moved.
They didn't creep—they struck. The walls of the Hollow shivered, and the air turned sharp and cold. A low hum built into a roar, and the ground itself seemed to pulse beneath his feet. Ethan stumbled, clawing forward, only for a curtain of blackness to rise before him like a wall.
The Hollow had caught him.
A scream tore from his throat—defiance, not fear. For a heartbeat, the shadows faltered. But then they surged, wrapping around him like chains.
Back in the chamber, the children jolted awake as the air thickened. The shadows dragged Ethan in, thrashing and kicking, his face pale but his eyes burning with fury. The Hollow didn't kill him. No—it wanted them to watch.
The darkness poured through the chamber, brushing across every child's skin. Their breaths hitched as a cold unlike anything human filled their lungs. Their chests seized, their limbs shook, and their ears rang with a sound that wasn't sound at all, but despair pressed into bone.
One by one, they cried out—not from pain, but from the terror seared into their minds. Visions of their families forgetting them, their names erased, their faces fading from memory.
When it was over, they were left trembling, their hope hollowed out. Ethan lay crumpled on the floor, alive, but broken. His attempt to fight back had not only failed—
it had made them all pay.
And still, the Hollow whispered, hungry, patient.
_____________________________
In the Hollow, the children sat paralyzed, their eyes wide with terror. Ethan gasped for air, his body trembling violently. The whispers coiled back into silence, leaving only the memory of despair etched into each child's heart.
Miles away, in the quiet of her small bedroom, Ethan's mother jolted upright. Her scream tore through the night, raw and unshaped, as though it had been ripped straight from her son's throat. Her hands clutched at her chest, her eyes wild, searching the darkness of her room.
Neighbors stirred. Lights flickered on. But she barely noticed. Tears streamed down her face as she whispered his name again and again.
"Ethan… Ethan…"
It wasn't just a dream. She felt him—his terror, his pain, the crushing weight of something inhuman pressing on his spirit. It lingered in her body like a wound that wasn't hers.
She collapsed to her knees, sobbing, and those who came to comfort her could only exchange uneasy glances. They knew the stories, though no one dared to say them aloud.
The Hollow had stirred. And through her son's suffering, it had found a way to remind the town that it was always listening.
Back in the Hollow, Ethan opened his eyes, glassy and unfocused. The other children stared at him in silence, no longer sure if he was their hope—or the proof that resistance only made things worse.
And in the town above, his mother's scream hung in the air long after it faded, carried on the wind like a warning.