The church bell tolled once — low, heavy, and wrong. Robert hadn't been to the chapel since the last funeral, and even now, he didn't plan to. But when he heard the frantic knocking at his door that morning, he knew something had changed.
It was the priest. His face was pale, the whites of his eyes veined and tired. He clutched a worn leather book to his chest, its cover marked with a faint black stain.
"Robert," the priest said, voice low and shaken. "We need to talk — now."
Robert stepped aside, unease crawling up his spine. The priest walked in quickly, muttering a prayer under his breath before setting the book on the table.
"I've been reading," he said, flipping through brittle pages. "This Hollow you've been chasing… it's changing."
Robert frowned. "Changing how?"
The priest's hand trembled slightly as he pointed to an illustration — a rough sketch of a shadowed figure with faint human features.
"It's taking form," the priest whispered. "It was never meant to cross fully into our world, but the balance has been broken. When it took one of the adults — your friend Tom — that was the first sign. It's learning to anchor itself here."
Robert's pulse quickened. "Anchor itself? In what?"
The priest looked up slowly. "In flesh. In fear. In faith."
He paused, then continued in a voice barely above a whisper. "It's trying to become real — to walk among us. And if it succeeds, no prayer, no rule, no sacrifice will stop it."
The words hit Robert like a blade. His thoughts raced — Tom, Will, the missing children. Everything pointed to something larger than ritual or haunting. The Hollow wasn't feeding anymore. It was building.
Robert swallowed hard. "How do we stop it?"
The priest closed the book, the sound sharp in the silence. "We find where it's forming. Before it's too late. Before it finishes the sacrifice."
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The priest's words echoed long after he'd gone. "It's trying to become real."
Robert sat in silence, staring at the empty space where the man had stood. His heart wouldn't slow. Every image of Tom—his friend's trembling voice, the mark on his chest, the flicker in his eyes—began to form a picture too dark to ignore.
By dawn, Robert was already at the sheriff's station. The office was dim, the smell of stale coffee and damp wood hanging in the air. Sheriff Dawes looked up from his desk, exhaustion written deep into the lines on his face.
"Robert," he muttered, rubbing his temples. "You look like hell."
Robert didn't waste time sitting. "We've got a bigger problem. The priest came to me last night—he thinks the Hollow's changing."
The sheriff leaned back, unimpressed. "Changing? Into what?"
"Into something physical," Robert said, voice low. "He said it's crossing over, trying to take a real form. It's not just feeding anymore—it's manifesting."
The sheriff's expression stiffened. "You realize how that sounds?"
"I don't care how it sounds," Robert snapped. "You saw what happened to Tom. The voice, the mark, the way he acted afterward. He wasn't himself, Sheriff. What if that thing's using him—like a shell?"
The sheriff stared at Robert for a long moment, the ticking clock between them filling the silence. Finally, he pushed himself up, pacing to the window. Outside, the fog still clung to the town like a sickness.
"You think it's inside him?" the sheriff asked quietly.
Robert nodded. "If the priest's right, it's trying to take form through flesh. And Tom… he's the one it got closest to. Maybe it's already started."
The sheriff exhaled hard, eyes narrowing. "If that's true, then Tom's not just missing. He's being used."
Robert clenched his fists. "Or worse—he's becoming it."
The sheriff turned from the window, jaw tight. "Then we can't wait. If this thing finishes whatever it's doing—whatever ritual or possession—it won't stop with Tom. It'll take the whole town."
They both stood there in silence, the weight of the words settling between them. The sheriff grabbed his coat and his gun.
"Where do we start?"
Robert hesitated, then looked toward the forest in the distance, where the fog seemed to pulse like a living thing. "Where it began," he said. "The Hollow."
The sheriff loaded his revolver and met Robert's eyes. "Then we go tonight."
But as they stepped out into the street, the faint sound of church bells rang again—off rhythm, metallic, wrong. Both men stopped, listening.
The sheriff's hand hovered near his gun. "That's not the priest ringing them."
Robert's breath caught. A chill slid down his spine.
In the distance, somewhere near the woods, a shadow passed through the fog—slow, deliberate, human-shaped.
The Hollow wasn't waiting anymore.