At first, it was just the wind.
A deep, low hum that slithered through the trees and down every narrow street. The kind of wind that didn't move leaves — it listened.
Then the air grew warm, thick like smoke, carrying with it the faint scent of damp soil and rust.
The town exhaled.
Curtains fluttered where no windows were open. The clock tower, silent for decades, began to chime on its own — each toll deeper than the last, echoing through the empty streets like a heartbeat.
And then the bleeding began.
In gardens, vines writhed across the fences, thorns splitting open like veins. Red sap oozed from flowers and grass. The cobblestones grew slick beneath a thin sheen of crimson, spreading slowly but deliberately — as if the ground itself were alive.
Inside homes, mirrors fogged and whispered. Faces appeared behind the glass — not reflections, but things watching, imitating. Families huddled together, praying, whispering, as shadows stretched across their walls.
Mrs. Greeley, who lived near the edge of town, saw her husband's figure standing outside the window — the same man she buried five years ago.
When she called his name, his smile widened. His shadow did not match his body.
Across town, the church bells rang without a hand touching the rope. The priest's old candles lit themselves, flickering with black flames that burned without smoke.
The Hollow had reached its arms across the boundary — and every inch of the town was trembling in response.
Far away, near the forest's edge, animals were fleeing in silence — deer, foxes, birds — all running toward the fields as if driven by the same unspoken terror.
And at the center of it all, the forest glowed faintly red.
The vines that crawled up the trees pulsed like veins. The soil cracked, releasing faint streams of mist that snaked toward the town, whispering words too old for human tongues.
The whispers found their way into houses, into dreams.
He comes. He watches. The debt is remembered.
Children stirred in their sleep, mumbling the same words in unison.
Back in town, every clock stopped. Every candle died.
For a moment, everything fell completely silent — the stillness before a scream.
Then the ground shifted. The sound was soft at first, like roots snapping. But as it grew, so did the terror. The earth was moving — not shaking — breathing.
Each exhale carried a deep, guttural sound that seemed to come from beneath the entire town. A voice, muffled and patient, testing its strength through the cracks in the world.
And at that very moment, in every mirror, every window, every pool of water — the same reflection appeared:
A boy standing in the forest, eyes red, his expression blank.
Will.
He whispered in unison, across every reflection:
"Do you see it now?"
Then all the glass shattered at once.
_____________________________
The screams came next.
They started from the southern edge of town — one voice, then another — until it became a chorus of terror that rose like smoke. Windows shattered, doors slammed on their own, and the once-still streets now crawled with shadows that moved like living things.
Something was wrong with the people.
Their eyes — once clear and afraid — now shimmered faintly red, reflecting the pulsing light from the forest. They moved as if guided by strings, their faces blank, their whispers one and the same.
"He comes... The vessel opens... The old debt will be paid."
At the bakery, Mrs. Greeley's laughter turned into a sob as she fell to her knees, clutching her ears. The walls around her bled sap, her husband's ghostly voice whispering promises in her mind. She screamed for him to stop, but every word she spoke came back to her — mocking, like an echo turned cruel.
Across the street, Mr. Ellis, the butcher, began carving words into his countertop with a trembling knife — not knowing why, not realizing his own hands weren't his anymore.
"The bridge is open."
Children wandered from their homes, eyes half-closed, walking toward the woods in silent lines. Their parents followed, pleading, trying to hold them back — but the moment they touched their children, the air between them shimmered, and they both froze, trembling like puppets whose strings were being tangled.
The fog thickened, curling low through the town's streets, carrying whispers like breaths in the dark.
The church bell rang again — slow, deliberate.
Inside, the crucifix on the altar had cracked in two, its edges bleeding the same crimson sap as the trees outside.
Father Gideon's voice echoed faintly, though he was nowhere to be seen.
"Faith will not hold it back. The Hollow has taken its due."
The houses began to bend. Wood creaked, shingles slipped off like dead skin, and the ground continued to pulse as if the earth itself was alive beneath them. The blood that ran from the plants now snaked into the cracks of the road, forming patterns — spirals and runes — old as the town's founding.
Those who could still think — those who hadn't fallen under the trance — hid indoors, whispering prayers that went unanswered. The power flickered one last time before the town went dark.
Then, through the mist, something shifted.
A shape walked between the houses — tall, thin, moving with the rhythm of the forest's heartbeat. Wherever it passed, the walls bent slightly inward, as if bowing. The figure paused under the flickering light of a dying streetlamp.
Its shadow was wrong — far too long, bending backward instead of forward.
And when it looked up, the red glow in its eyes matched perfectly with the reflection of Will's in the shattered glass around it.
For a moment, the figure spoke with the voices of everyone the Hollow had ever taken — layered, distorted, full of grief and hunger.
"Through the vessel… we breathe again."
The air thickened, pressing down on the town like an invisible storm. The heartbeat beneath the soil grew faster. And then —
Every single light in Hollow's Edge went out at once.
Darkness fell — not just the absence of light, but a living thing, swallowing everything in silence.