The bus rattled to a stop on the cracked asphalt of Black Hollow’s only bus station. Dr. Elias Voss stepped onto the platform, the early autumn chill biting through his coat. The town stretched before him, a cluster of old buildings with paint peeling like dead skin. Something was unsettling about the way the streetlights cast their glow—long, eerie shadows clinging to the pavement, yet oddly… incomplete.
The diner was the only place still open this late. The bell over the door jangled as he stepped inside. A few locals lifted their heads before turning back to their coffee. The air smelled of burnt toast and desperation.
"So, Doc, you gonna tell me why you moved to Black Hollow?" Sheriff Tom Grady leaned against the counter, stirring his coffee with slow, deliberate motions. His eyes, sharp and knowing, studied Elias over the rim of his cup. "Folks don’t just… end up here."
Elias set his leather briefcase on the counter, tapping his fingers against it. "I heard about the cases, Sheriff. The ones where people claim their shadows are missing. Thought it was worth investigating."
Tom let out a dry chuckle. "Yeah, well. They don’t just claim it, Doc. They damn well mean it. You met Mary-Ann Clarke yet?"
"Not yet. But she’s on my list."
The sheriff sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "She won’t talk. Not anymore. Not since she lost all of it."
Elias frowned. "All of it?"
Tom’s expression darkened. "Used to be a schoolteacher. One day she says she noticed her shadow was… thinner. Like it was fading. A week later, gone completely. Now? Won’t say a word. Just stares at walls. I don’t know how to explain it, Doc, but whatever’s happening here—it ain’t normal."
Elias sipped his coffee, the bitterness making him wince. "I don’t believe in the supernatural, Sheriff," he said, setting the cup down. "There’s always a psychological explanation."
Tom scoffed. "Yeah? Let’s see if you still say that after a week in Black Hollow."
From the far corner of the diner, a man with hollowed-out cheeks and restless eyes muttered something under his breath. Elias caught fragments of it.
"No shadows… they take 'em at night… creeping, whispering…"
Elias turned to the sheriff. "Who’s that?"
Tom barely glanced over. "That’s old Henry. Used to be a mechanic. Now? Talks nonsense. Says he woke up one morning and his shadow was half gone. Two days later, it vanished. You know what else vanished, Doc? His wife. Ain’t nobody seen her since."
A cold shiver ran down Elias’s spine. "What about the bodies? The ones who disappear?"
Tom’s lips pressed into a thin line. "That’s the thing, Doc. No bodies. No missing persons reports. Like they never existed."
Elias stared at the blackness pooling beneath his stool, feeling, for the first time, the creeping sensation of something watching him.
Something waiting.
Elias sat across from Mary-Ann Clarke in the dimly lit nursing home. The woman before him barely resembled the once-beloved schoolteacher described by the townsfolk. Her skin was paper-thin, stretched too tight over her fragile frame. The dark circles under her eyes looked like bruises, deep and permanent. And then there were her eyes—empty, vacant, as if she was looking at something far beyond him.
"Mary-Ann, my name is Dr. Voss," Elias said, keeping his voice gentle. "I’d like to help you. Can you tell me what happened to your shadow?"
She didn’t react. Her hands, bony and motionless, lay limp in her lap.
Elias adjusted his seat, leaning forward slightly. "I know you must be afraid. But you’re not alone. Whatever took your shadow—we will find out."
Mary-Ann's lips trembled. For a second, Elias thought she might speak.
Then, barely above a whisper: "It watches."
A chill crawled up Elias' spine. "What watches?"
She blinked, slow and deliberate. "The thing in the dark. It comes when you sleep. And once it takes all of you… You’re gone."
"Gone? Where?"
Mary-Ann lifted a frail hand and pointed behind him.
Elias turned sharply. Nothing but shadows stretching across the room. The chair creaked under him as he turned back, the eerie silence thick in the air.
His breath caught in his throat.
The bed was empty.
Mary-Ann was gone.
No sound. No movement. Just a lingering impression of her silhouette on the sheets, a darker stain against the pale fabric.
Elias shot up from his chair, his pulse hammering. He spun toward the door, yanking it open. The hallway outside was silent, empty. No nurses, no footsteps, nothing.
He swallowed hard, feeling the weight of the silence press down on him. Slowly, hesitantly, he looked back at the empty bed.
And then he saw it.
Her shadow was still there.
It lay across the mattress, twisted and contorted, but unmistakable.
Elias took a step back, horror clawing at his throat. The shadow twitched. Just once.
Then, with an unnatural slowness, it slithered off the bed and disappeared into the darkness.
A sharp knock on Elias’s motel door made him jump.
"Dr. Voss? It’s Pastor Vincent. We need to talk."
Elias pulled the door open to find the town’s preacher standing in the dim hallway, eyes sunken, hands trembling.
"You said you wanted to speak to someone who's seen it," Vincent said, stepping inside. "Well, I have. And I think it’s coming for me next."
Elias gestured for him to sit. "Tell me everything."
Vincent swallowed hard. "It started a week ago. My shadow… it moved wrong. Not just in bad lighting—wrong. It would stretch the opposite direction of the sun. I thought I was losing my mind. But then… it started changing."
"Changing how?"
The priest hesitated. "It has fingers now, Doctor. More than it should. And they twitch, like they’re reaching for something."
Elias stiffened. "You’re sure?"
Vincent rolled up his sleeve. A dark bruise marred his wrist—in the shape of a hand.
"I woke up with this," Vincent whispered. "I think it touched me in my sleep."
The air in the room thickened. Outside, the streetlamp flickered.
Vincent exhaled shakily. "A shadow isn’t just the absence of light, Doctor. It’s the imprint of the soul on the world. Lose it… and you lose yourself."
Elias felt cold fingers creep up his spine. He risked a glance at the wall behind the priest.
Vincent’s shadow didn’t match his movements.
It was grinning.
Elias didn’t sleep that night.
He sat at the small wooden desk in his motel room, papers scattered before him, each note detailing the strange occurrences in Black Hollow. The cases of missing shadows. The people who had vanished. And now, Vincent’s twisted, grinning shadow.
The motel’s dim lamp flickered, casting uncertain light against the peeling wallpaper. He rubbed his temples, exhaustion pulling at his mind, but he refused to give in. Not now. Not when something was watching.
Vincent’s words haunted him. A shadow isn’t just the absence of light… It’s the imprint of the soul.
A chill ran through him as he hesitantly glanced at the floor.
His own shadow stretched before him, still and obedient. Normal.
But for how long?
A sharp tap at the window made him jump. His breath hitched as his eyes snapped toward the glass.
Nothing.
Just the empty parking lot beyond, bathed in the weak glow of a flickering streetlight.
Then it happened again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Slow. Rhythmic.
Elias’s pulse hammered. He rose from his chair, heart thudding in his ears as he approached the window.
The glass was dark, his own reflection staring back at him.
And then, his reflection blinked.
His stomach twisted. He hadn’t blinked.
The reflection smiled.
With a sharp intake of breath, Elias stumbled backward. The shadowy figure in the glass did not retreat with him.
Instead, it leaned forward.
The glass warped slightly, as if something pressed against it from the other side.
His breath came in ragged gasps. His rational mind fought to explain it—sleep deprivation, stress, hallucinations. But his instincts screamed otherwise.
Then the whisper came.
Faint, just barely audible.
"You’re next."
The motel room light sputtered out, plunging him into darkness.
The room was suffocatingly silent. Elias stood frozen, his eyes desperately adjusting to the dark.
A creak sounded from the corner. Not the old wooden floorboards settling—something shifting.
Slowly, he turned his head.
The motel chair, previously empty, was now occupied.
A figure sat there.
Not a person.
A shadow.
It had no features. No eyes, no mouth. Just an outline, a distorted mimicry of a man. It sat with an unnatural stillness, as if waiting.
Elias willed himself to move, but his body refused.
Then it tilted its head.
A low whisper slithered through the dark.
"You're already fading, Doctor."
Elias gasped, instinct kicking in. He lunged for the bedside lamp, fumbling with the switch.
Light flooded the room.
The chair was empty.
His own shadow stretched across the floor, normal, unbroken.
But he knew what he had seen.
Something had been here.
And it had spoken to him.
His hands trembled as he reached for his notebook. He needed to document this. He needed to understand.
As he wrote, a single horrifying realization crept into his mind.
The entity hadn't just been watching him.
It had been waiting.
Elias didn’t leave his motel room the next morning. He sat at the desk, staring at his own hands, his mind replaying the whisper from the night before.
"You're already fading, Doctor."
Had it been real? A hallucination? Sleep deprivation could explain some of it, but not all. Not the lingering sensation that something had been with him in the dark.
With a deep breath, he pulled up his sleeve.
His skin was pale from the cold air in the room, but something else caught his attention.
A bruise.
Dark, almost ink-like, staining the inside of his wrist. The shape was unmistakable—a fingerprint.
The realization made his stomach lurch. The shadow had touched him.
Elias forced himself to leave the motel. He needed answers, and hiding in a dingy room wouldn't get him any.
Black Hollow’s streets were quieter than usual. It was early afternoon, but few people walked about. Those who did moved with purpose, heads down, avoiding eye contact.
At the diner, the same place where he had first spoken to Sheriff Tom Grady, Elias pushed open the door and stepped inside.
This time, the atmosphere felt different. The usual patrons were there, but their movements were uneasy, their glances suspicious.
The sheriff sat in his usual corner booth, his hat pulled low. He looked up as Elias approached, his eyes bloodshot.
"You look like hell, Doc," Tom muttered.
Elias slid into the booth across from him. "I saw it."
Tom stiffened. "Saw what?"
"The thing that’s been taking their shadows."
The sheriff exhaled sharply, rubbing his jaw. "You sure it wasn’t just your imagination?"
Elias yanked back his sleeve, showing the bruised fingerprint on his wrist. "It touched me."
For the first time, the sheriff looked genuinely unnerved. "Shit…"
"Tell me what you know," Elias demanded.
Tom hesitated, then took a slow sip of his coffee. "Alright. You ever hear of Daniel Morrow?"
Elias shook his head.
Tom leaned in, lowering his voice. "He used to be the town historian. That man knew everything about Black Hollow’s past. Legends, old family bloodlines, weird disappearances—hell, even things most folks tried to forget."
"What happened to him?"
Tom’s fingers drummed against the table. "He vanished about twenty years ago. Just like the others. No sign of a struggle, no body, nothing. But before he disappeared, he was obsessed with shadows. Claimed they were more than just darkness. Said they could think, move, even act on their own."
Elias swallowed. "And?"
Tom exhaled. "A week before he went missing, Daniel started telling people that shadows weren’t ours. That they were… borrowed. And if you stayed in Black Hollow too long, they came to take ‘em back."
Elias felt his pulse quicken. "Who are ‘they’?"
Tom’s expression darkened. "He never said."
There was one person in town who had lived long enough to remember Daniel Morrow—Eleanor Graves.
Elias found her house at the end of a long dirt road, a decrepit Victorian-style home with warped wooden planks and windows smeared with dust.
The old woman answered the door after his third knock. Her pale blue eyes studied him for a moment before she stepped aside.
"You shouldn’t be here, Doctor," she rasped, leading him into the dimly lit sitting room. The house smelled of aged wood and something faintly herbal.
"I need to know about Daniel Morrow," Elias said, wasting no time.
Eleanor’s lips pressed into a thin line. "Daniel was a fool. A brave one, but a fool nonetheless."
"Why?"
"Because he tried to understand them. And once you see them for what they truly are… they never let you go."
Elias shifted uncomfortably. "You’re saying he was taken because he knew too much?"
Eleanor nodded. "But that’s not all." She slowly reached for a small, dust-covered box on the shelf. Inside was a faded journal with Daniel Morrow’s name scribbled on the cover.
"He left this with me before he disappeared. Said if anything happened to him, someone else would need to know the truth."
Elias carefully opened the book. The first few pages were filled with frantic writing, theories about shadows moving on their own, behaving independently, becoming… hungry.
But the last entry made his blood run cold.
"If you’re reading this, it means they’ve come for me. I made a mistake—I looked too long. I listened too closely. And now, I understand.
They are not ghosts. They are not demons.
They are something worse.
And once they mark you… you can never escape."
Elias’s hands trembled as he turned the page.
Beneath the writing, burned into the paper as if scorched, was a black handprint.
The weight of Daniel Morrow’s journal pressed against Elias’s hands as he stared at the burnt handprint on the last page. A strange chill crawled up his spine, like unseen fingers tracing his skin. Eleanor Graves sat across from him in her dimly lit parlor, watching him with knowing eyes.
"Doctor," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "you've been touched, haven't you?"
Elias hesitated, then pulled back his sleeve, revealing the ink-dark fingerprint bruise on his wrist.
Eleanor sucked in a breath. "It’s already started."
Elias’s fingers curled into a fist. "What do you mean?"
She leaned forward, her expression grave. "The mark isn’t just a bruise, Doctor. It’s a claim."
"A claim?" His voice was hoarse.
Eleanor nodded. "Once they touch you, they don’t let go. It starts small—just a mark. But it spreads. First, you’ll see shadows move when they shouldn’t. Then, you’ll hear whispers. And finally…" She swallowed hard. "Your shadow will stop following you. That’s when it’s too late."
Elias's heartbeat thundered in his ears. He wanted to deny it, dismiss it as old superstitions, but deep inside, he knew Eleanor was telling the truth. The whisper he had heard the night before, the way his shadow had seemed to stretch unnaturally, the creeping feeling of being watched even in an empty room—it had all begun the moment he set foot in Black Hollow.
"How do I stop it?" he asked, his voice strained.
Eleanor shook her head. "No one ever has."
Elias left Eleanor’s house with Daniel Morrow’s journal tucked under his arm, his mind churning with uneasy thoughts.
Night had fallen by the time he reached the motel. The air was colder than before, heavy with a silence that felt unnatural. As he stepped into his room, the dim overhead light flickered for a moment before steadying.
He locked the door behind him, exhaling sharply. He was exhausted, but his mind refused to rest. The journal sat on the bedside table, its presence feeling heavier than it should.
As he undressed, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His eyes were shadowed with fatigue, his face gaunt. But then… something shifted.
His shadow.
It moved a second too late.
Elias froze, his breath catching in his throat. He turned his head slowly, staring at the dark silhouette cast on the motel wall. His own body was still, yet the shadow's fingers twitched, just barely, as if impatient.
He took a step back. The shadow followed—but there was something wrong.
It was slightly taller than him.
He felt his stomach twist. He hadn’t noticed before, but now it was unmistakable. The shadow wasn’t his anymore.
A sharp knock at the door made him jump.
Elias spun around, staring at the door, his pulse racing. He wasn’t expecting anyone. Who the hell would be knocking at this hour?
For a long moment, he didn’t move.
Then, another knock. This time, slower. Heavily deliberate.
His gut told him not to open it.
Instead, he took a cautious step closer, listening. No breathing. No shuffling feet. Just silence.
But then… a whisper.
"Doctor…"
The voice came from behind the door. A slow, rasping breath followed, as if the thing on the other side was savoring the moment.
Elias backed away. His skin crawled. The motel room suddenly felt too small, the walls closing in around him.
Then, without warning, the light went out.
Total darkness swallowed the room.
Elias’s breath hitched. His fingers fumbled for his phone, for anything to cut through the suffocating blackness. His heart pounded as he heard something move.
Not outside.
Inside.
A slow, dragging sound, like something shifting across the floor.
He didn’t want to look. But some terrible force compelled him to turn his head.
And there—standing in the corner of the room—was a figure.
No eyes, no mouth. Just a void of darkness, a silhouette darker than the night around it.
And its shadow… was reaching for him.
Elias reacted purely on instinct. He lunged for the bedside lamp, smashing it to the floor in a desperate attempt to create light. The broken bulb flickered once—just enough for him to see that the shadowed figure had moved closer.
He didn’t wait. He bolted for the door, yanking it open and stumbling into the cold night air. The parking lot was eerily empty, the neon motel sign flickering weakly overhead.
The door slammed shut behind him.
For a moment, he stood there, panting, hands shaking. His breath came out in uneven gasps. His mind struggled to process what he had just seen.
Then, slowly, he turned to look at the motel window.
There was no one inside.
But his shadow was still in the room.
Standing.
Waiting.
Watching him.
Elias stumbled backward, horror gripping his chest. This was beyond nightmares, beyond anything rational. He had to get out of Black Hollow. He had to find a way to stop whatever was happening before it was too late.
But as he turned to run, something whispered in his ear.
"You can't run, Doctor. You’re already fading."
The night air was thick with tension as Elias staggered away from the motel. His pulse pounded in his ears, his breath ragged. His mind screamed for him to flee, to put as much distance between himself and that room as possible, but something far worse gnawed at his thoughts.
His shadow. It was still in the motel.
How was that possible? Shadows didn’t detach. Shadows didn’t stay behind when you moved.
But his had.
A shiver ran down his spine as he forced himself to keep walking down the empty road, his footsteps echoing against the cracked pavement. The small town of Black Hollow was unnervingly silent, as if the world itself had paused to watch what would happen next.
Something about the air felt different. It was heavier, pressing against his chest like an unseen weight. The dim glow of streetlights flickered erratically, casting unnatural shapes against the buildings. Elias couldn’t shake the feeling that something was following him, watching him.
Then he heard it.
A whisper.
Faint. Fragile. Crawling through the darkness like fingers across his skin.
"Elias…"
He froze.
His name. It had whispered his name.
Slowly, he turned, expecting to see someone—something—lurking behind him. But the street was empty. No movement. No figures lurking in the shadows.
And yet… the feeling of being watched intensified.
His grip tightened around the leather journal tucked under his arm. Daniel Morrow’s notes, his frantic scribblings, his warnings—what if they weren’t the paranoid ramblings of a broken man?
What if Morrow had been right?
What if the shadowed things couldn’t be escaped?
The only place Elias could think to go was Eleanor Graves’ home. She was the only one who seemed to understand what was happening. The only one who might have answers.
His feet moved faster, driven by the sheer need to be anywhere but alone on the street.
By the time he reached Eleanor’s house, his hands were trembling. He knocked once, twice, then a third time—harder—his patience fraying with every second of silence.
Finally, the door creaked open.
Eleanor stood in the dim light of her doorway, wrapped in a thick woolen shawl. Her sharp, aged eyes flicked over Elias, and before he could speak, she simply nodded.
"You saw it, didn’t you?"
Elias stepped inside without answering. He didn’t need to.
Eleanor shut the door quickly, bolting it with an unnecessary amount of locks. The heavy scent of burning sage filled the air, mixing with the musk of aged books and wooden furniture. Candles flickered in every corner of the room, their dim glow the only source of light.
Elias sat down heavily in the nearest chair, running a hand over his face. "My shadow," he whispered. "It didn’t follow me."
Eleanor’s expression darkened. She crossed the room, kneeling before the fireplace where embers still glowed faintly. Her fingers hovered over the flames. "Then it’s begun," she murmured.
Elias stared at her. "What do you mean?"
She didn’t answer at first. Instead, she reached for an old, tattered book from the nearby shelf and flipped through the yellowed pages. The brittle paper crackled under her fingers as she turned it toward Elias.
It was an illustration. An ancient, hand-drawn sketch of a man without a shadow.
Below it, scrawled in uneven ink, were the words:
"The Hollowed Ones take what’s theirs."
Elias swallowed hard. "Who are they?"
Eleanor exhaled slowly, as if choosing her words carefully. "They are the ones who live in the dark. The ones who watch from the corners of your vision, who whisper in your ear when no one is around." She traced her fingers over the image. "And when they mark you, Elias, they don’t stop until they take you."
Elias clenched his jaw. "Take me where?"
She looked up at him, her eyes unreadable. "Into the Hollow."
A thick silence filled the room.
Elias wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what that meant.
He barely slept that night. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt something lurking just beyond the veil of his consciousness.
By the time dawn approached, he decided to return to the motel. He needed to see if his shadow was still inside.
The walk back felt longer, as if time had slowed around him. Every step felt heavier, his breath fogging in the cold morning air. The town was still, unnervingly so, as if waiting for something to happen.
When he reached the motel, his gut twisted. The door to his room was wide open.
He hadn’t left it that way.
Swallowing down his unease, he stepped inside.
Everything was exactly as he had left it—the bed unmade, the broken lamp on the floor. But then his eyes drifted to the far wall.
And his stomach dropped.
His shadow was still there.
Not on the floor. Not where it should be.
It was standing against the wall, frozen, as if it had been painted there.
And then, slowly, its head turned.
Elias stumbled backward, his breath catching in his throat. The shadow lifted its hand—his hand—and pressed it against the wall. The fingers twitched, just barely, as if testing their movement.
Then, in the smallest, most deliberate motion, the shadow stepped forward.
Elias ran.
He didn’t look back. He didn’t stop. He sprinted out of the motel and into the pale morning light, his pulse hammering in his ears. He ran through the streets of Black Hollow, past the silent houses and empty shops, past the looming trees and twisted alleys, running until his legs burned.
He only stopped when he reached the town limits.
The moment his feet crossed over the edge of Black Hollow’s boundary, something changed. The air became lighter, the pressure on his chest lifted.
For the first time since arriving, he felt like he could breathe again.
But as he turned to look back at the town, a horrifying realization settled in his gut.
His shadow was no longer his.
And it was still waiting for him.
Elias stood at the edge of Black Hollow, his breath coming in shallow gasps. The early morning light painted the horizon in hues of gold and gray, but it did nothing to banish the suffocating dread curling around his chest.
His shadow—his own shadow—had stayed behind.
The realization left a hollow, gnawing sensation in his gut. He turned his hand over, then his foot, shifting under the pale light of dawn. No shadow. As if he wasn’t fully real anymore. As if some part of him had been left in that cursed motel room, staring at him from the wall like a grotesque reflection.
Elias swallowed hard. He needed answers.
And there was only one person who could give them to him.
Eleanor Graves’ house looked different in the daylight—less ominous, less like a relic of forgotten nightmares. But as Elias rapped his knuckles against the heavy wooden door, the unease coiled in his chest like a living thing.
After what felt like an eternity, the door creaked open.
Eleanor stood in the doorway, her sharp eyes scanning his face, immediately reading the panic in his expression. She didn't ask why he had returned so soon. She already knew.
“You saw it again.” Her voice was steady, but there was something dark in her tone.
Elias nodded, his throat too dry to speak.
Eleanor stepped aside, motioning for him to enter. The air inside smelled of burnt sage and candle wax, the remnants of whatever ritual she had performed the night before.
“You’re pale,” she observed as she gestured for him to sit. “Did it follow you?”
Elias shook his head. “No,” he rasped. “That’s the problem.”
Eleanor’s expression darkened as she sat across from him. "Explain."
Elias exhaled sharply, gripping the edges of the wooden table between them. "When I left the motel, my shadow stayed behind." He licked his dry lips. "I saw it standing against the wall. It... it moved. It looked at me. And when I ran—" He hesitated, forcing himself to say the last part. "It didn’t follow."
Eleanor closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. "That means it’s begun," she murmured.
Elias tensed. “You said that before. What’s ‘begun’?”
Eleanor opened the old book once more, flipping through its worn pages until she found what she was looking for. She turned it toward Elias, tapping her finger against another ancient sketch—this time of a man with no shadow at all.
“The Hollowed Ones,” she said, voice quiet.
Elias stared at the image. The man in the drawing looked ordinary at first glance. But then he noticed the darkness curling around him, clinging to his form like invisible tendrils.
“This,” Eleanor continued, “is what happens when you become marked.”
Elias tore his gaze from the drawing. “Marked? By what?”
She hesitated. “By them.”
He clenched his fists. "You keep saying ‘them,’ but you never say who they are." His voice rose with frustration. "I need real answers, Eleanor."
She met his gaze, her own filled with a solemn understanding. "I’ll tell you everything. But you need to prepare yourself—because once you know, there’s no going back."
Elias swallowed hard and nodded. "Tell me."
Eleanor folded her hands in her lap, gathering her thoughts before she spoke.
“They aren’t ghosts, nor demons, nor anything that belongs to our world. They are something older. Something that lives in the spaces between shadows, in the places where light cannot reach.”
She traced a fingertip over the ancient text.
“They exist to take. To pull people into the Hollow—a place outside of time, outside of existence. No one truly knows what happens to those who are taken. Only that they do not return.”
Elias’s mouth went dry. "And I’m... marked?"
Eleanor gave a slow, grim nod. “Yes.”
His pulse pounded in his ears. "How do I stop it?"
A long silence stretched between them. Then Eleanor’s gaze hardened.
"You run."
Elias froze.
Her words sank into him like lead.
"You leave this town, Elias. Tonight. You don’t stop moving, you don’t look back, and you never—never—step into darkness alone again."
Elias felt the weight of those words settle into his bones. He had expected a ritual, a cure—some way to sever whatever connection had been made between him and the Hollow.
But running? That was the only answer?
Eleanor must have seen the doubt in his expression because she leaned forward, gripping his wrist tightly. "You don’t understand, boy. If they’ve started taking pieces of you—your shadow—then it means they are getting stronger. The longer you stay here, the more they will take. And once they have enough..." She hesitated, voice dropping to a whisper. "They will take all of you."
Elias’s breath hitched.
He should have listened. He should have taken Eleanor’s warning and left Black Hollow that very night.
But something deep inside him refused to run.
He needed to know.
What if there was more to this? What if Eleanor wasn’t telling him everything?
That night, instead of fleeing, Elias returned to the motel.
His hands trembled as he gripped the doorknob. He hesitated only for a moment before pushing the door open.
The room was just as he had left it. Stale air, unmade bed, broken lamp.
But the shadow—his shadow—was gone.
The space on the wall where it had once lingered was now empty.
Elias’s stomach twisted.
And then, the air shifted.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as a slow, chilling whisper slid through the room.
"Elias..."
The voice came from the mirror.
He turned sharply.
And what he saw made his blood run cold.
His reflection was standing there.
But it wasn’t just his reflection.
The figure in the glass was him—but wrong. Its eyes were hollowed pits of darkness, its mouth slightly parted as if whispering something just beyond Elias’s ability to hear.
And then, the reflection smiled.
A slow, unnatural stretch of the lips.
Elias stumbled backward, his breath caught in his throat.
Then, the figure inside the mirror lifted its hand—his hand—and placed it against the glass.
A spiderweb of cracks spread from where its palm met the surface.
And then—
The lights in the motel room went out.
Darkness swallowed the motel room the instant the lights went out. Elias’s breath came in ragged, uneven gasps as he stumbled backward, his heart hammering in his chest. The air felt heavier, thick with something unseen—something watching.
A shudder crawled down his spine as he turned toward the mirror, his hands trembling at his sides.
The reflection—his reflection—was still there, but something had changed.
The cracks that had formed when its hand touched the glass were no longer just fractures in the surface. They had spread, weaving like spiderwebs through the reflection itself, distorting its features. Its eyes were still hollow pits of blackness, but now... they moved.
The dark voids within the reflection shifted, as if something inside them was writhing, alive and aware.
Then, the figure smiled.
"You shouldn’t have come back, Elias."
The voice wasn’t his own. It was deeper, layered with something else—something ancient and wrong.
Elias’s breath hitched. "Who are you?" he demanded, his voice barely above a whisper.
The reflection tilted its head, its grin widening unnaturally. The cracks in the glass deepened.
"I am what waits in the Hollow."
A sharp, icy wind swept through the room, though the windows were shut. Elias clenched his fists, forcing himself to stay still even as every instinct screamed at him to run.
"You took my shadow," he said, his voice steadier than he felt. "Why?"
The reflection’s expression flickered—just for a second. The grin faltered, and something almost like curiosity passed through its darkened eyes.
"Because you are already half ours."
Elias’s blood turned to ice.
Then, without warning, the figure lunged—not at the glass, but through it.
The mirror shattered, sending shards flying in every direction, and with it, the twisted version of himself stepped out.
Elias barely had time to react before the thing grabbed him by the wrist.
It was cold—freezing—and the moment its fingers closed around his skin, a numbing sensation spread up his arm. Elias gasped, trying to pull away, but the thing was strong. Unnaturally strong.
The room around them blurred, darkness bleeding into the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The motel room was vanishing, being swallowed by something else.
Something vast.
Something endless.
"Come home, Elias."
The words slithered through his mind, not spoken but implanted, reverberating in his skull like an echo from a place beyond reality.
Elias gritted his teeth and fought back.
With every ounce of strength he had, he tore his arm free and stumbled backward, colliding with the nightstand. The old lamp crashed to the floor, the dim glow flickering before going completely dark.
The thing—his shadow-self—watched him.
It didn’t move. It just stood there, half in the real world, half in the nothingness bleeding from the mirror’s remains.
Then, in a voice that was almost human but not quite, it whispered—
"It’s already too late."
And then it was gone.
The darkness that had seeped into the walls recoiled, pulling back like ink retreating from paper. The air shifted, and suddenly, the motel room was just a motel room again—dimly lit by the flickering neon sign outside, the shattered mirror the only evidence that something unnatural had happened.
Elias collapsed onto the bed, his chest rising and falling in shallow gasps. His arm was still numb where the thing had touched him, the cold sinking deep into his bones.
And then, through the ringing in his ears, he heard something.
A knock at the door.
Slow. Deliberate.
He froze.
Another knock.
Three times.
He swallowed hard, his pulse pounding in his throat.
And then—
A voice.
"Elias… let me in."
It was his own voice.
But Elias was still inside the room.
Elias sat motionless on the edge of the bed, his body drenched in cold sweat. The knocking on the motel door had stopped, but the silence that followed was worse.
"Elias… let me in."
The voice was his, but it wasn’t coming from his mouth. It slithered through the air like a whisper woven into the darkness itself.
His mind screamed for him to stay put, to pretend he hadn’t heard it, but his body betrayed him. Slowly, as if compelled by a force beyond his own will, he stood.
His footsteps barely made a sound against the creaky wooden floor as he approached the door. The air grew heavier with each step, the temperature dropping until his breath curled in front of him in icy tendrils.
His trembling fingers found the doorknob.
He hesitated.
Then, a whisper—directly in his ear.
"Open it, Elias."
He spun around.
Nothing.
The motel room was empty, save for the shattered mirror and the eerie glow of the neon sign outside. His shadow, cast against the far wall, twitched.
And then, it moved on its own.
Elias’s breath hitched as he watched his shadow detach from his feet, writhing like a living thing. It elongated, its shape warping until it wasn’t just a shadow anymore.
It was him.
The dark figure stepped forward, its hollow eyes fixed on him, mirroring every detail of his face—but not quite. The grin was wrong, too wide, stretching past the limits of human anatomy.
"It’s time to go back."
Elias stumbled backward, his mind racing.
Go back? Where?
His back hit the wall, his pulse hammering in his skull. He had spent years running, escaping the thing that had stalked him since childhood. He had buried his memories of the Hollow, convinced himself it was just nightmares.
But it wasn’t.
It had always been waiting for him.
"You were never meant to leave," the shadow whispered, stepping closer. The motel around them began to change—the walls melted, turning into something dark and liquid. The air turned thick, suffocating, the neon glow outside fading into an abyss.
The Hollow was here.
A void stretched beyond the motel door, a swirling mass of darkness that pulsed like a living heartbeat. The edges of reality blurred, breaking apart piece by piece.
Elias clenched his fists.
No.
Not this time.
Not again.
With a roar, he lunged forward, grabbing the motel chair and hurling it at the shadow. It passed through, the object vanishing into the void behind it. The shadow let out a guttural chuckle, unfazed.
"You can’t fight what you are."
Elias’s heart pounded as the air turned heavy with whispers, voices overlapping, some familiar, some unknown.
And then, amid the chaos, a single thought cut through.
If he couldn’t fight it… he had to face it.
With a deep breath, Elias turned toward the door—toward the Hollow.
The moment he stepped forward, the void pulled him in.
The sensation was immediate—like falling without an end, the darkness consuming him whole. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The voices screamed around him, fragments of memories he had long forgotten.
He saw himself as a child, staring into the mirror, his reflection smiling when he hadn’t.
He saw his mother, her face pale, whispering warnings he never understood.
He saw himself running—always running.
But no more.
Elias stopped struggling.
And in that moment, the Hollow shifted.
The darkness didn’t suffocate him anymore—it surrounded him, waiting, watching.
Then, deep within the abyss, something opened its eyes.
Twin voids, impossibly deep, locked onto him. A force pulled at him, not to consume, but to merge.
A voice—his voice, but older, distant.
"You were never the prey, Elias."
The realization struck him like lightning.
The Hollow had never been hunting him.
It had been waiting for him to accept it.
To understand what he was.
To become what he was meant to be.
As the darkness wrapped around him, Elias closed his eyes and let it in.
And then—
The motel room returned.
The mirror was whole. The neon light outside flickered steadily. The bed was untouched. The Hollow was gone.
Or rather… it was inside him now.
Elias exhaled, his breath steady. He stepped forward, glancing at the mirror one last time.
His reflection was his own.
But deep in his shadow’s eyes, something watched.
And for the first time, he smiled back.
The End
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