The shadow's disappearance left behind a different kind of silence- one that felt aware, as if the house itself had been holding its breath until she noticed it was no longer alone.
Mara stared at the spot where the silhouette had stood only seconds ago. The dim hallway was empty, stagnant with dust and cold air. Her heart thrashed hard in her chest, a panicked rhythm she tried to slow, but couldn't.
The text message buzzed again. Same unknown number.
Don't go to the attic, they'rehere.
She forced herself towards the living room, each step deliberates. If she couldn't trust her eyes, maybe she could trust the things her father left behind.
The journal.
The one she had only skimmed through last night, too exhausted and frightened to truly absorb anything from it. She needed answers now. Something- anything- to make sense of what was happening.
She found it on the coffee table: leather-bound, cracked at the spine, edges curling from years of handling. A thin layer of dust enveloped around the book indicating its prolonged settlement on the table. The slight dust disturbance indicated that she was the only one to have touched it since her father's passing.
She wiped it clean and flipped it open.
Her father's handwriting filled the pages. Sharp. Jagged. Increasingly frantic the further she read.
The Whispers Beneath
The first entries were ordinary to an extent. Notes on repairs, along with mentions of the townspeople by name, age, symptoms and when they started. But as the pages turn, something changes.
A shift in tone.
A growing and uneasy urgency.
"They hear us no matter where we are."
"The Hollowed speak unlike us, their voices can be heard, even when their mouths don't move."
"3:11 has a meaning. They grow stronger, more active. Why? What's the importance."
Mara flipped faster skipping sections of the book. The dates changed. With each massive date change sentences grew shorter and darker.
One passage had been circled multiple of times. The pen dug so deep into the paper it nearly tore through it.
"The old mines weren't ever sealed but records indicate they have been. Why?"
The next line had been written at an angle, sharp and messy. As if though, it had been written in a hurry.
"Whatever they found down there wasn't human or at least isn't anymore."
A chill sliced down her spine.
She continued to read and read the furthering increasing scrawls.
"The knocking, it doesn't stop, but don't listen. It doesn't exist. Don't let them find out you hear it. Do NOT answer them. They mimic and grow. They always mimic."
She shivered and shook her head. Her breathing stagnates and hitches as she let of smalls breaths in a nervous jitter.
This wasn't just the mindset of a grieving man losing his grip. Her father had been meticulous, always rational and grounded.
He's never scribbled or circled things in such fury or desperation.
Something had to have terrified him and she needed to know.
The Hollowed and the Hive
A detailed sketch filled one page- a symbol carved into the wood, the same gauged out circle Mara had seen mentioned in the notes about the disappearances.
Except this sketch had more detail. The circle wasn't just hollowed. It was carved inwards, tapering into a spiral like something had drilled through the wood in a perfect motion.
Or burrowed.
It was carved inwards, tapering into a spiral- like something had drilled through wood in a perfect motion.
Beneath it, her father had written:
"The Hollowed don't remember anything. Most of them at least. Some resist. But their always dragged back eventually."
A drop of ink blotted the bottom of the page. Mara's chest tightened. Was that what she saw in the town? The perfect synchronization? The blank and glassy stares?
Her father had believed something was taking the, overwriting them. Leaving just enough in them to appear normal. Just enough to hide the invasion spreading throughout Blackbridge. Almost like a honey trap.
She turned the page again and froze. Her father had drawn a detailed map- rough, uneven, but clearly depicting tunnels running beneath the town. Lines branched from the old mining sites, twisting like roots spreading underground.
One branch- the thickest- ran directly beneath their house.
A note jotted on the side caught her attention.
"It feeds off of your memories. Then voices. Don't be tricked. Whatever you hear, no matter what, don't be tricked."
Her stomach lurched. She shut the journal, breath shaking. This was too much. Too strange. Too real.
She needed air.
The warning in the walls
As she rose from the couch, the living room lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Her father's journal slipped from her fingers. hitting the floor with a thud.
The lights dimmed to a faint glow. She looked at the old grandfather's clock. 3:11 a.m.
And then the sounds started.
A tapping. Soft at first- barely audible. Then clearer. Rhythmic.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
She slowly turned her head towards the noise. Instead of coming from the door the soft creeping knocks echoed from the walls.
Mara walked towards it slowly, dread spiraling through her veins. She pressed a trembling hand against the nearest wall.
The tapping responded instantly.
Knock-Knock-Knock.
Faster. Impatient.
Her father's scribbled warning clawed up her throat:"When the knocking starts, do NOT answer."
"I'm not answering anything," she whispered.
But the knocking shifted. It grew angrier.
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK
With each bang the walls shook with violence. Every bang sent vibrations throughout her bones. Then it stopped. Almost so quickly that if she hadn't witnessed it herself, she wouldn't have believed that it was all a dream.
Then a soft yet grainy voice slipped through the wall. Muffled and distorted but unmistakably human.
"Maaara."
Her blood went cold.
No. Not possible.
It was her father's voice.
"Mara."
Softer. Closer.
"Let me in."
Her eyes burned with tears threating to break free. "It's not him, don't listen to it." she whispered to herself firmly.
But it sounded just like him- even the cadence and the tone he would say her name whenever she was scared.
Her knees weakened. She pressed both palms against the wall now, tears threating.
"Dad?" she whispered hopefully.
Silence was her answer, then a low rumble.
Almost like a laughter but deep a guttural. One that with just listening you can tell it held a smile. And it was hungry.
"Open the door, sweetheart."
She stumbled backwards. That wasn't her father. Whatever spoke wasn't him. Even if the walls wore it voice like a perfect mask.
The lights flickered violently- dark, light, dark again and again.
The voice grew louder, layered and staticky. "Mara, I know you hear me."
The voices layered more, dozens of voices speaking in perfect synchronization. A chorus.
She fled the room, slamming her shoulder into the doorway as she raced into the kitchen. The knocking followed, tracking her movements like a predator watching its prey in a maze. Gleeful of its struggle.
Her phone buzzed in her jean pockets. The unknown number flashed: You have to leave the house. Now!
She didn't think. Didn't question. She ran.