The letter arrived on a Thursday, its edges yellowed with age, the ink smudged as if dampened by trembling fingers.

"Elias, if you’re reading this, I’m already gone. Don’t come looking for me. But if you do… stay out of the Hollow."

My sister, Clara, had vanished six months ago. The police called it a runaway case—another troubled soul fleeing Blackwood, our decaying hometown. But I knew better. Clara wasn’t the type to leave without a word. And she certainly wouldn’t have abandoned her cat, which I found dead in her apartment, its body stiff, its mouth stretched in a silent scream.

Now, standing at the edge of Blackwood’s cursed forest—the Hollow—I clutched the letter in my fist. The trees loomed like crooked sentinels, their branches twisted into agonised shapes. The air smelled of wet earth and something else, something metallic.

I stepped inside.

The moment I crossed the tree line, the whispering started.

The forest was wrong.

The deeper I walked, the more the trees seemed to lean toward me, their bark splitting in jagged lines like grinning mouths. Shadows moved where there should have been none. And the whispers—soft at first, just murmurs—grew louder, forming words.

"Elias… we’ve been waiting."

I spun around, heart hammering. No one was there.

Then I saw the first marker—a child’s doll, its porcelain face cracked, its dress stained with something dark. It sat propped against a tree, its glassy eyes following me.

A few feet ahead, another. And another.

A trail.

I followed it, my boots sinking into the damp earth. The air grew colder, my breath fogging in front of me despite the summer heat.

Then, I found the first body.

It was a man, his skin grey, his mouth sewn shut with coarse black thread. His hands were clasped together as if in prayer, but his fingers had been broken, bent backward at unnatural angles.

Above him, carved into the tree, were two words:

"SING FOR US."

The whispers became a hum.

Then a song.

A mournful, wordless melody that slithered into my ears and coiled around my brain. My vision blurred. My legs moved on their own, dragging me deeper into the Hollow.

I stumbled into a clearing.

And there they were.

Dozens of them—men, women, children—standing in perfect rows, their faces slack, their eyes milky white. Their mouths hung open, but no sound came out. Instead, the song poured from the trees themselves, vibrating through the earth beneath my feet.

At the center of the clearing stood a figure—tall, emaciated, its limbs too long, its skin stretched taut over jagged bones. Its head tilted at an impossible angle, and when it smiled, its lips split open to reveal rows of needle-thin teeth.

"You’re just in time," it hissed. "We were missing a tenor."

Then, the choir turned toward me.

And their mouths unstitched.

I ran.

Branches lashed at my arms, roots snagged my ankles, but I didn’t stop. The song followed me, worming into my skull, making my thoughts slippery.

"Elias…" Clara’s voice, soft and broken.

I skidded to a halt.

There, dangling from a low branch, was a locket—the one I’d given Clara for her eighteenth birthday. I reached for it, my fingers trembling.

The moment I touched it, the forest shrieked.

The ground split open, and hands—skeletal, rotting—burst from the dirt, grasping at my legs. The trees bent, their branches forming a cage.

And then I saw her.

Clara.

Or what was left of her.

Her skin was parchment-thin, stretched over something writhing beneath. Her lips were sewn shut, but her eyes—oh God, her eyes—were alive with terror.

She mouthed two words:

"Run. Now."


I don’t remember how I escaped.

Only the screaming. The wet, tearing sounds as the thing that wore Clara’s skin began to unfold.

I woke up on the outskirts of Blackwood, my clothes caked in mud, my throat raw. In my hand, the locket—now warm, pulsing like a heartbeat.

The doctors called it shock. The townsfolk called me lucky.

But I know the truth.

The Hollow doesn’t let go.

Every night, I hear the whispers. Every night, the song grows louder.

And last night, when I looked in the mirror, I saw my lips twitching.

Stitching themselves shut.