The Hollow Resort
585 Words
They stood in silence just beyond the gates.
The air was still. Too still.
Max wiped a hand across his forehead, his voice strained. “Well… we made it. Who wants to bet there’s no WiFi?”
No one laughed.
Not even him.
The group started toward the front doors, feet crunching softly over gravel and moss. Ivy crawled up the walls like veins, and the carved wooden sign above the entrance—faded and cracked—read only: SOLANA.
Lauren stopped walking.
Her brows furrowed. “Wait.”
Lance slowed beside her. “Lauren?”
She shook her head. “This isn’t it.”
“What do you mean?” Max asked. “It’s a creepy giant mansion in the middle of nowhere. Sounds exactly like a family-owned resort to me.”
“No.” Her voice was flat now. Cold. “This isn’t the place my parents own.”
The group turned.
Lauren’s face had gone pale. She gestured at the cracked fountain. “That wasn’t in the photos. The real resort—our family’s—has a modern look. Big glass windows, a blue roof. There's a guesthouse and a pool in front.”
Mika frowned. “Are you sure? Maybe it looks different after years of—”
“It’s not,” Lance said suddenly.
Everyone looked at him.
He reached into his backpack, pulling out a crumpled brochure. “This is where we were supposed to go. Solana Heights Retreat. This...” He looked up at the looming structure. “This isn’t it. This is something else.”
Silence.
Aya’s heart stuttered.
Her locket burned again—hotter, deeper—like it wanted out of her skin.
“But we followed the map,” Max muttered. “You checked it three times.”
“I did.” Lance’s hand tightened around the brochure. “We followed it exactly.”
Tiana took a step back toward the gate.
But when she turned—
It was gone.
Or rather… the path behind it was gone.
The road. The trees. Even the van.
Nothing but thick, endless woods pressing in from behind. As if the forest had swallowed everything.
“No. No, no, no,” she whispered.
Mang Ramon turned to face them, unmoved. “You crossed. It doesn’t matter what was supposed to be here.”
He looked up at the looming resort.
“This place is older than roads. Older than names.”
Lauren stepped back, shaking her head. “We need to leave. We need to go back now.”
“You can’t,” Mang Ramon said simply. “Not unless it lets you.”
“What is this place?” Mika whispered, clutching Lance’s arm.
Mang Ramon looked at Aya then.
Only Aya.
His voice dropped low. “Ask her.”
Everyone turned.
Aya blinked. “W-What?”
“You have the locket,” Mang Ramon said. “You were warned.”
Shock flooded her.
“How do you—?”
But he just looked away and walked toward the front doors, muttering his prayer again.
Aya’s legs felt like stone.
The others stared at her—confused, anxious, afraid.
“Aya?” Mika’s voice cut through the static in her head. “What’s he talking about?”
She opened her mouth.
And the door creaked wide before she could answer.
This time, they all heard it.
A whisper.
Not from inside.
But from above.
A single word, drifting through the still air like smoke:
“Welcome.”
- Writer
