Chapter Three: The Hollow Hour
934 Words
Emily Holloway – October 16th, 2015. 9:43 PM
They say time slows when you’re about to die. But for Emily Holloway, it didn’t slow. It stuttered. Glitched. Skipped like a broken record caught between two notes.
She had only come out for air. The house was too loud—noises without sources, sobs without tears. Her mother had locked herself in the bathroom again. And Emily, barefoot and worn thin, had slipped out into the fog-draped night.
The cliffs had always been her quiet place.
She walked slowly, letting the sea wind slap her face. The path was wet and wild, grass brushing her shins. Her silver locket bounced against her chest in a rhythm that calmed her.
She passed the dead tree that looked like a crooked finger. Passed the broken fence post half-swallowed by earth. Her boots squelched in the mud, and the fog thickened like breath. Her heart thudded in a steady pattern. She wasn’t scared.
Not yet.
Then, the hum started.
---
It wasn’t music. It wasn’t a natural sound. It was the kind of sound that made your molars ache and the air taste like static. A low vibration from beneath the soles of her feet, like the world itself was humming in warning.
She stopped walking.
The locket thudded against her collarbone. Then again. Then again.
She turned.
Nothing behind her. Nothing ahead.
Only fog.
And something in it.
A shadow.
A shape.
Tall. Thin. Motionless.
“Hello?” she called. Her voice vanished into the mist.
The shape tilted its head.
Her knees went weak.
Then came the whispers.
Not one. Not two. Many. Overlapping. Rising. Dipping.
Voices she didn’t recognize—some male, some female, some too warped to tell.
She clutched the locket. It burned hot in her hand.
“Who’s there?” she whispered.
No answer.
Just the shape moving closer.
No footsteps. No sound.
It glided.
Emily took a step back.
Her heel caught on a root. She stumbled. Fell.
Mud soaked her jeans. Her palms scraped against stone.
She looked up—
The shape was directly in front of her.
Too tall. No face. Limbs too long. Like a man made of shadows wearing a human’s outline.
Her breath stopped. Her voice failed.
Then, it reached for her.
---
She didn’t feel pain.
She didn’t feel touch.
She felt pulled.
The world around her shuddered, like a photograph being ripped in half.
The cliffs, the fog, the sky—they all bent inward.
And she fell.
Not down.
Through.
---
She landed in a space that defied understanding.
There was no sky. No floor. No sense of up or down. Only light and distance and the sound of whispers echoing through eternity.
She stood. Or floated. Or hovered.
In front of her was a mirror.
Except it wasn’t a mirror.
It was a wall of water and memory.
She saw her reflection. And it saw her back.
Only—it wasn’t her.
Not exactly.
It smiled. She didn’t.
It blinked. She did not.
Its eyes were hers—but hollowed. Too black. Too wide.
Then, it opened its mouth.
From within came a voice not her own:
“Will you open the door?”
Emily tried to speak, but no sound came. The question wasn’t for her ears. It was for her soul.
She didn’t know what the door was. Or where it led.
But something deep inside her answered.
Yes.
---
The wall cracked.
Light split into ribbons.
She was surrounded now by figures.
Not people. Shells of people. Girls. Dozens of them. Standing in silence. Eyes open. Expressionless.
Each one looked like her.
Each one was not her.
“Where am I?” Emily tried to ask.
The answer came not in words, but images.
A place beneath time.
A fracture in the veil.
A wound in the world.
Here, things waited. Watched. Fed.
She tried to move, but her limbs felt wrong. Too light. Like they weren’t attached to her anymore.
Another mirror appeared.
She was inside it now.
Looking out.
Back at the cliffs.
At her own body, standing alone.
And behind her—the thing.
It reached toward her reflection.
A clawed finger.
A gentle touch.
The reflection turned to ash.
And she fell again.
---
When she woke, she was lying in the wet grass.
Her throat ached. Her chest burned.
The wind howled.
But she wasn’t cold.
She wasn’t anything.
She sat up slowly.
The lighthouse blinked in the distance.
The cliffs stretched ahead.
And fog moved like breath around her legs.
She stood. Looked around.
No figure. No shadow. No hum.
Just silence.
And when she looked down, the locket was gone.
No. Not gone.
Placed.
On the windowsill of her house.
As if someone had returned it there while she was away.
Only—she hadn’t left.
She’d never left.
She was still there. Somewhere. Split across the mirror.
Something had walked back in her place.
Or maybe she was the one who’d returned.
But different.
Cracked.
She stepped forward. Every sound was louder now. The rustle of leaves. The scream of gulls. The whispers.
They were still with her.
She couldn’t remember how long she’d been gone.
Seconds? Centuries?
She looked at her hands.
No cuts.
No mud.
No blood.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
The kind of perfect that didn’t belong in the real world.
Then she heard it—
Footsteps.
Voices.
“Emily?”
Sheriff Haines’ voice.
Emily turned, slowly.
And the world returned.
---
But the door remained open.
Something had stepped through.
And it wasn’t done with her.
Not yet.
- Writer
