Chapter Five-The Hollow Inside Me
915 Words
It had been two days.
And I still couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me.
No matter what I did—no matter how hard I tried to ignore it—it lingered. A quiet, suffocating presence at the edge of my thoughts.
Maybe I was hallucinating.
Yeah… that had to be it.
I lay on my bed, staring up at the cloud patterns painted across my ceiling, trying to lose myself in them—anything to block out the memory of that day.
My life hadn’t been going well.
But somehow… I felt like this was only the beginning. Like something bigger was coming, something I couldn’t see yet.
I just hoped—whatever it was—that things would get better.
Because right now, everything felt like it was falling apart.
I wanted to stay here. With my parents. With something familiar.
But I couldn’t.
Not anymore.
I needed to figure out who I was.
And maybe… leaving this place—this suffocating, broken place—was where it would start.
⸻
“Thalion… come down here!”
My mum’s voice echoed through the house.
I groaned, pushing myself off the bed. “I hate that name,” I muttered under my breath as I made my way downstairs. “It’s Thae…”
I dragged myself into the living room and dropped onto the couch.
“Mum.”
“Alright,” she said, smiling in a way that instantly made me suspicious. “We have good news.”
“Let’s hear it then,” I replied, raising an eyebrow. Whatever it was, I was sure it had nothing to do with my plans to leave.
“Well… the school called.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Relax,” she added quickly. “They said Elizabeth isn’t dead.”
My body went still.
“Wha—what do you mean?”
“Well…” she hesitated, then continued, “She took some kind of medication that slowed her heartbeat… made it seem like she was dead.”
I stared at her.
“That’s… insane.”
“She’s been taken to a mental clinic,” my mum said, almost relieved. “They said she has some kind of psychological issue. Everyone knows now that she lied.”
My name had been cleared.
Just like that.
“You see?” she continued, her smile widening. “Everything is fine now. You can stay with us. We’ll be together again.”
I didn’t respond.
I just looked at her as she stood in front of me, I couldn’t help but notice how small she looked in that moment.
My mum had always carried a quiet warmth about her—the kind that made people feel safe without even trying. Her hazel eyes, soft and expressive, always seemed to understand more than you said out loud. Even now, they searched my face, full of worry and love.
Her skin glowed gently under the light, and her dark hair—usually neatly kept—fell loosely around her shoulders, slightly messy like she hadn’t had the time to fix it. She was never the type to care much about appearances anyway. Not when it came to us.
There was something comforting about her presence. The way she stood close, the way her hands found mine so easily—it felt like home.
Like safety.
Like something I wasn’t ready to lose.
“Mum…” I said quietly.
“You must be happy,” she went on, cupping my face gently. “Things will go back to normal. You can return to school, forget everything that happened. That place doesn’t deserve you anyway—”
“Mum.”
She kept talking.
“Mum.”
Still talking.
“MUM!”
The word came out louder than I intended.
She froze.
The look on her face hit me instantly—shock, hurt.
Guilt twisted in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, softer now. “I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just…”
I hesitated, searching for the right words.
“Maybe I need to go.”
Silence.
Her eyes locked onto mine, and slowly, tears began to fill them.
“Mum, it’s not that I don’t love you,” I continued, my voice barely above a whisper. “I do. I love you, Dad… Elena… all of you. But I need to figure things out. I need to find myself.”
I took her hand gently and pressed a kiss against it.
“I feel… empty,” I admitted. “Like there’s this hole inside me, and no matter what I do, I can’t fill it. And if I stay here… I’m scared I never will.”
Her hazel eyes shimmered with tears, and it broke something inside me.
“I need to try,” I said softly. “I need to climb out of that hole… on my own.”
She didn’t speak.
She just stared at me, tears slipping down her cheeks.
I pulled her into a hug.
“You’ll always be my mum,” I whispered against her shoulder. “No matter where I go… you come first in my heart. You always will.”
She held onto me tightly, like if she let go, I might disappear.
And as her tears soaked into my shirt, guilt settled heavily in my chest.
Because no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise…
A part of me felt like I was making a mistake.
- Writer
