The Hollows Answer
1384 Words
The lantern dimmed first.
Not out. Just smaller. Like someone put a hand over it.
Elias was asleep on the moss.
The blue lantern sat beside him, humming low.
The Garden was quiet.
Too quiet.
And in the dark past the mango trees, something was counting.
*1. The Cold That Woke Him
It started with temperature.
One second the air was warm. Port Harcourt warm, even here.
The next second Elias could see his breath.
He shivered in his sleep.
Mumbled, “Mama?”
The lantern pulsed. Once. Sharp. A warning.
The moss under Elias went cold.
The vines along the path pulled back like they were scared.
The fountain water went still, then black, then clear again.
The ripples kept going even after the water stopped moving.
High in the branches, every firefly winked out at the same time.
Elias jolted awake.
Gasping.
Heart hammering like he’d been running.
“...what was that?”
He sat up too fast. Dizzy.
Looked around.
The Garden looked normal.
But it didn’t _feel_ normal.
It felt like it was holding its breath.
The lantern was small now. The size of a coin.
Then it grew again, slow, like it was breathing with him.
Elias picked it up.
It was heavier.
And cold.
A blue petal drifted down.
Then another.
Then they were falling, but not down.
They were _pointing_.
All of them, toward the north edge.
Where the trees grew too close and the air smelled like rust and old rain.
Elias stood.
His legs shook.
“I don’t want to,” he whispered to the Garden.
The lantern tugged in his hand.
Not hard.
Just... _come_.
He took one step.
The ground whispered under his feet.
Another step.
The cold deepened.
Halfway there, he stopped.
Because he heard it.
His name.
Not spoken. Remembered.
From Port Harcourt.
From his mother’s voice, three weeks ago on a bad connection:
_“Elias? Baby, where are you? Come home.”_
Elias closed his eyes.
And kept walking.
*2. The Hollow and the Lockets
The tree line was a wall tonight.
Beyond it, the Garden ended.
Beyond it was something else.
Something that wasn’t Garden and wasn’t Port Harcourt.
The lantern stopped at the edge.
It hovered, refusing to go further.
Pulling back, tugging Elias toward the Garden.
“Okay,” Elias said. “We stop here.”
And the Hollow stepped out.
It didn’t walk.
It _unfolded_.
First a hand. Too long. Too many joints.
Then a shoulder.
Then the whole shape.
Tall.
Wearing a coat made of shadows and old newspaper.
Headlines you could almost read: _MISSING. FLOOD. DARK._
It stopped just outside the lantern light.
So Elias could see the outline, but not the details.
That was worse.
The Hollow tilted its head.
And spoke.
But not with a mouth.
The voice came from the air, from the ground, from inside Elias’s head.
_“Elias.”_
Elias gripped the lantern. “Don’t say my name.”
_“You left,”_ the Hollow said.
_“You left Port Harcourt.
You left me.”_
“I didn’t leave you,” Elias said.
“I don’t even know you.”
_“You will,”_ the Hollow said.
It lifted a hand.
On a string around its neck: something silver.
Small.
A heart.
Elias’s breath caught.
His mother’s locket.
The one he lost the night he came to the Garden.
“You have that,” Elias whispered.
_“I have many things,”_ the Hollow said.
_“Things people forget.
Things people leave behind.”_
It took a step forward.
The lantern hissed.
Light shrank.
_“Give me the lantern,”_ the Hollow said.
_“And I will give you back what you lost.
Home. Warmth. Your mother’s voice.
Tonight. No questions. No cost.”_
Elias stared at the locket.
He thought of his bed.
He thought of his mother’s hands.
He thought of the way Port Harcourt rain sounded on the roof.
Then he looked at the Garden.
At the moss that had held him when he cried.
At the fountain that sang him to sleep.
At the light that didn’t ask him to be anything but here.
“I can’t,” Elias said.
_“Can’t?”_
“I won’t,” Elias said, louder.
“Because if I go back now, I’ll always wonder
what would have happened if I stayed.”
*3. The Garden Fights Back
The Hollow went still.
_“Selfish,”_ it said.
_“You choose a place over your people.”_
“I choose me,” Elias said.
“And this place chose me too.”
The lantern flared.
Not bright.
_True._
The Hollow hissed.
Stepped back from the light like it burned.
_“Foolish boy,”_ it said.
_“Light doesn’t protect you.
It shows you what’s coming.”_
It moved.
Fast.
Not running.
_Reaching._
Hands out.
Aiming for the lantern.
Aiming for Elias.
Elias didn’t think.
He raised the lantern between them.
“Stay back!”
The Garden answered.
Roots shot from the earth.
Caught the Hollow’s legs.
Vines dropped from the trees and wrapped its arms.
The fountain water rose in a wall and crashed down.
The lantern _sang_.
Not music.
A frequency.
Low and clear and old.
The kind of sound that makes bones remember they’re alive.
The Hollow screamed.
No mouth, but the sound tore through the night anyway.
_“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!”_ it shrieked.
_“THE LIGHT IS DYING EVERYWHERE!
I’M TRYING TO SAVE IT!
I’M TRYING TO SAVE YOU!”_
Elias stumbled back.
“What are you talking about?”
_“THE GATE IS CRACKING!”_
_“THE WORLD IS FORGETTING HOW TO HOLD LIGHT!
IF I DON’T TAKE IT, IT WILL GO OUT!”_
For a second, Elias almost believed it.
Almost lowered the lantern.
Then he saw them.
Past the trees.
In the dark.
Other shapes.
Other Hollows.
Watching.
Waiting.
They weren’t saving light.
They were collecting it.
Elias’s fear turned to anger.
“You’re lying,” he said.
The Hollow lunged again.
This time the Garden didn’t just defend.
It _chose_.
The largest mango tree bent.
A branch came down and struck the Hollow across the back.
Not hard.
Enough.
The Hollow staggered.
And then it bowed.
Deep.
From the waist.
Like an old court gesture.
_“Then we will see,”_ the Hollow whispered.
_“Which of us the Garden chooses to survive.”_
And it was gone.
Not ran.
_Unraveled._
Into shadow, into newspaper, into nothing.
Leaving only the locket.
Falling.
Landing in the grass with a small, soft sound.
Silence.
Then the Garden exhaled.
The vines retreated.
The water settled.
Fireflies came back, one by one, like they were shy.
Elias stood there, shaking.
The lantern dimmed to normal.
Warm in his hand.
He bent and picked up the locket.
It was warm too.
And when he opened it, there was his mother.
Younger. Smiling.
And on the other side, a curl of his baby hair.
He pressed it to his chest and sank to his knees.
He didn’t cry at first.
He just breathed.
In.
Out.
With the Garden.
Then he did cry.
Quiet.
Because he was scared and because he wasn’t and because for the first time since coming here,
he knew he had something to lose.
The lantern floated off the ground and settled beside him.
Like a dog.
High above, one firefly drifted down and landed on the locket.
Then another.
Until the silver was covered in blue light.
Elias whispered, “Thank you.”
To the Garden.
To the light.
To himself.
Far away, past the trees, the Hollow watched.
And in the dark, more of them gathered.
Because the answer had been given.
And now the war would start.
But tonight...
tonight the Garden held.
Elias stood, wiped his face, and walked back to the center.
The lantern leading.
The locket safe in his pocket.
When he lay down on the moss again,
the Garden didn’t go quiet.
It hummed.
A lullaby.
And Elias slept.
With light beside him.
And a promise in his pocket.
- Writer
