Episode 5: "The Hollowing"
1020 Words
Cold Open
Lily runs through the darkness, dragging her parents behind her.
The wind howls unnaturally loud—like a living thing—and behind them, Hemlock Lane begins to change. Houses twist in place, windows scream, fences grow taller, trees curl in on themselves like claws. The road stretches, then snaps back into place.
As they reach the edge of the street, Lily looks back.
The Thornes stand at the center of the lane, untouched by the chaos. Evelyn’s eyes burn like coals.
> “You should’ve taken the pact, child,” she whispers. “Now you’ll see what happens to those who refuse the Hollow.”
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Act I: Beyond the Lane
Lily leads her parents into the woods beyond Hemlock Lane—the same woods they once thought were just a quiet buffer between neighborhoods. But as they walk deeper, something feels wrong. Trees stand impossibly tall. Fog clings to the ground. The stars are unfamiliar.
Daniel keeps stumbling. He mutters incoherently, sometimes snarling like he’s choking on something unseen. Rachel is better, but fading fast—her heartbeat sounds slow, echoing oddly in her chest.
Lily breaks down. “We need help. Real help. We can’t fight this alone.”
She remembers the journal again. Eleanor had written about a place beyond the trees, older than the Lane itself. A sanctuary. A ruin. A place the vampires couldn’t touch.
> “Follow the hollow roots,” the journal had said, “to where the earth remembers.”
---
Act II: The Hollow Path
Using Eleanor’s directions, Lily searches for the roots—gnarled and glowing faintly beneath the fog. She follows them, deeper and deeper into the woods, where the air grows colder, and the silence becomes oppressive.
As they travel, Rachel begins to cough violently. Her skin now reflects the moonlight like porcelain. When Lily checks her neck, the bite marks are spreading—veins darkening, twisting out like cracks in ice.
Suddenly, they’re ambushed.
Not by vampires—but something else.
Creatures that used to be people. Twisted, mindless things—failed transitions. Half-turned, half-starved. The Hollowed.
Lily fights them off with a sharpened branch from one of the glowing roots. To her surprise, it burns them on contact. They scatter, screeching.
She looks at the branch, bloodied and glowing faintly gold.
> “This is it,” she realizes. “This is what they’re afraid of.”
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Act III: The Sanctuary
At the base of a hill covered in withered ivy and moonlit thorns, they find it:
A stone circle, broken and sunken, filled with markings like those in Eleanor’s journal. At its center lies a blackened tree stump, still faintly alive, pulsing with reddish veins.
Rachel collapses.
Daniel kneels, trembling, now completely incoherent.
Lily drags them both into the circle.
The moment they cross its edge, the air shifts.
Everything is quiet.
Peaceful.
And then—Eleanor appears.
Or something that looks like her. A ghost, or memory, held together by the place’s old magic. Her voice is calm and kind.
> “You broke the first tether when you shattered the goblet. But they are bound to the bloodline. To you. There is still one more thing you must do.”
Eleanor leads Lily to the stump.
> “This is the root of Hemlock. The heart of their power. If it dies… they lose the Hollow. They lose everything.”
Lily raises the glowing root-branch.
But before she can strike—Evelyn steps into the circle.
---
Act IV: Final Temptation
She shouldn’t be able to enter. But she does.
Eleanor’s image flickers—disturbed.
Evelyn is bleeding slightly from her eyes, her hands trembling. She looks weaker, older. “We’re unraveling,” she admits. “Because of you.”
But her voice stays calm. Hypnotic.
> “If you kill the heart, your family won’t survive the purge. They’re already turning. If the blood bond severs now… they’ll rot.”
She extends her hand.
> “Join us. You’re powerful. You could lead. You could change everything. We’ll release your parents from the transition. We’ll serve you.”
Lily hesitates.
The wind dies.
The branch dims.
She looks at her mother.
At her father.
Then at the roots, throbbing with red light.
She closes her eyes.
Whispers: “You don’t get to decide what we become.”
And drives the branch into the stump.
---
Final Scene: The Purge
The ground screams. The trees shudder. The circle glows white-hot.
Evelyn howls as her skin burns and peels away in layers of ash and dust. All across Hemlock Lane, the vampires scream as the Hollow collapses—one by one, vanishing into nothing.
The false neighborhood begins to crumble. The spell is breaking.
Lily cradles her mother as Rachel convulses, eyes rolling back. Daniel collapses.
Eleanor, fading, smiles.
> “You saved them. Now run. Before it all disappears.”
Lily grabs her parents—now breathing normally again—and leads them back through the trees.
As they cross the final veil, the neighborhood behind them vanishes.
Not explodes. Not crumbles.
Just… ceases to exist.
Only fog remains.
- Writer
