Mary had a little lamb

Part Three: The Hollowing

Months passed.

Spring should have brought warmth and new life to the village, but instead, an eerie stillness settled over it. The trees, though green, never rustled. Birdsong was absent. The air carried a weight, as if the forest itself were holding its breath.

Mary was still gone. Officially, she was “missing,” but the search had long been abandoned. Some believed she’d wandered too deep into the woods, lost her way. Others whispered that the land had taken her. But none dared speak the one truth that lingered behind every nervous glance:

The lamb remained.

Sebastian now lived in Mary’s cottage alone. The villagers took turns bringing him food—at least, they had at first. But soon, those who visited began to change.

The blacksmith, Harold, was the first. Once a jovial man, he became withdrawn. His forge sat cold for days, and when someone finally checked on him, they found him muttering in his sleep, eyes wide open. He never woke again. His house was boarded up the next day.

Next was Alice, the seamstress. After her visit to the cottage, she stopped speaking. She would stand for hours in the village square, staring toward the woods. One night, she walked into the trees barefoot and vanished without a sound.

One by one, the village began to hollow out—people leaving without explanation, or going mad with whispers echoing in their heads. all these things made the villagers wonder, what could be the reason? they began to wonder about the actual question that could answer all the things . Sebastian??

They tried to burn the cottage once.

A group of six, carrying torches and holy water, crept through the fog at dawn. But they never reached it. The sun rose, and all six were found in the fields, eyes gouged out, hands clasped in prayer. No footprints in the snow. No sound in the air.

After that, no one dared approach.

But deep beneath the floorboards of the cottage, he was building again.

The room below had changed. The drawings had grown more intricate. Symbols scrawled in chalk and ash decorated the walls. And in the center of the chamber was no longer a table—but an altar.

On it lay something wrapped in pale cloth, barely breathing.

Mary.

She wasn’t dead—not quite. Sebastian had kept her just on the edge of consciousness, fed just enough to survive. Her dreams were filled with broken fragments—images of twisted forests, of people she knew with empty faces, of Sebastian standing over her again and again, whispering her name in a language she couldn’t understand.

And in the waking world, he waited.

Because Sebastian wasn’t just a creature of cruelty. He was born from something older. Something buried beneath the woods long ago. A thing that wore innocence like a mask.

And now, it wanted to come through.

He just needed a vessel.

Mary's love had shielded her, unknowingly kept him at bay. But with her mind fractured, that shield was fading. Her body still lived, but her will had begun to crack. The ancient thing behind Sebastian—the one that had whispered through him, guided his hooves, shaped his mind—was almost ready.

One night, lightning cracked the sky, and a figure appeared in the village—an old woman with wild hair, eyes like silver fire. She knocked on every door, whispering a single phrase:

“The Lamb is the Gate.”

Most turned her away. But not Father Eli, the priest who had once christened Mary as a child. He followed her back into the woods, carrying only a lantern and a worn leather book.

He never returned.

But the next morning, the bell of the chapel rang out for the first time in years—one long, tolling chime that shook the village to its bones.

Something had begun.

To be continued…