Nightshift at the Hollow-Market

They say the Hollow-Market appears only after midnight—on nights when the moon is full and no dogs dare bark.

Not everyone sees it. Not everyone should.

It flickers into place behind the closed flower shop at the edge of town, in a patch of land you could swear was just an alley. But those who carry too much longing in their pockets or grief pressed flat in their wallets often find themselves there, even without knowing how.

I started working the night shift last Tuesday.

The ad said simply:

“Help Wanted. Midnight to 4. Payment not in currency. Curiosity required. Fear discouraged.”

Below that, a scribbled address that didn’t exist on any map.

I showed up anyway.

I’d just lost my third job. Rent was overdue. My fridge hummed louder than my phone ever did. And part of me—the strange part I didn’t tell my therapist about—had always believed magic existed. Just... not for me.

Until that night.

The Hollow-Market shimmered into life like someone exhaled it from another dimension. Stalls unfolded from shadows. Lanterns lit themselves. Signs hung mid-air in no language I knew, yet somehow I understood them.

There was a woman selling jars of bottled laughter—each labeled by age and year. A man with eyes like ink offered “memories you forgot you missed.” And at the far end, under a tarpaulin stitched from moonlight, sat a booth with a crooked sign:

“Trade What You Regret.”

That one always had a line.

My job was simple: watch the gate and keep track of time.

At least, that’s what my boss said—a tall being made entirely of stitched-together paper receipts, named Mr. Rem.

“You’ll know when to intervene,” he rasped in a voice like crumpling paychecks.

He handed me a lantern filled with silent flame and disappeared behind a curtain that didn’t exist a second before.

The hours passed slowly.

The market thrived in quiet chaos. A child bartered a plastic dragon for ten minutes of courage. A woman cried while swapping an old wedding ring for a night of dreamless sleep. A man with no shadow offered secrets in exchange for forgetting who he used to be.

And I just watched.

At 2:17 a.m., I met someone I knew.

Her name was Clara. We’d dated six years ago. She broke up with me via letter. Said I was always halfway somewhere else—even when I held her hand.

Now she walked the market like someone looking for the piece of herself she gave away too soon.

We made eye contact.

“I didn’t think you believed in things like this,” she said.

“I didn’t. But I needed work.”

She smiled. Sad. “You always needed something.”

I didn’t stop her when she entered the “Trade What You Regret” booth. When she left, she was crying—and laughing. I never found out what she gave up.

Near 3:00 a.m., the market began to change.

The light dimmed—not darker, exactly, but older. The stalls grew quieter. A violin played itself somewhere. The scent of burnt time and cinnamon floated in the air.

Then came her.

She wore a cloak made of missing-person posters and spoke with a voice that echoed like a radio between channels.

She approached my post and asked, “Are you the Watch?”

I nodded, gripping my lantern.

She reached into her coat and pulled out something pulsing and warm. It was a question—alive, raw, unfinished.

She held it to me.

“Take it,” she whispered. “Or answer it.”

I didn’t know the rules.

I chose to take it.

As soon as it touched my skin, the question seared into my chest:

“What do you still owe yourself?”

And then she was gone.

The market stirred around me, sensing the shift.

I stumbled to Mr. Rem’s curtain, clutching the invisible wound.

“I wasn’t trained for this,” I whispered.

“No one is,” he said, his paper fingers folding gently. “You must answer before the market closes. Or it will answer for you.”

I asked, “What happens then?”

He didn’t reply. Just handed me a broken pocketwatch.

I wandered through the market as it began to unmake itself. Stalls faded. Shoppers turned into echoes. Even Clara was gone.

And still the question pulsed:

What do you still owe yourself?

I thought of every version of me I had abandoned.

The writer I never became.

The apology I never made to my father.

The quiet boy who just wanted to believe in something strange and beautiful.

By 3:57 a.m., I stood at the edge of the market, where a stall that hadn’t existed before now stood open.

Its sign read:

“Answer Here. No Refunds.”

I stepped inside.

A mirror waited.

But the reflection wasn’t mine—not exactly. It showed me as I might’ve been. Not rich. Not powerful. But present. Awake. Writing poems on napkins. Laughing without rehearsing it.

I reached into my pocket and found nothing but lint—and the question.

I whispered: “I owe myself forgiveness.”

The mirror smiled. Not my smile. But the one I’d always wanted to see in myself.

The booth folded in on itself.

The market vanished.

When I woke, it was dawn.

The alley was empty. My phone had no missed calls. But in my hand, I still held the broken pocketwatch. Except now, it ticked.

I think I’ll go back tonight.

Just to see what else I forgot to remember.