The Hollow Ones

Dr. Banks stood frozen, his breath shallow as the sound of scratching echoed from behind the cellar walls. It was subtle at first, like a distant clawing, but the sound grew louder, more frantic—like nails scraping the inside of a coffin.

The journal in his hand felt heavier with every turn of the page. Father Guiseppie’s words were scrawled in madness, each entry more deranged than the last. The final words were written in blood: They are not dead. They are waiting. Do not call their name.

The Hollow Ones.

He thought the stories were folklore—until he found the bones buried beneath Applegate Estates, twisted in grotesque positions, as if the bodies had been forced into the ground alive. The skulls had hollow, gaping holes where eyes should have been. And even in death, their mouths were locked in silent screams.

Now, the walls seemed to breathe, the very stone shifting as if something massive was pressing against it from the other side, desperate to escape. The air grew thick, heavy with decay. It reeked of rot—like flesh left to fester in damp soil. Something was here.

A soft, wet thump echoed behind him.

Banks spun around, heart hammering. The lantern flickered, casting quivering shadows. In the corner of the cellar, a pile of bones had appeared—no, not appeared, they had crawled from the dirt, reassembling themselves. The twisted bones snapped into place, forming a shape.

Not human.

Never human.

The thing stood taller than any man, its arms too long, its fingers ending in sharpened bone. Its head tilted to one side as if the neck was broken, and from the hollow spaces where eyes should have been, black ichor oozed, trailing down its deformed face. The air around it rippled with a sickening chill.

“Jaclyn,” Banks whispered, his voice trembling. “Jaclyn, where are you?”

Upstairs, Jaclyn was silent. He could hear her footsteps pacing, her voice distant. She hadn't seen them yet. She didn’t know.

And then the scratching started again—this time from above. No longer soft but sharp, relentless, like claws dragging across the wooden ceiling. The walls shook, as if something massive was digging its way through.

“Jaclyn!” he yelled, rushing up the stairs. “Jaclyn, don’t—”

He reached the top, but what greeted him was no longer the woman he knew. Jaclyn stood by the window, staring into the darkness outside, her back rigid. Her hands, once pale and delicate, had turned gray, the skin cracking like old parchment.

“Jaclyn?”

She turned slowly, too slowly, her neck twisting with a sickening crack. Her eyes—gone. The orbs had been devoured, leaving only empty, bleeding sockets. Her face contorted into something wrong, the skin pulled too tight, her mouth stretching impossibly wide.

“They’re inside me,” she whispered, her voice a gurgling rasp, thick with something that wasn’t human. Her fingers—longer now, bonier—began to tear at her own face, pulling skin from bone. “Help me, please…”

Before Banks could react, Jaclyn's body jerked violently. She slammed into the wall, her limbs twisting in ways that no living thing should be able to move. Her mouth opened wider, wider—until her jaw split with a wet, sickening snap, dangling loosely from her face. Blood poured from the tear, but she didn’t stop.

“They’re here.”

The walls cracked. Long, dark, writhing shapes began to emerge from the shadows, their forms barely visible but unmistakably wrong—things that should not exist, slithering out of the dark corners of the house. They were skeletal, but their bodies were warped, as if twisted in endless agony. Their mouths gaped wide, and from within, something shifted, a hunger that clawed at the edges of reality.

And then, they started whispering. Not with mouths, but inside Banks’ head. They were in his mind, gnawing at the edges of his thoughts, erasing who he was piece by piece.

"You called us. You brought us here. Feed us."

Banks stumbled back, trying to scream, but his voice wouldn’t come. The shadows closed in, the creatures dragging themselves toward him, skeletal limbs twisting and cracking with every movement.

Jaclyn’s body slumped to the floor, her hollow, bleeding eyes still staring at him, wide with terror—yet she smiled.

“Join us.”

The creatures reached her first. She didn’t resist. They devoured her, their elongated fingers sinking into her skin like knives, peeling it away in thin, wet strips. She didn’t scream as they hollowed her out. She just laughed—a terrible, gurgling sound as her insides were pulled from her like silk unraveling from a spool.

The Hollow Ones left nothing behind. No blood. No bones. Only her skin, deflated like an old suit, laying limp on the floor, still smiling.

Banks’ vision blurred. His head pounded as their whispers filled his mind, scraping at his sanity. He backed into a corner, shaking, trying to block out their voices, but they were already inside him—inside his very soul.

The house shifted around him, groaning as if alive. He could hear them in the walls, crawling, scratching, slithering closer.

The lantern flickered again and went out.

Total darkness.

And then… breathing.

Cold, rancid air brushed his neck. He felt them there, inches from him, their fingers brushing his skin, freezing him to the bone.

“Let us in, Banks.”

The darkness split open, and he saw them—all of them. The Hollow Ones. Their gaping mouths, their eyeless faces, their twisted forms. Thousands. Stretching back into the void. And they were hungry.

The last thing Dr. Banks saw before they claimed him was his own reflection in their hollow eyes, fading, until he was nothing more than a shell.

And then, they feasted.

The house was quiet. The cellar was empty. But in the walls, in the shadows, they lingered.

Waiting for someone else to open the door.