On a stormy night, I took refuge in a haunted house.😱😨😨

The House on Hollow Hill

The storm raged, and the protagonist found a house on Hollow Hill, a silhouette jagged against the storm-lit sky. He ran towards it, revealing a dimly lit hallway filled with old wood and metallic scents. Lightning flashed, illuminating the grand staircase with intricate patterns. The protagonist called out, but only silence answered. Wind howled through the broken windows, making the chandelier above sway ominously. As he stepped forward, faint footprints appeared on the dusty floorboards. A whisper curled through the air, warning him to leave now before it wakes. The candle on the hallway table flickered and died, and a shadow darker than the night spread across the ceiling. The whisper turned into a low growl. The protagonist ran, bursting through the front door into the storm, never daring to look back. The next day, he returned with the local sheriff, but found nothing, just an overgrown patch of land and a weathered sign half-buried in the dirt. The house on Hollow Hill Asylum was closed in 1902.

The protagonist, a man, is stranded in a stormy road, unable to find any way out. He sees a house on the hilltop with lifeless windows and a flash of lightning, and decides to investigate. He opens the door, finding a dimly lit hallway filled with old portraits and water dripping from his clothes.

He enters the house, but there is no response. A candle on a table flickers, casting distorted shadows along the cracked wallpaper. The scent of mildew and something faintly metallic clings to the air, and he notices a trail of wet footprints leading up the grand staircase.

A gust of wind sweeps through the hallway, snuffing out the candle. In the darkness, something creaks above him, and he stumbles back, feeling a pulse hammering in his throat. A whisper tells him he shouldn't have come, and the chandelier above him rattles violently. The walls shift like living flesh, and a tall, hunched figure appears from the top of the stairs.

The protagonist bolts from the top of the stairs, and the door slams behind him as he tore through the storm. The next morning, he returns with the sheriff, but finds no house. Instead, he finds a stretch of barren land and a weathered sign that reads "Hollow Hill Asylum – Closed 1902. Burned to the ground."

The protagonist feels the blood drain from his face, questioning what shelter he took last night.The narrator is a man who has been trapped in a house for 122 years, and the sheriff is trying to convince him that it was real. He finds a newspaper clipping from 1902, which mentions that the asylum burns down and all patients are presumed dead. The narrator is shocked and feels lightheaded, but he insists that he did.

The sheriff asks if he ever looked back at the house, but he doesn't. The narrator's reflection is gone, and the sheriff pulls out an old, tarnished hand mirror to show him the reflection. The mirror reflects the desk, walls, and even the sheriff, but not the narrator.

The narrator tries to explain that this is a trick, but the sheriff's grim face suggests that he never made it out of the house. He tries to convince the narrator that he spoke to someone else and walked through town, but they never really left the house.

A sharp ringing fills his ears, and he whispers that he needs to go back to the house. The sheriff's expression is grim, and he warns that if he doesn't, he will fade completely, just like the others. The narrator admits that he's not the first to do so.

The room feels suffocating, and the shadows in the corners stretch unnaturally, whispering secrets that the narrator cannot understand. The narrator's mind races as they wonder what had come out in their place if they were still trapped in the house. They have no choice but to confront the truth and find a way out.The protagonist arrives at Hollow Hill, a house that had been waiting for them. As they step onto the porch, they hear a voice calling out to them, and they see a doppelgänger who looks exactly like them. The doppelgänger's expression is wrong, and it tells them they left them behind. The protagonist realizes that they were never the one who left, and that they belong here with the other person.

The house groanes around them, and the walls pulse like they are breathing. The protagonist refuses to return, and the shadows stretch towards them, grabbing at their legs and arms. The doppelgänger is behind them, whispering and laughing, and pulling them down into the house itself. The walls pulse, and the wood swallows their hands, legs, and chest.

The protagonist screams, then light and a blinding flash. Silence follows. The next day, the protagonist wakes up in their car, feeling the morning sun streaming through the windshield. They grip the steering wheel, knuckles white, and their phone dead beside them. They look in the rearview mirror, and for the first time since that night, they see their reflection. They exhale sharply, thinking it was over. However, from the passenger seat, a whisper says, "You can't run from yourself." The protagonist turns their head, and the last thing they see is their own face smiling back at them.