The Hollow Grove

The Hollow Grove

The town of Windmere had many stories, but none older than that of Hollow Grove. Tucked beyond the western hills, the forest had been left untouched for centuries. Locals claimed the trees whispered at night, that animals avoided its edge, and that no compass worked once you stepped inside.

Ellie Greaves didn’t believe in ghost stories. She was a journalist for The Local Light, recently returned from college and already bored of covering farmer’s markets and lost pets. So, when she heard an old woman ranting about “children missing again in the Grove,” her interest piqued.

“It takes the small ones,” the woman had said, eyes cloudy and voice like brittle leaves. “The trees remember. And they feed.”

Ellie knew a great human-interest piece could be her ticket out of this sleepy town. She borrowed her dad’s old hiking gear and headed toward the Grove just before dusk, camera slung over her shoulder, voice recorder clipped to her jacket.

The air changed the moment she stepped beyond the crooked wooden sign that read Hollow Grove – Keep Out. The forest was unnaturally silent. No birds. No wind. The tall, dead trees loomed overhead like ancient sentinels, their bark cracked and blackened.

“Just trees,” Ellie whispered to herself. “Just shadows.”

But the deeper she went, the more wrong it felt. The trees were too still. The path under her feet seemed to shift when she wasn't looking. And though her GPS had full bars before she entered, it now displayed nothing but a spinning circle.

About an hour in, she found it — a moss-covered stone well, sunken and forgotten. Around it, the earth was barren. No leaves. No life.

She approached slowly, snapping a few photos. When she leaned over the edge to peer in, a cold breath of air rose from the darkness below, carrying with it the smell of damp rot... and something else. Sweet. Sickly.

Then — she heard it.

Whispers.

Not from around her. From below.

Ellie stumbled back, heart pounding. She shook her head, trying to rationalize. Maybe wind passing through old tunnels. Maybe her imagination. But when she looked back at the well, something was different.

A small, pale hand was resting on the edge.

She gasped and froze. The hand was too still, too white. Slowly, a face rose above the rim — a young boy, no older than six, eyes wide and empty, mouth stitched shut with something that looked like black vine.

Ellie screamed and stumbled back, but the boy didn’t move. Instead, he slowly lifted one arm and pointed into the woods behind her.

She turned.

Nothing was there.

When she looked back, the boy was gone.

Panicked, she tried to retrace her steps. But the forest had changed. The path she came on was gone, replaced with a gnarled thicket. Trees pressed closer together now, their bark resembling twisted, screaming faces.

Then came the laughter — high, childlike, echoing from all around. Shadows darted just out of reach. Her flashlight flickered.

That’s when she saw the others.

Dozens of pale children emerging from the trees. Some had missing eyes. Others, broken limbs that bent the wrong way. All silent. All watching.

Ellie ran.

Branches tore at her face. Roots grabbed at her boots. The forest was alive, closing in. She didn’t know how long she ran, only that her legs burned and her breath was shallow when she collapsed beside a tree that looked more like a corpse than wood.

From behind her, the whispers returned — louder, layered voices speaking in a language she didn’t know. And then, she saw it.

A figure, tall and draped in bark and moss, emerged from the shadows. It wore a crown of twisted roots, and its eyes glowed dimly like embers. From its chest, vines slithered forward, dragging a child's doll behind them.

It spoke without moving its mouth.

“You brought no offering.”

Ellie screamed as the vines surged forward.

She woke up outside the Grove, at dawn. Her camera and recorder were missing. Her phone had 23 missed calls, and her jacket was torn and covered in sap and mud.

When she stumbled back into town, everyone looked at her like a ghost. Her father embraced her in tears. She’d been gone for two days.

She told the story.

No one believed her.

No one ever does.

But a week later, another child went missing. And near the edge of the Grove, someone found a doll made of vines… with Ellie’s name stitched into it.

Summary:

In "The Hollow Grove," an ambitious journalist ventures into a cursed forest to investigate local legends, only to discover an ancient, malevolent force that demands offerings — and remembers those who escape. As the trees whisper and the shadows grow, it becomes clear that the forest is always watching… and always hungry.