Hollow Creek

The crunch of twigs under her boots was the only sound for what felt like hours. Sarah, bruised and disoriented, pushed herself upright, limbs trembling. The darkness still pressed in, but somewhere above, a sliver of moonlight broke through the canopy, spilling faint silver across the forest floor. She could finally see again the gnarled trees around her twisted into grotesque silhouettes, their branches splayed like skeletal hands reaching for her.

The air was thick and fetid, heavy with the scent of wet soil and something else something acidic and metallic, like rusted iron or blood long dried. She stumbled forward, every step driven by instinct. Away from the cabin. Away from the eyes.

That glow, that impossible red glow it was still burned behind her eyelids. She couldn’t shake it. Every rustle in the underbrush, every whisper of branches, made her flinch. The flashlight trembled in her hand, its fading beam slicing through fog that churned and crawled like it had a mind of its own.

As she pushed deeper into the trees, a new kind of fear took root—one that didn’t come from sound or sight, but from something deeper. She was being watched. Not just followed. Observed. There was intelligence behind the eyes in the dark. Old. Patient. Wrong.

Then she saw it.

Carved into the thick trunk of a massive oak: a symbol. Spiral-like, but complex knotted with jagged angles that shifted subtly when she blinked. It was alive with motion her eyes couldn’t fully track. The bark around it was blackened and cracked, as if scorched from within.

A chill shot down her spine.

This wasn’t some hunter’s mark. This was ancient. Intentional. Meant to warn or invite.

She stepped closer. The symbol pulsed faintly, like it breathed. She felt the vibration in her chest rather than her ears a low, invasive hum that resonated deep in her bones. Her fingers, almost without thinking, reached out and touched it.

Heat flared sharp and wrong. Not like a burn, but like electricity tearing through nerves. She gasped and recoiled, nauseated. The humming didn’t stop. In fact, it followed her as she stumbled back now inside her, part of her.

The fog thickened again, curling upward to obscure the moon entirely. Trees leaned closer, limbs arching like predators curious about their prey. Panic surged. She was trapped again lost inside a maze that shifted around her.

And then… a sound.

A single twig snapped behind her.

She froze, listening. Another crack. Then a slow, deliberate rustle of leaves, like something dragging itself forward.

Her flashlight whipped around, searching until it caught a flicker in the mist.

An eye. Red. Watching from behind a tree.

Only for a heartbeat.

Then it vanished.

Sarah turned and ran.

Branches clawed at her clothes and face. Roots snatched at her boots. Her breath tore from her throat, ragged and too loud. That hum the symbol’s hum grew louder with every step. It vibrated through her bones in time with the thing’s pursuit.

She didn’t know how long she ran.

Eventually, the fog thinned just enough to reveal a low clearing. She collapsed, gasping. Her vision blurred. The woods loomed around her, pulsing with unseen threat.

Behind a wall of ivy, she spotted a dark slit in the earth barely more than a divot in the hillside, but enough. A cave.

She dragged herself inside, pulling the ivy shut behind her. The space was cold and damp. But it was hidden.

It was something.

She sat there in the dark, arms wrapped around her knees, trying to slow her breathing. But the presence outside had not left. It hadn’t even receded.

It was still there.

Waiting.

And through the hum, through the cold, through the pulsing quiet of the forest beyond Sarah knew: the thing that had taken Emily wasn’t finished.