Hollow Creek

The fog was alive.

It clung to everything me, the trees, the very ground thick and wet, curling like breath from some unseen beast. It swallowed every sound, leaving only the pounding of my heart in my ears, a frantic thud-thud-thud that seemed to echo across the void. Each breath tasted of soil and decay. My flashlight cut through the mist in feeble slices, revealing only inches at a time before it all dissolved again into white despair.

Every step was a risk. Branches, slick and twisted, tugged at my clothes. Hidden logs waited beneath the fog to trip me, and roots reached out like skeletal hands, desperate to drag me down. The air hung with pine but also something foreign. Bitter. Sweet. Metallic. Like burnt sugar laced with blood.

Still, I pressed on.

Emily might still be here. That flicker of hope the barest ember was enough. I moved with it burning in my chest, even as the quite deepened. This wasn’t the natural hush of a sleeping forest. It was intentional. Stifling. As if the trees themselves were holding their breath.

I stumbled. A hidden root twisted my ankle, shooting pain up my leg. I collapsed against a tree, teeth clenched to keep from crying out. My breath came in ragged gasps. I couldn’t stop—not now. Not when I felt so close to something.

The fog grew thicker, heavier. My skin chilled despite the exertion. Dirt streaked my cheeks as I wiped sweat and moisture from my face. There were no landmarks now. No direction. Just mist and instinct.

And then something took shape in the white.

A shadow.

I staggered toward it, drawn by dread and desperation. As the fog parted, a cabin emerged. Ancient. Sagging. Its planks twisted and mottled with mold, windows staring blindly into the mist. A sickly yellow glow pulsed from inside faint, like the heartbeat of something ill.

Dread bloomed in my stomach.

The cabin didn’t belong here. It looked wrong, like a wound carved into the woods. I approached anyway, each step weighted by the oppressive hush that now crackled with invisible energy. The light from within wavered, casting elongated shadows that slithered through the fog.

I circled the structure, flashlight trembling in my hand. The door hung from a single hinge, paint flaking away like dead skin. The windows had been boarded long ago, but a few gaps let me peer inside. Cobwebs cloaked warped furniture, everything buried under dust and age. And still no clear source for the light. It seemed to seep from the very walls.

Then the growl came.

Low. Deep. Wet. It vibrated through the soil beneath my boots, a sound older than words.

I froze.

The flashlight darted across the shadows. My breath caught. My pulse surged.

And then eyes.

Two burning red embers. Locked on mine. Not reflected light generated. They hovered low in the cabin’s dark, rooted in shadow. Unblinking. Intelligent. Hungry.

Paralyzed, I could only stare as the thing behind them leaned forward, still cloaked in blackness.

Whatever it was—it wasn’t made to be seen in the light.

Terror surged. I turned and bolted.

Branches clawed. Roots grabbed. Fog whirled into a frenzied dance around me as I fled, crashing through brush and damp leaves. That growl echoed behind me, deeper now, pulsing with pursuit. I didn’t know where I was going, I only knew I had to go away.

The eyes burned against my spine.

I ran until I collapsed, crumpling against a tree as the growl finally faded behind me. My chest heaved. My limbs shook. But I’d escaped barely.

And then I saw it.

Caught on a low branch beside me muddy, torn, but unmistakable: a strip of purple fabric.

Emily’s scarf.

My fingers trembled as I reached for it, disbelief and terror warring inside me. She was here. This wasn’t just a nightmare. This was real. The eyes. The growl. The thing that stalked me. And now this scrap, this tether to her presence, was all the proof I needed.

The cabin may have been death.

But it was also a signpost.

And now I was hunting too.