Scary stories I wrote

The Hollow Ones

It was a cold, suffocating night, the kind that pressed against your chest like invisible hands, making it hard to breathe. The air outside Sarah's cabin was still, too still, as if the world itself had forgotten to move. In the distance, the whispering wind seemed to speak of things best left unspoken. But it wasn't the wind that unnerved her-it was the silence that followed.

Her eyes strained to peer through the grimy windows, but all she could see was the dense forest, the trees standing like skeletal sentinels under the pale, flickering moonlight. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, twisting and writhing like black serpents slithering across the earth. She swore she could hear something in the forest, something crawling just beyond her sight.

Suddenly, a sharp knock rattled the front door, echoing through the cabin like a death knell. Sarah froze. No one should have been out there. Not at this hour. Her breath hitched as her eyes flicked toward the door. It knocked again-louder this time, more insistent, as if the thing on the other side knew she was hesitating.

Her hand trembled as she reached for the doorknob, her fingers cold and slick with sweat. As the door creaked open, a gust of icy wind surged inside, carrying with it the stench of damp earth and decay. She recoiled but forced herself to look into the darkness.

Standing at the threshold was a figure, hunched and cloaked in shadows. Its face-or what should have been a face-was a hollow, gaping void, blacker than the night itself. Where eyes should have been, there were only empty, cavernous pits, and its mouth stretched too wide, a toothless, endless abyss. It whispered her name, though it had no lips to speak. "Sarah..."

She slammed the door shut, her heart hammering in her chest, but the whispering persisted, seeping through the walls, through the very air around her. The voice was now many voices, overlapping, an eerie chorus. She backed away, every instinct telling her to run, but she felt the weight of unseen eyes pressing against her.

The cabin groaned as though something immense shifted outside. The windows rattled violently. Then, they shattered. Glass sprayed across the room like shards of ice. Through the broken windows, she saw them. More figures, more hollow ones, dragging themselves from the forest, their twisted bodies limping unnaturally toward her. They moved slowly, agonizingly slow, but there were so many. Their eyeless faces turned toward her, mouths stretching wider, as if they could swallow the night itself.

Sarah stumbled back, tripping over the tattered rug. As she hit the floor, her back pressed against the wall, she felt something cold slither across her ankle. She looked down, terror seizing her. A hand, skeletal and pale, was reaching from beneath the floorboards. Another grasped her wrist, pulling, dragging her down into the darkness.

The hollow ones were inside.

And as Sarah's screams echoed into the night, the only sound that remained was the soft, hollow whisper of the wind... calling her name.

Word count not including this: 514