The hollow Verge

Echoes of the Forgotten

Elias stood alone in the center of Graymere's village square, the chilling silence pressing in on him like a weight. The fog had thickened, curling around his feet, whispering in a language he couldn’t understand, yet one that felt hauntingly familiar. His breath came out in sharp bursts, each inhale colder than the last, as he tried to steady his racing thoughts.

The woman—the one who had warned him—was gone, leaving only the strange lingering sensation of her presence, like the faintest scent of something burning. He couldn’t shake her words from his mind. You don’t want to be part of this place... The more he thought about them, the more they gnawed at him, pulling him deeper into the village’s grip, despite every instinct that screamed for him to leave.

But where could he go? He was here now. And the more he looked around, the more it seemed like there was no escaping this village. No way out. No way back.

As Elias hesitated, a soft sound broke through the silence—a distant voice, faint but unmistakable. It was a child’s voice, calling out. His head snapped in the direction of the sound, but there was no one in sight. The fog swallowed everything around him, and for a moment, he thought he might have imagined it. But the voice called again, this time closer, its tone high-pitched and faintly trembling.

“Help me…”

Elias’s pulse quickened. He scanned the street, searching for the source of the voice. It was too soft to pinpoint, but it was there, echoing from the shadows. His legs moved before he could think, drawn by the desperate plea. The fog seemed to thicken around him as he walked, each step slowing, as if the village itself was reluctant to let him go any further.

He followed the sound down a narrow alleyway, the mist so dense now that the buildings on either side seemed to loom closer with every step. The voice came again, and this time, Elias was certain it was coming from just ahead.

"Help me... please…"

His heart raced as he turned a corner, and there, standing in the middle of the alley, was a child. The figure was small, almost fragile, wrapped in a tattered cloak, its hood pulled low over its face. The child’s back was to him, but there was no mistaking the pleading tone in its voice.

“Are you… alright?” Elias asked, his voice shaking despite himself.

The child didn’t answer. It remained perfectly still, unmoving, as if unaware of his presence. The air around them grew colder, the fog swirling tighter. Elias took a cautious step closer.

“Hey,” he called again, his voice louder this time. “Are you okay? Do you need help?”

Without warning, the child turned around, slowly, the hood slipping back to reveal a face that seemed far too pale, the skin drawn tight over hollow cheeks. Elias recoiled instinctively. The child’s eyes—wide, unblinking—glowed faintly, like two orbs of dull fire in the mist. There was something unnervingly wrong about the expression on its face, something inhuman, almost otherworldly.

“I... I need you to come with me,” the child whispered, its voice eerily calm now. “You’re here... because they want you. They’ve been waiting.”

Elias felt his throat tighten, the words striking a chord deep within him, though he couldn’t explain why. The fog seemed to pulse in time with the child’s voice, as if the entire village was holding its breath.

“Who… wants me?” Elias whispered, his voice cracking under the weight of the question.

The child’s lips parted in a slow, unsettling smile, and for a moment, Elias saw something that shouldn’t have been there—teeth—sharp and pointed, like a predator’s.

“They do,” the child replied, voice soft as the wind. “They want your soul. Your mind. They’ve been waiting for you, Doctor.”

The temperature around Elias dropped sharply, and his breath came out in a visible puff. He stumbled back, suddenly aware of how close he had gotten to the child, how much of its eerie presence had seeped into his thoughts. The mist around him seemed to close in tighter now, the alley narrowing with each passing second.

Without thinking, he turned and ran. His feet carried him down the alley, past the empty, silent buildings that seemed to stretch on forever. But the further he ran, the more disoriented he became. The fog seemed endless, a thick wall that turned every corner into a dead end.

He couldn’t breathe. The air was suffocating. Panic clawed at him, suffusing his mind with a dizzying rush of fear. He turned again, trying to escape, but the village had shifted. The landscape had changed.

Somewhere behind him, he heard the faintest sound—a child’s laughter, soft but mocking, echoing through the fog. It sent a chill down his spine, making him hesitate. The laugh wasn’t friendly. It wasn’t real.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted into the mist. But his voice seemed swallowed by the village itself, like the very air was conspiring to keep him here, to keep him from leaving.

And then, as he stumbled forward, he saw something that made his blood run cold. A figure stood in front of him. Tall, cloaked in darkness, with eyes that glowed faintly in the mist.

A woman. Or something like a woman.

Her features were obscured, but the aura around her was unmistakable—cold, calculating, ancient. She spoke in a voice that reverberated through his chest.

“You’re not meant to leave, Dr. Roe,” she said, the words echoing in the air like a curse. “You belong to Graymere now. And Graymere does not let go.”

Elias stumbled backward, his heart racing, the oppressive weight of the village closing in around him. The shadows seemed to shift, forming shapes, watching, waiting. There was no escape.

Graymere had already claimed him.