The hollow Verge

The Echoes Within

Elias woke with a start, his breath ragged as though he had been drowning in the very air of Graymere. The darkness around him felt oppressive, thick, pressing against his chest, as if the very shadows in this place had weight. His body was stiff, and for a moment, he couldn’t tell if he was still trapped in a dream or if the nightmare had somehow bled into reality. His head pounded, a sharp, insistent throb that matched the rhythm of his pulse, and his limbs felt like lead.

He tried to move but found himself unable to. Panic surged as his mind scrambled for answers. Where was he? What had happened to him?

A voice, soft and insidious, whispered from the shadows. "You’re not supposed to be here."

The words sliced through his haze of confusion, bringing clarity with their chilling simplicity. He was in Graymere—again. But this time, it was different. The air was colder, more suffocating, and the village had an eerie stillness to it. It wasn’t just the absence of sound; it was the absence of life.

Elias sat up slowly, his body protesting the movement, his head spinning as he tried to orient himself. He was in a small, dimly lit room, the same as the one before but with an added layer of oppressive silence. The table with its cryptic symbols was gone, replaced by a bed—cheap and worn, the sheets torn and yellowed with age. The walls were bare, except for an ancient-looking clock on one side, ticking slowly, unnervingly loud in the quiet.

It was as if time itself was mocking him. The clock’s tick-tick-tick echoed in his ears, loud and insistent, every second a reminder of the eternity he might be trapped in.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to dispel the fog in his mind, but it wouldn’t go away. That feeling—the weight of something watching him—was still there, pressing on him from all sides. The village was alive in its own twisted way, and it seemed to want him to stay.

Elias glanced around the room, his gaze catching on something that sent a cold jolt through his spine: a figure, standing motionless by the door. At first, he thought it might be the same man from before, the one who had led him to the heart of Graymere, but as his eyes focused, he saw it wasn’t.

It was someone else.

A woman, her figure barely outlined in the low light. She was tall, slender, with long, dark hair that cascaded down her back like a veil of shadow. Her face was pale, almost sickly white, her eyes dark hollows, as if she hadn’t seen the light of day in years. She didn’t move, didn’t blink, as she stared at him with an intensity that made his skin crawl.

“Who are you?” Elias asked, his voice rough, barely a whisper. The words felt strange coming out of his mouth, as if the room itself didn’t want him to speak.

The woman’s lips parted, but it wasn’t her voice that answered. It was something else—something deeper, something older.

"Graymere remembers," the voice said, the words curling into his mind like tendrils of smoke. "It remembers all who walk its streets. All who have been lost. All who will be lost."

Elias felt his heart skip a beat. The air seemed to vibrate with a low hum, as if the village itself were speaking to him through the woman’s words.

"Why am I here?" Elias asked, though he knew the answer wasn’t simple. Nothing in this place ever was.

The woman took a slow, deliberate step forward, her gaze never leaving his. "You came seeking answers," she said, her voice strangely melodic, almost hypnotic. "But not all answers are meant to be found."

"How do you know what I seek?" Elias demanded, frustration rising. The sense of being trapped, manipulated, clawed at him.

The woman smiled, a thin, unsettling curve of her lips. "Because Graymere knows everything. And Graymere has chosen you."

The last words echoed in his mind, reverberating with a hollow resonance. "Chosen me?" he repeated, disbelief creeping into his voice. "For what?"

The woman took another step closer, her presence overwhelming, like a shadow swallowing the light. "For the price of knowledge," she said softly. "To know the truth... you must give up something in return."

Elias’s chest tightened. “I don’t understand. What truth? What does this place want from me?”

The woman’s eyes flicked briefly toward the door, as if something beyond it called to her, but she remained fixed on him, unwavering. "The truth is a double-edged sword," she whispered. "It can free you, or it can destroy you. Graymere is a keeper of truths, but it is also a keeper of secrets. And once you’ve seen the truth, you can never unsee it."

Elias’s mind raced, trying to process her words. But they felt like smoke, slipping away as he tried to grasp them. The oppressive air in the room thickened, making it hard to breathe. The walls seemed to close in around him, the ticking of the clock growing louder, faster, until it was all he could hear.

The woman’s expression softened slightly, almost pitying. "The longer you stay, the more Graymere takes. It takes pieces of you—your memories, your thoughts, your very essence. Until all that’s left is a shell."

Elias stood up, his legs unsteady beneath him. "I have to get out of here. I have to leave."

"Leave?" The woman’s voice was barely a whisper, but it carried an edge of something dark, something knowing. "You think you can leave? Once Graymere has chosen you, you cannot leave. Not until it is done with you."

The room seemed to spin around him, the walls closing in. Panic surged in his chest as he stumbled toward the door, only to find it locked, the handle cold and unyielding under his grasp.

"You’re already a part of it," the woman said, her voice echoing in his mind. "And Graymere always gets what it wants."

The shadows in the room seemed to grow longer, twisting and writhing as though alive, as though reaching for him. He backed away, his breath coming in shallow gasps, but the darkness was closing in. The weight of the place, the heaviness of its secrets, was too much to bear.

As his vision blurred and the room dissolved around him, the last thing Elias saw was the woman’s smile, stretching wider, until it consumed everything.