The hollow Verge

Shadows of the Past

Elias stood frozen, staring at the figure before him. His mind raced, desperate for some explanation, something to anchor him to reality, but everything felt wrong. The air was thick with a palpable sense of dread, as though the very walls of the church were holding their breath, waiting for something unspeakable to happen.

The figure at the altar moved, its form shifting in the dim light. It wasn't human, not in the way Elias understood it. Its limbs were elongated, its skin mottled with strange, shifting patterns, like veins running beneath the surface, pulsing with an eerie rhythm. The shadows around it seemed to bend, forming shapes that flickered in and out of existence, whispering words Elias couldn't comprehend.

"You've come to us," the figure repeated, its voice a low, guttural hum that vibrated in his bones. "You've come to the heart of Graymere."

Elias swallowed hard, his throat dry. The heart of Graymere. The words echoed in his mind, like a distant bell tolling. He tried to step back, but his legs felt like lead, as if the very air had thickened, holding him in place. He could feel the pressure of the whispers, like a thousand voices clawing at his thoughts, drowning out everything else.

"You've been chosen," the figure said again, its head tilting as it studied him, its eyes glowing faintly in the darkness. "Just as we knew you would be."

Elias's mind reeled. Chosen? What the hell was happening? His pulse quickened as his thoughts spiraled into chaos. He tried to focus, to ground himself, but all he could see were those eyes-those glowing, unblinking eyes-staring into his soul.

"What do you want from me?" Elias managed to rasp, his voice barely more than a whisper. He felt like he was suffocating in the air, the weight of the moment crushing him.

The figure smiled, or at least, it seemed to. It wasn't a smile in the conventional sense, but a twisting of its features, a strange mockery of what a smile should be. "What we have always wanted," it said, its voice rising in pitch, as if reveling in the moment. "What you have always wanted, Dr. Elias Roe. The truth."

The word hit him like a slap. The truth. The truth he had been seeking, the one he had buried deep inside himself after the accident. The thing that had haunted his dreams, his every waking moment. But he had been running from it. Running from the memories, the darkness that he had tried so desperately to forget.

The whispers grew louder, more urgent. Elias's vision blurred, his head spinning as fragments of memories began to surface. Faces he couldn't quite place, voices that seemed familiar, yet distant. He saw flashes of the accident-his car skidding out of control, the blinding flash of headlights, the scream of metal against metal. The memory twisted, as it always did, a hazy blur that never quite made sense.

"You think you've forgotten," the figure crooned, its voice seeping into his mind like poison. "But you can't escape the truth. The truth is here. It's always been here."

Elias shook his head, trying to block out the voices, the images, but they only grew stronger. He clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms, but it didn't help. The fog in his mind thickened, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He needed to understand. He needed to know what was happening, what Graymere was, what this place was.

The figure reached out, its long fingers stretching toward him. Elias flinched, instinctively backing away, but the figure's hand closed around his wrist with a grip like iron, pulling him toward the altar. He tried to struggle, to break free, but it was no use. The figure's strength was beyond anything he had ever felt.

"There is no running from us," the figure whispered, its breath cold against his ear. "There is only the truth."

And then, the world seemed to shift.

The church around him began to distort, the walls warping, the shadows bending in impossible ways. The symbols on the stone walls started to glow, their shapes shifting and pulsing with an otherworldly light. The air hummed with energy, a dark, vibrating force that seemed to press against his skin.

Elias's body felt heavy, as if it was being pulled into the very fabric of the church itself. The floor beneath him seemed to dissolve, and suddenly, he was no longer standing on solid ground. He was falling-falling through the dark, through the endless void of time and space.

For a moment, everything was black.

And then, there was light.

Not the soft, warm light of day, but something harsh, burning, like the light of a thousand stars condensed into one blinding source. The light filled his vision, suffocating him, and Elias felt his mind split, as if the very essence of who he was was being torn apart.

Images flooded his mind-strange, impossible images. He saw the village of Graymere, but not as it was now. No, this was a different time, a different place. He saw people-strangers, their faces blurred, their bodies twisted and contorted in unnatural ways. He saw rituals, dark and ancient, performed under the full moon. He saw shadows moving, not as simple darkness, but as living things, creatures of smoke and malice.

And in the center of it all, he saw himself.

He was standing in the middle of a circle, his hands raised to the sky, chanting words that were not his own. The villagers around him-his people-stood in reverence, their eyes empty, their faces drained of all emotion. And above them, in the sky, a dark figure loomed-an entity that seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere at once. It was watching him, waiting.

"No..." Elias whispered, as the truth of it all began to sink in.

The figure's voice echoed in his mind, louder than ever. "This is who you are. This is who you've always been. You are one of us."

And then, the light consumed him entirely.

---

Elias awoke with a start, gasping for air. His heart raced in his chest, his body slick with sweat. He was lying on the cold stone floor of the church, the whispers still lingering in his ears, faint but persistent. He was back in the church, but everything had changed. The altar was gone. The symbols had vanished. The figure-the creature-was nowhere to be seen.

For a long moment, Elias could only lie there, trembling, his mind reeling from the vision, from the overwhelming truth that had just been revealed to him. He tried to make sense of it, to piece together the shattered fragments of his mind, but it was too much. The truth was too much.

Graymere is not just a place. It's a prison.

And Elias was its prisoner.