The flashlight flickered once, twice—then died completely.
Darkness swallowed Evelyn whole.
Her breath came in short, panicked bursts. The room felt smaller now, like the walls were closing in.
And she wasn't alone.
The voice that had spoken—low, ragged, unmistakably real—had come from the shadows behind her.
Her fingers fumbled with the phone, desperately trying to turn the flashlight back on. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
Then—
Footsteps.
Slow. Deliberate. Moving toward her.
Evelyn's stomach twisted. She forced herself to stay still, every nerve in her body screaming at her to run. But where? The stairs were behind her, but if she turned her back…
Another step. Closer this time.
Then, something even worse.
Breathing.
Heavy. Uneven. Right in front of her.
The air turned ice cold.
Then—fingers brushed against her wrist.
Evelyn screamed.
Adrenaline kicked in, and she lurched backward, slamming against the stone wall. Her phone slipped from her grasp, landing somewhere in the dark with a dull clack.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence stretched, thick and suffocating.
Then—
The whispers returned. But this time, they weren't just in her ears.
They were inside her head.
"Evelyn… Evelyn… Evelyn…"
Her name repeated, over and over, layering on top of itself, rising in urgency.
Then, one voice cut through the rest.
"Run."
She didn't hesitate.
Blindly, she turned and lunged for where she thought the staircase was. Her foot caught on something, sending her sprawling forward. Pain shot up her palms as she hit the cold stone floor.
A new sound filled the air—laughter.
Low. Amused. Wrong.
Then—a single whisper, dripping with something almost like affection.
"Just like your mother."
Evelyn's blood turned to ice.
Ignoring the pain, she scrambled to her feet and lunged for the stairs, heart hammering. She half-crawled, half-ran up the steps, her hands slamming against the door at the top.
It wouldn't open.
"No—no, no, no!" she gasped, yanking at the handle.
The footsteps started again, slow and steady, climbing the stairs behind her.
Evelyn threw her weight against the door. "Come on!"
The lock gave with a loud crack, and the door flew open.
She stumbled forward, collapsing onto the wooden floor of her mother's old bedroom.
The whispers stopped.
Evelyn spun, expecting to see someone—**something—**emerging from the darkness.
But the staircase was empty.
The door to the hidden passage was wide open. But beyond it…
Nothing.
The basement—the room, the chair, the shelves—was gone.
As if it had never been there at all.
Shadows of the Past
Evelyn staggered backward, her breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps.
The hidden basement was gone.
She had just been there—felt the cold stone under her hands, heard the laughter, seen the photograph of her mother. But now, all that remained was the back wall of the closet, smooth and unbroken, as if the door had never existed.
Her mind reeled.
No. This wasn't possible.
She turned, scanning the room as if expecting something—someone—to be there. But the house was silent, the only sound her own ragged breathing.
She forced herself to move, stumbling toward the window. The glass was ice-cold beneath her fingertips. Outside, Black Hollow stretched before her, eerily still beneath the gray sky.
She needed to get out of this house.
Her legs felt unsteady as she made her way down the staircase. Every creak of the wooden steps sent her nerves spiking, her senses hyper-aware of the oppressive silence pressing in around her. The house was watching. She could feel it.
The front door loomed ahead. Her fingers curled around the handle.
Then—
A voice.
"Evelyn."
She froze.
The whisper came from behind her.
Slowly, she turned.
A mirror stood at the end of the hallway, dusty and cracked. And in its reflection—
A shadow.
Not her own.
It stood just behind her, its shape wrong, its presence suffocating.
Her heart slammed against her ribs as the whisper came again, curling around her like smoke.
"We've been waiting."
Evelyn's breath hitched.
Then, before she could move, the shadow lunged.
A blast of cold air slammed into her, knocking her backward. Darkness swallowed her vision, the world spinning as she hit the floor.
The last thing she heard before everything went black was the sound of whispers—laughing.
The Forgotten Place
Darkness.
Evelyn drifted in it, weightless and numb, her mind tangled in whispers. They slithered through the void, echoing in voices she almost recognized.
"Don't listen."
"Come back to us."
"She knew the truth."
A sudden, sharp breath.
Her eyes snapped open.
She was somewhere else.
The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and something metallic. Dim, flickering light filtered through old wooden beams above her. Dust swirled in the air as she shifted, her body aching.
She was lying on a cold stone floor.
Panic surged through her.
She sat up too quickly, her vision blurring for a moment. When it cleared, her stomach twisted.
She was in a different basement.
Not the one that had disappeared beneath her mother's closet—this one was real.
The walls were lined with old wooden shelves, some collapsed, their contents spilled onto the ground. Papers. Photographs. Broken jars filled with strange, rust-colored liquid.
A single, rusted lightbulb swayed overhead, casting jagged shadows along the damp stone walls.
Then she saw it.
The chair.
The same one from the hidden room. Old. Wooden. Leather straps hanging from its arms.
A shudder ran through her.
This wasn't just any basement.
This was where it had happened.
Where someone had been kept.
Where someone had suffered.
She pushed herself to her feet, her hands trembling as she braced against the cold stone wall. Her heart pounded as she took in the scattered papers at her feet. Some were too old and faded to read, but one caught her eye.
A journal page.
The ink was smudged, the edges torn, but the handwriting was unmistakable.
Her mother's.
Evelyn's breath hitched as she read the first line.
"He comes when the whispers call."
A chill crawled down her spine.
Who was he?
Her mother had known something. Had she tried to stop it?
The whispers stirred again, curling around her like invisible hands.
Then—
A sound.
A slow, deliberate creak from the far side of the basement.
Evelyn turned, her pulse hammering.
A door stood partially open, revealing nothing but darkness beyond.
The air changed—thicker, heavier.
Something was there. Watching.
Then, from the shadows—
A hand emerged.
Pale. Motionless.
Not human.
The whispers surged.
Then—
It moved.