The road to Hollowhouse was anything but welcoming. It wound through a knotted forest where the trees strangled the sky, their leafless arms casting long shadows over cracked asphalt. As daylight waned, the sharp scent of damp earth and decaying wood settled heavily in the air, clinging to Hannah’s skin like a second shroud. Her tires crunched over brittle leaves, and with every turn, an unshakable weight pressed deeper into her chest.
Hollowhouse wasn’t named for whimsy. The mansion that sat at the heart of the estate was a hulking silhouette of broken windows and sagging eaves, a carcass surrendered to years of neglect. But that absence of warmth didn’t deter Hannah. It was precisely why she was here—drawn to the house by a letter that had arrived three weeks ago, unmarked and unsigned, flicking at the edges of the reality she thought she knew.
The letter was cryptic, folded along fragile creases, written in faint scrawl:
*The past is not as quiet as it seems. If you listen, Hollowhouse will tell you what you’ve long forgotten.*
The wind was brittle as she stepped onto the porch, wood groaning underfoot as if complaining. Sleep had retreated that morning, replaced by a gnawing curiosity that refused to be quelled. Her breath came out in little clouds, the cold biting against her throat. A lingering echo of footsteps—soft, hesitant—echoed inside the house.
Opening the door unleashed the scent of damp rot and something tangibly colder, like the air had been trapped in a tomb and forgotten. The foyer swallowed her whole, the walls bleeding shadows in the twilight. She could hear faint whispers, or maybe just the wind teasing the cracked panes. Her flashlight pierced the gloom, circling over faded wallpaper mottled with age and water stains.
Hannah moved cautiously through the house, each step triggering a chorus of creaks and hisses from the settling timbers. The silence was oppressive, not the empty stillness of abandonment, but something expectant, as though the house held its breath, waiting for her to speak its name aloud.
She found herself drawn to the parlor, where a grand piano stood shrouded beneath a threadbare sheet. She hesitated, fingertips grazing the rough fabric like a shroud, then peeled it away. The keys were yellowed and chipped, but as she pressed one tentatively, a faint discordant note cracked through the air—sharp, unnatural. Like the note fought to escape from depths deeper than a wood and wire instrument could possibly reach.
The house seemed to shift then; the shadows deepened, swallowing the edges of the room. From somewhere above, the echo of a child’s laughter whispered, fragile and wet with sadness. The sound caught in her chest, pulling her forward, deeper into the heart of the house.
She ascended the staircase, each step a dull protest. The hallway stretched long, doors ajar and trembling on rusted hinges. At the end, a narrow door stood closed, its surface gnarled and splintered like parched skin. Trembling, Hannah pushed it open.
The room inside was sparse, save for a crib battered by time and dust, and a mirror so dark it absorbed her reflection entirely. The air was colder here, brittle and brittle enough to sting her lungs with every breath. She stepped closer, drawn by a whisper threading through the cold, *”Come home.”*
Her reflection wavered—then fractured. A face bloomed within the glass, pale as moonlight, eyes void and bottomless. It smiled, slow and cruel, rearranging itself into a child’s gaunt visage with hair clinging to a sallow face.
Hannah gasped, stumbling back. The room shuddered, the walls contracting in on her as a guttural chorus rose from beneath the floorboards—a symphony of muffled cries, and creaking that wasn’t wood settling. The house wasn’t just old. It was alive. It was hungry.
She fled the room, the laughter chasing her down the stairs like a swarm of locusts. In the hallway, a long forgotten portrait caught her eye—painted decades ago, long before the house fell into ruin. It was a family: a mother, a father, and a little girl cradled in the mother’s arms. The girl’s eyes bore in on her, accusing and empty, like a ghost’s knife sliding beneath skin.
Hannah’s heart hammered against ribs like a frantic prisoner. She realized the truth wasn’t what the letter promised. She hadn’t come here to remember the past. Hollowhouse hadn’t just called her name—it had summoned her, to answer for something she didn’t yet understand.
She reached for her phone, hands trembling, but the screen blinked blank. No signal, no life. A new whisper curled through the air, this time behind her: *“You forgot me.”*
She spun around. The room had frozen in time, or unmade itself around her. The walls pulsed, breathing in a slow, malevolent rhythm. The crib creaked softly, rocking gently without wind or touch.
Footsteps—small, wet—pitched in cadence with a sad song she felt rather than heard. The child from the mirror stood before her now, translucent and flickering like a dying flame.
“You left me,” the voice was hollow, layered with years of loneliness, “and I waited for you to come back.”
Questions clamored inside her, but the truth refused to be shaped out loud. Hannah’s vision blurred. The family portrait twisted, the parents’ faces melting into nothingness, leaving only the girl, reaching out with spectral hands that beckoned her into the darkness.
A wave of memories crashed forward—fractured recollections she had sealed away. The accident. The fire. The screams muffled beneath a storm of smoke. The secret she had buried deep in the soft earth of memory: the daughter she failed to save, the grief that had clawed her life apart.
Hollowhouse wasn’t just a place. It was a wound. An echo chamber of guilt and silence that had waited patiently for Hannah to unravel the lies she told herself.
The child’s voice lifted, a mourning song folded in the shadows, and as its cold fingers brushed her skin, Hannah understood. There was no escape from the past—not here, not ever. Because sometimes, the house doesn’t just whisper your name. It becomes the voice you cannot forget.
The door slammed shut behind her. The darkness swallowed the light. And in the quiet, hollow and vast, the echoes of Hollowhouse began to sing.
