Whispers Beneath The Hollow

The town of Graven Hollow had always been quiet-too quiet. Nestled deep in the Appalachian woods, it sat like a forgotten secret, wrapped in mist and memory. The locals liked to say it was the kind of place where time got lost, where things went missing and were never truly found. Secrets, they claimed, were buried deeper than bones in Graven Hollow. And the strangest thing? No one ever really left. And if they did-if they were lucky or foolish enough to escape-the Hollow always called them back.

Evelyn Blackthorne had once scoffed at such stories. Curses, hauntings, ancient bargains-those were tales meant to scare children. She'd grown up brushing off the old wives' warnings. But now? Now, she wasn't so sure. Not since she came back from the dead.

Six years ago, Evelyn had vanished from those very woods that now pressed up against her car window like a living thing. She was fourteen then-young, headstrong, always disappearing into the trees near the edge of town despite her mother's warnings. That autumn night during the harvest festival, the last anyone saw of her was a blur of red hair and a white dress as she darted into the forest. And then... nothing. No tracks. No sound. Just silence.

Search parties scoured the mountainside for weeks. Dogs, helicopters, volunteers-all came up empty. Eventually, her parents held a funeral with no body. A stone marked her name beneath a weeping willow in the old cemetery. The town mourned. And, slowly, Graven Hollow moved on. Or pretended to.

Then, just last week, Evelyn returned.

She stumbled out of the trees barefoot, skin pale as frost, still wearing the same torn white dress she'd vanished in. Mud streaked her legs, leaves tangled in her hair, but her eyes-those deep green eyes-held something that didn't belong in this world. To her, it had only been a day. But to everyone else, six years had passed.

Now seventeen, Evelyn looked almost the same, save for the stillness in her. Like something waiting. Like something unfinished.

Doctors poked and questioned, ran tests they couldn't explain. No trauma, no memory loss, no sign of aging. Her parents, though overjoyed at first, soon grew distant-watchful. Her mother flinched when she touched her. Her father stared too long. And the town whispered. That wasn't Evelyn, they said. That was something else. A changeling. A shadow wearing their daughter's skin.

But Evelyn remembered everything.

The forest. The cold. The voice in the dark that called her name like a lullaby and a curse all at once. She remembered the moment her heart stopped. And the moment it started again.

She had died.

And something-something old, something hungry-had brought her back.

Now, as twilight settled over Graven Hollow and the woods breathed just beyond the glass, Evelyn Blackthorne watched the trees, her fingers twitching with a strange, aching need. She didn't know what she'd become. But she knew the Hollow wasn't done with her yet.

And she wasn't done with it.