“Back up—we’ll break it down!”
“Asha, hold on!”
Their voices collide through the door, frantic and overlapping like panicked birds beating against a cage.
I hear Ryder’s fists hammering, each hit thudding with desperation. River shouts something I can’t make out—he’s never yelled like that—and Nala’s voice cracks in a way that makes something deep in my chest twist.
I try again, louder, fighting the rising panic clawing up my throat. “I’m here! I’m—”
The door pulses once against my palms—warm and rhythmic, unmistakably like a heartbeat—and a shockwave blasts straight through me. Pain streaks up my arms and flings me backwards, as I crash onto the floorboards, breath torn from my lungs.
Their voices muffle instantly, as though someone pressed thick hands over my ears. Within seconds, they fade into nothing—no pounding, no shouting, no sound at all.
Silence settles over the room.
Not an empty silence—this one feels swollen, suffocating, saturated with attention. Like something in the walls is listening, waiting for me to exhale.
I push myself upright, my chest heaving even though the air suddenly feels too thick to breathe. The cottage seems to shift around me. The walls expand outward as if taking a deep, unnatural breath—wood bending like ribs under skin—then contract slowly, releasing a long exhale I can feel more than hear.
A shiver crawls up my spine.
Shadows ripple across the walls, sliding like spilt ink, pooling at the floor and splitting open into four long, vertical slits. They glow faintly around the edges, each pulse matching a heartbeat that definitely isn’t mine.
A whisper rolls through my head, bypassing sound entirely, coiling like smoke around my thoughts:
Know them. Name them. Claim your fear.
My legs want to lock. Every part of my body begs me to stay still, to pretend I haven’t noticed that the entire cottage is breathing around me. But staying still feels worse than moving—like holding my breath underwater with no idea how deep the drop beneath me goes.
I force one foot forward, then another.
The first slit unfurls into a spiral of smoke, stretching toward me with delicate, ghostlike fingers, almost like my portal. It gathers, shapes itself, and transforms into a scene so vivid the scent reaches me first—a scorched cell, the air choked with ash and the metallic tang of blood.
Bodies lie scattered at unnatural angles, shards of glass strewn across the floor like splintered bones. And at the centre, knees sinking into blackened marble, is Nala—hands and feet bound in rope. I gasp as I recognise Charlie looming over her, a match in one hand, lighter fluid in the other.
Tears stream down her face as she begs him to stop, but her pleas are helpless. He just mocks her, drenching her in the liquid until she is choking on it. My heart thumps as the nightmare gets worse. Soon, a wall of fire rises around her, inching closer, tightening like a noose. The heat feels real enough to singe my eyebrows, forcing me to stumble back.
She lifts her face toward me as if she can see me, eyes wide, and shimmering with pain.
“Help me… please…”
A sound slips from her lips, a soft, broken whimper, before her body goes slack.
My heart snaps tight as I try to reach her. But I can’t. Each time the wall of fire cuts me off.
“No one’s coming for you. They’re all dead,” Charlie muses, a devious smile stretching across his face. His laughter echoes, growing louder, feeding on her cries.
Nala carries this alone. She walks beside us every day as if she’s unbroken, as if she has no cracks, no ghosts—while this is what waits for her when she closes her eyes.
Panic spikes sharply and fast in my chest as Charlie stands over her with a lit match in his hands, seconds away from dropping it.
“Make it stop. Please make it stop.” I yell to the Hollow, to the cottage, to anyone that will listen.
Know them. Name them. Claim your fear.
“This fear,” I whisper into the smoke, “it’s Nala’s.”
“She’s terrified of Charlie coming back,” I say as quickly as I can, and finally, Charlie freezes, the match inches away from Nala’s pleading eyes.
