All Roads Lead to the Hollow (aka. The Communion)

Photo by Joshua Kettle on Unsplash

Elena vanished during the darkest hour of the night, when the world outside lay mute beneath a veil of thick June mist. Gone with the biting wind. Just… gone.

It was 1999. I was thirteen back then and still wet behind the ears. The old house, nestled at the end of a winding country lane, had always been surrounded by secrets, but that night it was different; the shadows themselves were listening in every corner, conspiring about something.

She, my younger sister, was in bed when I retreated to my room, tucked beneath the patchwork quilt Mum stitched for her before the days turned grey and the past became a distant memory.

When I woke up later that night, her bedroom door stood ajar, and the sheets inside lay flat and empty. There were no signs of a struggle, no broken windows, and no disturbed furniture. Nothing, at all. And Elena was gone, just like that, as if she had never existed.

Mrs Berkeley, our maid, told the detectives she had checked in on her shortly before midnight, said she was sleeping soundly, that there were no disturbances, no strange visitors, or late-night wanderings. But she left out something. Something very important.

That night, I had wet the bed again. It was a secret of mine, one I kept from everyone else, though I always got caught. It all started after Mum fell ill. Dad’s sudden passing during his deployment to Afghanistan took its toll on her, more than any of us could foresee or prevent. That unspoken grief hollowed her out completely, and anger became the only thing that kept her alive.

Anyway, ashamed of what I had done yet again, knowing what my afflicted mother would do if she found out, I crept out of my room with the soaked sheets bundled in my bony arms and descended into the basement, careful not to wake anybody, and that was when I noticed Elena’s door ajar. At the time, however, since I was too occupied with my own issues, I did not think much about it.

The air was damp down there, always had been, but I preferred it to the slap of Mum’s belt or that disappointed look on her face. That was when I heard it and recoiled so fast that the sheets slipped from my grasp out of confusion. Who on earth could be down in the basement at such an odd hour?

Footsteps. Two sets. They came from the hallway up the rickety stairs, groaning under my weight despite my skinny frame. One belonged to Mrs Berkeley, I had no doubt, since she always dragged her slippers wherever she went. The other, on the other hand, I couldn’t quite place. It was heavy and unfamiliar, and it belonged to someone I had never met before.

I ascended the stairs with wary steps just enough to be able to crouch and peer through the gap between the basement door and the doorframe, where soft lights spilt through and Mrs Berkeley’s voice grew clearer by the second. She stood just outside the door, whispering to someone I couldn’t see, someone out of sight, or maybe she spoke to herself?

But before I could grasp what she was saying in such a hushed tone, a shadow stretched across the floorboards and came into my line of vision. I jumped up so fast that, had I not grabbed onto the bannister, I might have fallen down the stairs and this story not come to be.

I couldn’t tell why, but that strange shadow arrested me in ways no words could truly capture. It was like… like it wasn’t the shadow of a human being but something else entirely, something that had long since lost its human shape and become… almost disfigured.

When they moved on. Finally. I waited until the footsteps faded before I crept back up again as my frantic heart pounded violently against my ribcage, threatening to rip out of my chest any second.

The hallway was darker than it had been when I went downstairs and colder, too, for some reason, like someone had turned the temperature down within minutes and chilled the entire place on purpose. But it wasn’t just cold as one might think reading these words, but more like the chill of death as it sets in and turns the body stiff and icy to the touch.

I reached for my doorknob, inches from the safety of my room, when something breathed down my neck and broke me off. When I whipped around, my breath caught in my throat, my frantic eyes unable to focus, something compelled me to glance at Elena’s room at the time. Even to this day, I’m not sure what exactly made me do that, only it did.

A muffled scream rose beyond the cracked bedroom door, like someone gasping for air beneath a pillow pressed against their face, struggling to catch their breath but unable to fight off the force they were put under.

My hand on the doorknob trembled, but I could not move, not right away. It was as if some unseen force had crippled me and numbed all my senses. This strange numbness lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like several hours had passed when I finally snapped out of it.

I had barely turned, ready to run to Elena’s room, when a dark silhouette spread across the opposite wall, swelling larger and more menacing with each passing second. It was the same shadow I had seen through the basement door, and now it was in my sister’s bedroom, advancing into the hallway. Advancing towards… me.

Continue.