The Hollow House seemed to wait. Decades passed, and the stories faded into whispers. The town grew around it, new buildings erected like a cautious ring around the lot where the house still stood. Children dared each other to run up to the porch, but no one ever crossed the threshold.
Until Mason arrived.
He wasn't like the others who had approached the house—he wasn't curious, or skeptical, or seeking thrills. He had no camera, no audience to impress. Mason came for one reason: he needed answers.
His sister, Elena, had disappeared into the house ten years ago. She had been the kind of person who never backed down from a challenge, always looking for her next adrenaline rush. Mason had begged her not to go, but she'd laughed it off, ruffling his hair like she always did.
"I'll be fine," she'd said. "It's just an old house."
Now, standing at the edge of the cracked sidewalk, Mason clenched his fists. He had spent years trying to move on, but the house wouldn't let him. It haunted his dreams, taunted him with glimpses of Elena's face, her voice calling out to him.
Tonight, he would end it.
The air felt different as Mason stepped onto the porch—thicker, heavier, as if the atmosphere itself were resisting him. The front door creaked open before he could touch it, revealing the darkened interior.
He hesitated, gripping the flashlight in his pocket. It's just a house, he told himself. It's just wood and nails.
But as he crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind him with a force that rattled the floorboards.
The flashlight beam cut through the darkness, revealing walls that seemed to breathe, pulsing faintly with a rhythm that matched his own heartbeat. Dust floated in the air, but it didn't settle.
"Mason," a voice whispered, soft and familiar.
He spun around, the flashlight trembling in his grip. "Elena?"
The voice didn't respond, but a shadow moved at the end of the hallway. Mason followed it, his steps slow and deliberate, the creak of the floorboards echoing in the oppressive silence.
The house was a labyrinth. Hallways looped back on themselves, doors opened into rooms that defied logic—closets leading to sprawling ballrooms, kitchens that dissolved into forests of jagged black trees.
Mason's sense of time unraveled. His phone's clock blinked nonsense, and his flashlight grew dimmer with each passing moment.
Finally, he reached a room unlike any other. It was cavernous, its walls covered in pulsating veins that glowed faintly with a sickly yellow light. In the center of the room stood a figure.
"Elena," Mason whispered, his voice cracking.
She turned to face him, her expression blank. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and her eyes were filled with black voids.
"You came," she said, her voice layered with other voices—male and female, young and old, all speaking in unison.
"Elena, what happened to you?"
"I stayed too long," she said, stepping closer. Her movements were jerky, unnatural, as if she were a puppet on invisible strings. "The house… it feeds. It needed someone, so I gave it myself."
"No," Mason said, shaking his head. "I'm getting you out of here."
"You can't." Her voice was almost gentle now, her hand reaching out to touch his face. "The house doesn't let go. Not really. It takes, Mason. It takes and takes until there's nothing left."
The walls began to close in, the room growing smaller with each passing second. Mason felt the house's presence pressing down on him, a crushing weight that made it hard to breathe.
"Elena, we can leave together," he said desperately, grabbing her hand.
Her skin was ice cold. "You don't understand," she whispered. "It doesn't want me anymore. It wants you."
The floor split open beneath them, revealing a swirling abyss filled with the faces of the lost—screaming, crying, pleading. Mason recognized some of them: Sarah Kay, the YouTuber; the couple who had thrown the party; and dozens more, their expressions frozen in eternal agony.
Elena stepped back, her form beginning to dissolve into the shadows. "Run, Mason. Don't let it take you too."
The walls began to close in, their pulsating texture growing more pronounced with every passing second. The glowing veins pulsed in a frantic rhythm, almost as if they were alive, reacting to Mason's presence. The air grew heavier, thick with the coppery tang of blood and something even fouler—decay.
"Elena, we can leave together," Mason said, his voice cracking as he reached for her hand.
Her eyes—the swirling voids where they once were—seemed to shimmer with faint recognition, a glimmer of the sister he once knew. But her skin, cold and clammy, sent a shiver through him as he touched her. Her hand lingered in his for just a moment before she pulled away.
"You don't understand," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The house doesn't just take. It becomes you. It… replaces you."
The floor beneath them began to tremble, jagged cracks spidering outward like living things, searching for their prey. The crevices oozed with a black, tar-like substance that smelled of rot and despair.
"Elena, we can fight it! We just have to—"
A deep, guttural groan reverberated through the room, cutting him off. The sound wasn't coming from the house—it was the house. The walls shuddered, the grotesque veins splitting open in places to reveal glistening, wet flesh beneath.
The floor erupted in front of them, a massive tendril of shadowy material rising from the depths. It twisted and coiled, its surface shimmering with the faces of those who had been claimed. Their mouths opened in a synchronized scream, though no sound came out.
Elena's face twisted in anguish. "You don't get it, Mason. It's not about escape. It's about feeding it enough so it lets you live. But it's hungry now… too hungry."
The room tilted violently, throwing Mason to the ground. His flashlight clattered away, its dim beam illuminating the grotesque tendril as it began to shift toward him. He scrambled backward, his breath coming in panicked gasps.
"Elena, please!" he shouted.
Her form flickered, like a glitching image in an old video. "You don't have to do this, Mason. You can still get out. But not with me. It doesn't want me anymore."
The tendril lashed out, narrowly missing him as he dove to the side. It wasn't trying to kill him—it was herding him, guiding him toward the gaping fissure in the floor that now yawned wider. Mason could see into its depths, a swirling maelstrom of black and red.
"Elena!" he screamed, reaching out as she began to fade into the background, her form blending with the house.
Her voice was soft, almost inaudible, but it cut through the chaos. "Run, Mason. Run before it's too late."
Mason froze, torn between his desperate need to save his sister and the overwhelming instinct to flee. His body shook as the house seemed to grow more impatient, the walls closing in tighter, the air turning colder.
"Elena…" His voice cracked, tears streaming down his face.
The tendril struck again, this time grazing his arm. The touch burned, searing pain shooting through his body as if the shadow had latched onto his very soul. He screamed, the sound echoing in the cavernous space.
The fissure pulsed, its edges lined with teeth-like protrusions that seemed to quiver in anticipation.
"Leave, Mason." The voice wasn't Elena's anymore. It was a chorus, deep and guttural, vibrating through his bones. "Leave, and live. Or stay, and feed us."
Mason's eyes locked onto his sister one last time. Her form was almost gone, consumed by the shifting walls. But her lips moved, forming a single word: Go.
With a guttural yell, Mason turned and bolted for the door. The house fought him every step of the way. The floor writhed beneath his feet, the walls contorted into impossible angles, and shadowy tendrils lashed out, trying to pull him back.
He reached the hallway, the faint glow of the front door barely visible in the distance. Behind him, the guttural roar of the house grew louder, a cacophony of rage and hunger.
Mason sprinted through the writhing corridors of the house, his lungs burning and legs screaming for rest. But he couldn't stop—not now, not when he was so close. The walls pulsed like living flesh, and the cries of the consumed echoed through the air, urging him forward.
He turned a corner and stumbled into a massive chamber unlike anything he'd seen before. It was a cavernous space at the heart of the house, illuminated by an otherworldly red glow. At its center, suspended by writhing tendrils, was a grotesque, pulsating mass.
The core.
It throbbed with life, each beat sending ripples through the walls. Faces appeared and disappeared across its surface, their mouths stretched in silent screams, their eyes locked in eternal torment. The tendrils snaked outward, anchoring it to the floor and ceiling, pulsing as if feeding the house itself.
Mason stared, horror clawing at his throat. This is it. This is what's keeping it alive.
A voice echoed from the core—dozens of voices, overlapping in a twisted chorus. "You can't destroy us. Why are you even TRYING?"
Mason's eyes darted around the room, searching for anything he could use. His gaze landed on a jagged piece of broken metal, part of the wreckage that littered the floor. Without thinking, he grabbed it, the sharp edge biting into his palm as he gripped it tightly.
"I'm done playing your games!" he shouted, his voice cracking with desperation.
The tendrils reacted violently, lashing toward him with terrifying speed. Mason dodged, diving and rolling across the ground, narrowly avoiding their grasp. He got to his feet and ran toward the core, using the metal shard to hack at the tendrils that barred his way.
Black ichor sprayed from the severed appendages, splattering across his face and clothes. The core shrieked—a high-pitched, inhuman wail that shook the entire house.
Mason reached the base of the core, the air around it thick and oppressive. He raised the shard high above his head, his arms trembling with the weight of fear and determination. The faces on the core turned toward him, their expressions shifting from anguish to rage.
"You'll only make it worse!" the voices screamed, reverberating through his skull.
But Mason didn't hesitate. With a guttural roar, he plunged the shard deep into the pulsating mass. The core convulsed violently, the tendrils flailing in agony as the red glow began to flicker.
The house roared around him, the walls collapsing inward as the core began to implode. Mason pulled the shard out and struck again, and again, until the glow dimmed to nothing and the core sagged, lifeless.
The ground beneath Mason's feet began to crumble as the house fell apart. Tendrils disintegrated into ash, and the fleshy walls peeled away to reveal a yawning black void. Mason turned and ran, dodging falling debris as the chamber collapsed behind him.
He could see the faint outline of the front door in the distance, its frame shimmering with a strange light. With every ounce of strength he had left, he sprinted toward it, leaping over chasms that opened beneath him.
The void was closing in, swallowing the house piece by piece. Mason dove through the doorway just as the last of the house crumbled into nothingness, landing hard on the overgrown grass outside.
When Mason turned back, the house was gone. The lot was empty, as if it had never existed. The air was still, and the oppressive presence that had haunted him was finally lifted.
But the silence was deafening.
Weeks passed, and Mason tried to move on. But the nightmares persisted, and every so often, he'd catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye—a shadow that didn't belong, a fleeting glimpse of Elena's face.
One night, he woke to a faint pulsing sound, barely audible but unmistakable. His heart sank as he realized it was coming from beneath his floorboards.
And then, just as he reached for the light, he heard a voice—soft, familiar, and impossibly close.
"You can't destroy us, Mason. You are us."