The Hollow

Marcus walked for hours, aimless, trying to outrun his thoughts.

The thread pulsed on his finger, patient but persistent. It knew where it wanted him to go. It knew who it wanted him to take. But Marcus kept ignoring it, kept walking in random directions, putting off the inevitable.

By 4 PM, he found himself at the cemetery again. Not the one where he’d met the homeless man, but Riverside, where Margaret Price was buried.

The fresh roses were still there, wilting now in the afternoon sun.

Marcus sat down next to the grave and read the inscription again: “SHE ENDURED.”

What had she endured exactly? Watching everyone she loved die? Living with survivor’s guilt for 102 years? Knowing the thread could come back for her at any moment?

Some survival that was.

“You look terrible,” a voice said.

Marcus looked up. A girl was standing a few feet away, maybe his age, wearing a black dress and holding a bouquet of lilies. She had dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and eyes that looked too old for her face.

“Sorry,” Marcus said. “I’ll move if you’re here to visit someone.”

“I’m here to visit you, actually.” She walked closer and sat down on the grass across from him. “My name is Cassidy. I’m version twenty-one. Died in 1825.”

Marcus stared at her. “You’re...”

“Another one. Yeah.” She set the lilies down between them. “Except I’m not really here. Not physically. I’m projecting from the between-space. Only you can see me.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re spiraling. Making yourself crazy trying to decide what to do. The thread sent me to help.”

“The thread sent you to trick me, you mean.”

Cassidy smiled. “Maybe. Probably. Does it matter? You need someone to talk to, and I’m here. Might as well be honest with each other.”

Marcus looked at her more carefully. She seemed solid, real, but when the sun hit her at certain angles, he could see right through her.

“You said you died in 1825. That was the cycle that completed, right? The one where someone fed it all twenty-five?”

“That was me. I completed it.” Cassidy picked at the grass. “Killed twenty-five people in six days. Mostly people who were already sick or dying. I tried to make it merciful. It didn’t work. They still suffered. I still felt everything.”

“And then what happened?”

“Then the hand became complete. All twenty-five fingers woven together. And for a moment, just a brief, beautiful moment, I understood what it was. What it’s trying to become.” Her eyes went distant. “Something vast. Something that exists across all of time at once. Not good or evil, just... hungry. Curious. It wants to know what it’s like to be human. To die and suffer and love and fear. So it builds itself out of us, out of our experiences.”

“That doesn’t make it better. That makes it worse.”

“I know.” Cassidy looked at him. “But here’s what I learned when the cycle completed: the thread doesn’t want to hurt us. It doesn’t understand hurt. It just wants to experience. And when it’s fed properly, when it gets exactly what it needs, it’s almost... grateful.”

“Grateful enough to let people go?”

“Grateful enough to preserve them. All the people I killed, I can still feel them. I can still talk to them in the between-space. They’re not gone.
They’re part of the web, sure, but they’re still conscious. Still themselves.”

Marcus thought about that. “So completing the cycle doesn’t kill people. It just... changes them?”

“It transforms them. Pulls them out of linear time and makes them part of something bigger. Is that death? Or is it evolution?” Cassidy shrugged. “I don’t know. But I know it’s not the same as what happens when you starve it.”

“What happens when you starve it?”

“Pain. The thread gets angry when it’s denied. It takes the bearer slowly, tears them apart piece by piece, and keeps them conscious through all of it. Then it traps them in the between-space in that state, forever dying, forever suffering, never finding release.”

Marcus felt cold. “David said the same thing. That I’d be trapped in eternal suffering.”

“David’s partly right. But he’s also trying to protect himself. See, if you complete the cycle, the thread can reclaim past survivors. Pull them back in.
David doesn’t want that. He likes his extra years of life. So he tells you to starve it, knowing you’ll suffer, because your suffering protects him.”

“How do I know you’re not just telling me what the thread wants me to hear?”

“You don’t. But think about it logically. The thread has been doing this for centuries. If it was just mindlessly evil, if it just wanted to torture people, someone would have found a way to stop it by now. But they haven’t. Because it’s not evil. It’s just incomprehensible. It operates by rules we don’t understand.”

Marcus looked at his hand. The thread was glowing brighter now, pulsing faster.

“It’s getting impatient,” Cassidy said. “Day four is almost over. By day five, it’ll start making choices for you. Taking whoever it wants, whether you agree or not.”

“It’s already doing that. Thirty people are dead.”

“Thirty people are in transition. They’re not gone yet. Not permanently. If you complete the cycle, they’ll be integrated into the web. If you don’t, they’ll be destroyed, truly destroyed, beyond recovery. Their consciousness will shatter.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve seen it happen. Watched previous cycles fail. Watched the victims dissolve into nothing when the thread got angry.” Cassidy stood up. “You have a choice, Marcus. A real one. Feed it properly, and everyone becomes part of something larger. Starve it, and everyone disappears into pain and chaos. Those are the only options.”

“What about running? What if I just leave town?”

“Too late for that. The thread is too deep in you now. You’d make it maybe a hundred miles before it dragged you back. It’s not letting go of you, Marcus. You’re too important. You’re number twenty-five, the last piece it needs.”

Marcus stood up too. “I’m tired of being a piece of someone else’s puzzle.”

“I know. But that’s what we are. All of us. Pieces in a pattern we can’t see.” Cassidy started to fade. “Think about what I said. You have until sunset on day six to decide. After that, the thread decides for you.”

She disappeared completely, leaving Marcus alone with Margaret Price’s grave.

He stood there until the sun started to set, then walked home.

The house was dark and empty. His mom was still at the hospital, probably sedated, probably better off not knowing what was happening.

Marcus went to his room and lay down on his bed.

He’d barely slept in almost sixty hours. His body was shutting down. His thoughts were breaking apart. But he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t risk what the thread might do while he was unconscious.

He pulled out his laptop and searched for news about his neighborhood.

The death toll had risen to forty-three.

Forty-three people were dead, and the authorities still had no idea why. They were calling it a biological attack now and talking about evacuating the area and setting up quarantine zones.

Marcus read the names of the dead. Some he recognized: neighbors, kids from school, the mailman. Others were strangers.

All of them had families. Friends. Lives that mattered. And all of them died because Marcus existed.

His phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number: Stop torturing yourself. It’s not your fault. — C
Cassidy. Still watching him somehow.

Marcus typed back: Then whose fault is it?

The response came immediately: No one’s. That’s the point. The thread isn’t evil. It’s just doing what it was made to do. Like a river flowing downhill. You can’t blame a river for flooding.

I can if I’m the one drowning.

You’re not drowning. You’re transforming. There’s a difference.

Marcus threw his phone across the room. It hit the wall and cracked but still worked.

He didn’t want to transform. He didn’t want to become part of some incomprehensible web spanning time and space. He wanted to be human. He wanted to graduate from high school, go to college, get a boring job, and live a normal life.

But that wasn’t an option anymore.

The only options were to die in agony and be trapped in eternal suffering, or to kill people and be trapped in eternal awareness.

He thought about his dad’s last words: Don’t become that thing I saw.

The vision the thread had shown him. Marcus covered in blood, killing his mother, killing his neighbors, killing everyone. Moving like a puppet with cut strings.

Was that what he’d become if he completed the cycle? A hollow thing that looked human but wasn’t?

Or was that what he’d become if he didn’t? A broken thing trapped in permanent death?

Marcus got up and went to the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror.

He looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken. His face was pale. Three days of stubble covered his chin. Dried blood was still on his clothes from his father’s death.

He looked like something that had already died and just hadn’t noticed yet.

“Is this what you want?” he asked his reflection. “Is this the person you want to be?”

His reflection didn’t answer. But in the corner of the mirror, Marcus saw movement.

He spun around. Nothing there.

He looked back at the mirror. His reflection was still there, but now it was smiling. And its eyes were wrong, too dark, like empty holes.

“You’re not real,” Marcus said.

The reflection’s smile widened. Its jaw dislocated, dropping open impossibly wide.

And Marcus heard his own voice coming from its throat, distorted and wrong: “Neither are you. Not anymore.”

The reflection reached through the mirror.

Marcus stumbled backward, hit the bathtub, and fell hard. The reflection pulled itself through, coming out of the glass like it was water.

It looked exactly like Marcus, but hollow. Transparent. Made of red threads woven to look like skin and bone.

“I’m what you become,” it said in that distorted voice. “I’m the you that exists after the thread finishes feeding. Want to see?”

It grabbed Marcus’s arm.

Images flooded his mind. Visions of the future, three days from now:

Marcus was standing in his kitchen, holding a knife. His mother was in front of him, begging him to stop. But Marcus couldn’t stop. His hands weren’t his own anymore. The thread moved them, and the knife came down, and his mother screamed...

Marcus was walking through the neighborhood, door to door, killing everyone he found. Men, women, children. The thread made him efficient, precise. He felt everything, every moment of fear, every last breath, but he couldn’t stop...

Marcus was standing over the body of his best friend, Jake, covered in blood, crying but unable to stop crying, unable to stop killing, unable to do anything but feed the thread more and more and more...

“No!” Marcus yanked his arm away. The visions stopped.

The hollow version of himself tilted its head. “That’s what happens if you let it control you completely. If you don’t make a choice, if you just let day seven come without deciding, the thread takes over. It uses you as a puppet. Makes you kill until it’s satisfied.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“You don’t have a choice. The thread is already inside you. Already in control. You just don’t feel it yet.” The hollow Marcus pointed at the mirror.

“Look.”

Marcus looked at his reflection. His real reflection this time, not the hollow version.

His eyes were starting to change. The pupils were too dark, like the hollow version’s. And when he looked closely, he could see red threads moving beneath his skin, just barely visible.

“It’s been growing inside you since day one,” the hollow version said. “Every death you felt sped up the process. By day seven, there won’t be enough of you left to make choices. You’ll be gone, and only the thread will remain.”

Marcus touched his face. His skin felt normal, but he could see the threads now that he was looking for them. They were everywhere, spreading through his body like a parasite.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Take control before it takes you. Choose who dies instead of letting it choose. Make the kills quick and merciful. Complete the cycle on your terms, not its terms.” The hollow version started sinking back into the mirror. “Or don’t. Let it drive you. Become what your father saw in his vision. Either way, the thread wins. The question is whether you win too.”

It disappeared into the glass, leaving Marcus alone in the bathroom.

He looked at his reflection again. The threads were still there, still spreading.

He had maybe two days before he stopped being himself completely. Two days to decide.

Marcus went back to his room and pulled out his phone. He found Officer Chen’s card and called the number.

It rang twice before Chen answered. “This is Officer Chen.”

“It’s Marcus Price. I need to turn myself in.”

There was silence on the other end. Then: “Marcus, where are you? Are you safe?”

“I’m at home. And no, I’m not safe. Nobody’s safe around me.”

“Listen to me carefully. Stay where you are. I’m coming to get you, okay? We’re going to figure this out.”

“You can’t figure this out. Nobody can. But I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I need you to evacuate everyone within two miles of my house. Tell them it’s a gas leak or a bomb threat or whatever. Just get them out. The more people near me, the more people die.”

“Marcus, what’s happening? What’s really going on?”

Marcus looked at his hand. The thread pulsed, angry now. It didn’t want him calling the police. It didn’t want him trying to protect people.
“Something old is using me to kill people. I can’t stop it. Can’t fight it. The only thing I can do is keep the death count as low as possible. So please, evacuate everyone. Do it now.”

“I can’t evacuate an entire neighborhood without...”

“Forty-three people are dead, Officer Chen. Forty-three. And that number’s going to keep climbing unless you do what I’m asking. Please.”

Chen was quiet for a moment. “Are you telling me you killed those people?”

“I’m telling you I’m connected to their deaths. And more deaths are coming. I can feel them.” Marcus closed his eyes. “I don’t have much time. The thing inside me is getting stronger. By day seven, I won’t be me anymore. I’ll be something else. Something that kills without mercy or hesitation.”

“Day seven? What does that mean?”

“It means you have three days to get everyone away from me. Three days before I become a monster.”

“Marcus, you’re not a monster. You’re a scared kid who’s been through trauma. Let me help you.”

“You can’t help me. Nobody can. Just evacuate the neighborhood. Please.”

Marcus hung up before Chen could respond.

He looked out his window. The street was quiet. Normal. People were at home making dinner, watching TV, living their lives.

In three days, he was going to kill them. Unless he did something drastic.

Marcus opened his laptop and searched for ways to kill himself. The results were disturbing but thorough.

If he died before day seven, would the thread jump to a survivor like Sarah said? Or would it just fail and restart in fifty years?

He didn’t know. But maybe it was worth the risk.

He went to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He found his mom’s sleeping pills, the strong ones the doctor had prescribed after Emma died.

The bottle said “Do not exceed one tablet per day. May cause drowsiness and respiratory depression.”

Marcus poured all of them into his hand. Twenty pills, small and white.

If he took all of them, he’d probably die. Fall asleep and never wake up. Peaceful. Painless.

The thread would lose its host. And maybe, just maybe, the cycle would fail without claiming anyone else.

Marcus held the pills, staring at them.

This was it. The choice. Die now and possibly save everyone. Or live three more days and definitely kill more people.

He raised his hand to his mouth. The pills touched his lips.

And the thread burned.

Pain shot through his arm, his chest, his entire body. Marcus screamed and dropped the pills. They scattered across the bathroom floor.

The thread was glowing bright red now, pulsing angrily. Red veins spread across his skin, visible now without even looking closely.

And Marcus heard a voice. Not in his head. Out loud, in the bathroom, coming from everywhere and nowhere:

“NO.”

The mirror cracked. The lights flickered. The water in the toilet turned red.

“You don’t get to choose that,” the voice said. It sounded like Marcus, but wrong. Like all the versions of him speaking at once. “You’re ours. You belong to the web. And the web doesn’t let go.”

Marcus backed against the wall, shaking. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to be part of you.”

“What you want doesn’t matter. You were chosen before you were born. Your soul is the right pattern, the right frequency. You’re the twenty-fifth piece, and we need you.”

“Find someone else.”

“There is no one else. Only you. Only this version of you, in this time, in this place.” The voice softened slightly. “Stop fighting. It only makes this harder. Accept your role. Complete the cycle. Become one with us.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then we take control. Use your body like a puppet. Make you kill everyone you love, slowly and painfully, while you watch from inside, unable to stop. Is that what you want?”

Marcus thought about the vision. About killing his mother, his friends, everyone. About being trapped inside his own body, screaming but unable to make a sound.

“No,” he whispered.

“Then work with us. Choose the victims carefully. Make it quick. Make it mean something. You can have that much control. But you will complete the cycle. That is not negotiable.”

The voice faded. The lights stopped flickering. The mirror was still cracked, but the bathroom looked normal again.

Marcus slid down the wall and sat on the floor among the scattered pills.

He was trapped. Completely, utterly trapped.

The thread wouldn’t let him die. It wouldn’t let him run. It wouldn’t let him make any choice except the one it wanted.

He was going to become a killer. He was going to feed it the twenty-five deaths it needed. The only question was how much of himself he could hold on to in the process.

Marcus sat there until night fell, until his phone rang with calls from Officer Chen, until he heard sirens in the distance as the police started evacuating the neighborhood.

Then he stood up, looked at his reflection in the cracked mirror, and made his decision.

He would complete the cycle. But he would do it his way.

He would choose victims who were already dying. People in hospitals, in hospice, at the end of their lives anyway. He would make their deaths quick and merciful. He would give their final moments meaning by using them to save others.

It was still murder. Still monstrous. But it was the best he could do.

Marcus left the bathroom and went downstairs. The thread pulsed on his finger, satisfied now. Approving.

He grabbed his dad’s car keys and headed for the door.

Day five would begin in a few hours.

And he had work to do.