Echoes Beneath the Hollow Silence

Table of Contents

The Abandoned Town: Silent Screams

Everyone in Black Hollow vanished on the same day. No signs of struggle. No packed bags. No messages left behind. Just gone. For ten years, the place remained untouched, a ghost town overrun by vines, dust, and silence. The government declared it a closed zone. No one dared enter—except for the curious and the foolish.

Eli was both.

“Are you seriously doing this?” Dana asked, standing at the tree line with her arms crossed.

“It’s for the docu-series. The most mysterious disappearance in American history? Of course I’m doing it,” Eli replied, adjusting the camera strapped to his chest.

“I’m going in, filming for two hours, and getting out. Just like we planned.”

“Famous last words,” Dana muttered.

Eli stepped past the rusted sign that read “BLACK HOLLOW - EST. 1824” and into the forgotten town. The streets were cracked, weeds splitting the pavement like scars. Swing sets moved in the wind. Houses stood crooked, doors hanging on broken hinges.

The silence was unnatural. No birds. No breeze. No insects. Just the sound of Eli’s footsteps and the occasional creak of wood.

He activated his camera and whispered into the mic. “This is Eli Stone, documenting Black Hollow on the ten-year anniversary of its vanishing. There are no signs of recent human activity. The air is still, almost too still.”

The camera’s light flickered.

“Battery’s new,” he mumbled. “Weird.”

He moved deeper into the town, filming the post office, schoolhouse, and church. Everything had been left behind—mail sat uncollected, desks still held open books, pews lined in neat rows.

At the town square stood a statue of a woman in colonial dress, arms raised in silent warning. At its base, someone had scrawled in black paint: LISTEN TO THE SILENCE. IT SPEAKS.

“That wasn’t here in the old photos,” Eli whispered.

He turned a corner and found the town diner, door ajar, the bell above it eerily silent as he entered. Inside, plates of food remained fossilized on tables. A half-finished crossword sat on the counter. The jukebox blinked once—then nothing.

A voice crackled behind him.

“Don’t turn around.”

Eli froze.

The voice was feminine, soft, almost mechanical.

“You’re not supposed to hear me yet,” it said.

He slowly turned anyway.

No one.

His breath quickened. He backed out of the diner and into the street. The air felt thicker now. Denser.

“Dana, do you copy?” he said into his walkie.

Static.

He tried again. “Dana, I think someone’s here.”

The static shifted into whispers—hundreds of them, layered over each other like a symphony of murmurs. Then, just one voice.

“Turn around.”

He spun, camera raised. Nothing but the street.

Then, one by one, lights began to flicker on inside the houses. First the house to his left. Then two more across the street. Then five. Then ten.

In each window, a figure stood motionless. Silhouettes. Men, women, children. All staring out at him in absolute silence.

“Nope,” Eli said, backing away. But when he turned to leave, the road behind him was gone. Not blocked. Gone. As if the trees and path had never been there.

He ran. Through alleys, across yards, trying to find a way out. But the streets twisted, looping him back to the town square every time.

Panting, he collapsed against the statue’s base. The writing had changed.

YOU HEARD THEM. NOW THEY HEAR YOU.

From above, the statue's eyes leaked a black liquid that dripped onto Eli’s shoulder. He screamed and wiped it away—but his hand came back clean.

His camera beeped and shut off.

A moment later, it turned on by itself.

On the screen was not the street. Not even Eli.

It showed the diner—Eli’s body sitting in one of the booths, head tilted as if asleep. But he was standing, watching the screen. How?

Then the whispers returned, clearer this time.

“They see you now. They remember.”

“Who are you?” he shouted into the dark.

“Do you really want to know?”

And then the voices screamed.

Not in pain. In joy.

That was worse.

Eli stumbled into the church, slamming the door behind him. The air inside was different—cooler, safer. Candles lit themselves down the aisle. He walked toward the altar, where a small notebook lay open.

He read the entry aloud: “To escape, one must trade a voice for a life. One scream, sealed, is the price of passage.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

A figure appeared in the front pew—an old man with hollow eyes and no mouth.

He held a recording device in his hands.

He pressed play.

Eli heard his own scream from moments ago. It echoed, distorted, then cut off suddenly.

The man pointed to the exit.

When Eli opened the church doors, the trees had returned. The path was there. The sky was blue again.

He ran.

Dana was waiting by the car.

“Holy hell, what happened to you?” she asked.

Eli tried to answer. His mouth moved. No sound came out.

He tried again. Nothing.

In his pocket, the recording device buzzed. A new message had appeared on its tiny screen.

YOU ESCAPED. BUT YOUR VOICE BELONGS TO US.

They drove back to the motel in silence—at least for Eli. That night, Dana watched as he stared blankly at the wall, unable to sleep, clutching the recorder like a talisman.

She picked it up, curious. The moment she did, it activated. A scream—Eli’s scream—played, followed by a whisper.

“One is free. One must return.”

Dana's heart dropped.

A week later, Eli vanished.

Police found the motel room empty. No signs of forced entry. Only the camera and recorder remained.

The footage showed Eli walking alone through the town square—again. No Dana. No car. Just him... and the whispering figures watching from the windows.

Black Hollow remains sealed. But some say, on certain nights, you can hear a scream echo across the forest. And if you follow it, the trees shift.

And the path to the town reappears.

But only if it wants you.