The Hollow Room
The silence pressed in like fog, clinging to their skin, seeping into their bones.
Max's breath hitched as he stared at the figure at the end of the hall. His fingers instinctively clenched around the locket, now warm—too warm—as if reacting to the presence in the room. Jess's footsteps faltered beside him, but she didn't stop. None of them did. That same invisible pull that had brought them this far tugged at their nerves, dragging them closer to the open door.
The doll was seated on the floor like a child waiting for bedtime, its tiny arms resting delicately on its lap. But those eyes—black pits that seemed to swallow light—watched them. The smile etched across its porcelain face had cracks along the edges, as though it had once been broken and pieced back together. Poorly. On purpose.
And beside it stood the thing.
It had the outline of a person, but only barely. Its form shimmered, distorted, like heat rising off pavement. Limbs too long, spine too bent, neck craning at an impossible angle. A veil of shadows clung to it, obscuring its face, save for a flicker of teeth—sharp, white, wrong—visible beneath the shifting black.
It didn't move. It only watched.
Jess took a slow step forward. "Anna?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. The voice they'd heard wasn't hers. It couldn't be. But maybe… just maybe, Anna was still in there, somewhere behind the eyes of that doll. Or worse, inside the thing that loomed over it.
Max gripped her shoulder. "Don't," he said, barely above a whisper. "That's not her."
Matt, pale and wide-eyed, took a slow step back. "This is what it wanted," he muttered. "It's been leading us here. This whole time. The photo… the locket… even the mirror. All of it."
The figure twitched.
A single jerk of the head, like it had heard something. Or smelled something.
Jess gasped, covering her mouth. The doll's head turned—slowly, creaking—and its smile widened. No strings. No mechanism. Just wrongness made flesh.
And then came the voice again, but not soft this time.
It screamed.
"HELP ME."
The sound wasn't just heard—it hit. A wave of anguish, pain, and terror slammed into them, like knives under their skin. The hallway shuddered. The lights overhead flickered and burst, plunging them into strobe-like flashes of light and darkness.
Max fell to his knees, the locket glowing in his hand. Blinding. Burning. The photo inside it now completely different. No longer a picture of them with Mary—but a new image.
The house. On fire.
A figure trapped inside.
Anna.
Jess screamed. Not from fear—but from knowing. "She's still in there. In the mirror. That wasn't her we threw in. That thing tricked us."
The figure stepped forward, the floorboards groaning beneath its feet like screams from the past. With every step, the walls around them cracked, and the whispers grew louder—frantic, pleading, angry.
Matt turned to run—but the hallway behind them was gone. Just blackness. Like the end of a dream. Or the edge of something ancient.
There was no going back.
Only forward.
Max stood again, holding the locket out like a talisman. "We end this now," he said, though his voice trembled. "We find the real doll. We bring Anna back. And we destroy whatever this is."
Jess nodded, her eyes locked on the doll. The grotesque smile.
It was waiting.
So was the house.
And it was hungry.