Chapter 3: The Forest’s Poisoned Gifts
The adrenaline that had fueled their frantic escape ebbed away, leaving a residue of cold, numbing fear. They were huddled together in the small clearing, a tiny island in a sea of encroaching darkness. The memory of the figure hanging from the Wailing Oak—its hollow eyes, its silent scream, its beckoning hand—was burned into their minds. The fun of the adventure had been stripped away, leaving only the grim reality of being lost in a place that wanted to harm them.
“We can’t stay here,” Raven said, her voice raspy. She forced herself to her feet, brushing dirt and leaves from her jeans. The act of standing, of trying to reclaim some semblance of control, felt monumental. “We’ll freeze if we don’t move.”
“Move where?” Finn retorted, his voice strained. He was still staring at his useless, spinning compass as if he could will it to work through sheer force of logic. “We have no map, no compass, and no idea which way is out. We’re walking in circles.”
“Then we’ll walk in a straight line,” Ash countered, pushing off the tree he was leaning against. His daredevil bravado had returned, but it was brittle now, a defense mechanism against the terror they all felt. “Pick a direction and go. It’s better than waiting for that… thing to find us again.”
Willow shuddered, pulling her oversized cardigan tighter around herself. “The legend says all paths lead back to the Wailing Oak.”
“That’s a risk we have to take,” Raven insisted, her gaze sweeping over her friends. Jasper was still pale and trembling, while Luna was murmuring softly to herself, her eyes distant. “We stick together. We don’t stop. We don’t look back.”
With no better plan, they agreed. Ash took point this time, using their pocketknife to cut notches into tree trunks as they passed, a desperate attempt to mark their path. They chose a direction at random and plunged back into the woods, leaving the relative safety of the small clearing behind.
The forest seemed to have changed. The unnatural silence was gone, replaced by a symphony of unsettling noises. Branches snapped just out of sight. Something skittered through the undergrowth, always shadowing their steps. The whispers returned, weaving through the trees, clearer now. They could almost make out words—names, fears, regrets—that slid away just as they tried to focus on them. The fog, their constant companion, ebbed and flowed, sometimes thinning to a light haze, other times thickening into an impenetrable white wall that forced them to link hands to avoid being separated. It carried the cold, earthy scent of pine and damp moss, a ghostly perfume that clung to their clothes and filled their lungs.
After what felt like an hour of tense, silent walking, a structure began to materialize in the gloom ahead. It was a cabin, small and dilapidated, its roof sagging and its front door hanging askew on a single rusted hinge. It looked as though it might collapse if a strong wind blew.
“Shelter,” Jasper breathed, a flicker of hope in his eyes. “Maybe there’s a phone. Or a map. Or… not-ghosts.”
“Or maybe it’s a trap,” Finn said warily, scanning the crumbling structure. “People don’t just build cabins in the middle of a haunted forest for no reason.”
“We need a place to rest for a minute,” Raven decided. “To think. We’ll be careful.”
Cautiously, they approached the cabin. The air around it was strange, thick with the scent of something sweet and cloying, like maple and cinnamon baked goods, and a hint of spice, all layered over the mustiness of damp, rotting wood. It was an unsettling combination, a scent of eerie, forgotten domesticity.
Ash pushed the door, which swung inward with a prolonged, agonizing creak. The interior was dark and choked with cobwebs. Finn’s flashlight beam cut through the blackness, revealing a single room coated in a thick layer of dust and decay. A broken lantern sat on a crude wooden table. In the corner, a rocking chair was coated in cobwebs, a ghostly shroud over its frame. Remnants of a life were scattered about—a rusted tin cup, a moth-eaten blanket, and a small, leather-bound book lying open on the floor as if recently dropped.
Willow was drawn to it instantly. She knelt and carefully picked up the book. It was a diary. The pages were yellowed and brittle, the ink faded, but the handwriting was still legible. “It’s a diary,” she whispered to the others, who had gathered around.
She read the last entry aloud, her voice trembling in the dusty air. “‘The woods are awake. It whispers my name now. It promises gifts, but I see the rot in its heart. I tried to leave today, but the path brought me back. The trees watch me. The shadows move. I am so hungry. The apples in the orchard look so sweet, but I know better. They are a poisoned gift. I will not eat them. I will not…’“ The entry ended there, the last few words trailing off into a frantic, illegible scrawl.
A chill went through the group. They were reading the final thoughts of someone else who had been trapped here, long ago.
“The orchard…” Luna murmured. “The legend mentions a cursed orchard.”
Before anyone could respond, the rocking chair in the corner moved. It swayed back and forth, its slow, rhythmic creak echoing in the dead silence of the cabin.
They all froze, staring at it. No one was near it. There was no breeze. Yet it moved with a steady, deliberate motion, as if an unseen occupant were sitting there, watching them.
“Okay, time to go,” Jasper said, his voice a high-pitched squeak. He was already backing toward the door. “This open-concept haunted living space is not for me.”
As they all started for the door, it slammed shut.
Throwing it back open, they scrambled out of the cabin, not looking back, the sound of the creaking rocking chair following them until it was swallowed by the forest’s whispers. The brief hope of finding shelter had evaporated, leaving them more unnerved than before. The cabin hadn’t been a refuge; it had been a tomb, a monument to a past victim.
They pressed on, the diary’s words echoing in their minds. After another stretch of tense walking, the forest changed again. The terrain sloped downward, leading them to a wide, clear path they hadn’t seen before. It was carpeted in a thick layer of autumn leaves, a vibrant tapestry of crimson, gold, and orange that seemed to glow with a soft, internal light. The air grew crisp and bright, carrying the sweet scent of woods, wet leaves, and slight sweetness. For the first time since entering Black Hollow, the oppressive atmosphere lifted. It felt beautiful, almost magical. The fog was gone.
“Whoa,” Jasper said, his fear momentarily forgotten. “It’s like something out of a fairytale.” He kicked at the leaves, sending a shower of color into the air.
Finn looked suspicious. “This wasn’t here before, was it?”
“Maybe it’s a way out,” Raven said, her hope renewed. “It has to lead somewhere.”
Luna shook her head slowly, her expression troubled. “Be careful. Things aren’t always what they seem here.”
But the path was too tempting to ignore. It was wide and easy to walk, a welcome relief after crashing through the dense undergrowth. They followed it, their footsteps muffled by the thick carpet of leaves. The glowing path felt like a reprieve, a moment of peace in the suffocating nightmare. But the peace was fragile. The further they walked, the more they realized the path was subtly twisting, turning them in a slow, almost imperceptible curve. Ash, trying to walk in a straight line toward a distant tree, found himself right back on the center of the path a few minutes later. They were being herded.
The beautiful path ended abruptly at a crumbling stone wall, half-swallowed by ivy. Beyond it lay a grove of gnarled, leafless trees, their branches heavy with dark, round shapes. An orchard.
A sickeningly sweet smell washed over them—the smell of overripe fruit, of plum and cherry mixed with the woodsy forest air. This was the cursed orchard from the diary.
“We are not going in there,” Jasper said firmly. “The diary lady said the fruit was a ‘poisoned gift.’ I’ve seen Snow White. I’m not touching any weird fruit.”
“We might have to,” Ash said, pointing back the way they came. The glowing path of leaves was gone. Behind them was only a dark, impenetrable thicket of thorns and twisted branches. The forest had closed the way. The only path forward was through the orchard.
With a shared sense of dread, they climbed over the low stone wall. The ground inside was soft and boggy, and with each step, their feet sank into a mulch of rotting fruit. The trees were ancient, their bark dark and peeling. They were laden with plums and cherries, all swollen and dark, their skins stretched to the bursting point. A thick, sticky liquid the color of blood oozed from cracks in the fruit, dripping onto the ground below.
The air was suffocatingly thick with the sweet aroma.
“It smells so good,” Jasper said, his eyes fixed on a large plum. “Maybe just one little nibble.”
“Not a bad idea,” Luna agreed, her mouth watering as she reached toward a dripping plum.
“Stop!” Raven yelled, as she covered her face with her shirt, snapping her frineds out of their daze. “The smell is hypnoticing us, convincing us to eat it.”
As they picked their way through the grove, they began to hear it—a soft, mocking laughter that seemed to come from the trees themselves. It sounded like children playing, but the sound was distorted, cruel.
“The Hollow Children,” Willow breathed, her face ashen.
Finn grabbed her arm. “It’s just the wind. It’s the wind.” He was chanting the words like a mantra, a desperate attempt to hold onto a reality that had completely dissolved.
Raven stopped, her head snapping up. “Did you guys hear that?”
A new sound had joined the laughter—a faint, rhythmic thumping. Thump… thump… thump.
It grew louder as they moved toward the center of the orchard. There, they saw the source. A single plum tree stood apart from the others. It was healthier, its branches less gnarled, and it bore a single, perfect-looking piece of fruit. Bouncing on the ground beneath it, over and over, was a small, red rubber ball. Thump… thump… thump. But no one was bouncing it. It was moving on its own.
They stared, mesmerized by the simple, impossible sight. The ball bounced, hit the ground, and rose again, as if an invisible child were playing there. Then, a figure emerged into view next to the tree. It was a little girl in a simple, old-fashioned dress, her back to them. She seemed to be watching the bouncing ball.
“Hey,” Raven called out tentatively, her voice cracking. “Are you lost?”
The girl stopped the ball with her foot. The thumping ceased. For a heart-stopping moment, everything was silent. Then, very slowly, she turned to face them.
Her dress was stained and torn. Her face was pale and smudged with dirt. But it was her eyes they would never forget. They were two black, empty pits, devoid of light or life. A hollow girl. A hollow child. She smiled, a wide, unnatural smile that didn’t reach her empty eyes, and let out a peal of eerie, high-pitched laughter.
Then she raised a small, dirty hand and beckoned to them, the exact same gesture the woman in the tree had made.
The laughter was picked up by other unseen children all around them, a chorus of mocking, ghostly mirth that filled the orchard. The poisoned fruit on the trees began to split and burst, spewing its rotten, sticky innards onto the ground. The forest was laughing at them.
They didn’t wait for a second invitation. They bolted, crashing through the orchard in a blind terror, the sound of the children’s laughter and the squelching of bursting fruit chasing them. They ran, once again, with no direction, no plan, only a desperate, primal need to escape.
The Legend Of Black Hollow. © 2025 | Horrified Candles. All Rights Reserved.
