Chapter 4: The Shadow of the Truth
The flight from the orchard was a blur of raw panic. The chorus of ghostly laughter pursued them, a soundtrack to their terror that seemed to burrow into their skulls. They ran blindly, crashing through thorny bushes and stumbling over unseen roots, driven by a singular, primal instinct: escape. The cloying sweetness of rotting fruit gave way once more to the damp, earthy smell of the deep woods.
They finally collapsed, lungs screaming for air, in a place where the trees thinned. The ground here was strangely even and covered in a thick carpet of moss. It was quiet. The laughter had faded, replaced by the familiar, heavy silence of the forest.
“Is everyone… okay?” Raven gasped, her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.
A series of groans and wheezes was her answer. Jasper was lying flat on his back, staring up at the dense canopy. “I think I swallowed a bug,” he wheezed. “Or a small ghost. It’s hard to tell.”
Willow was leaning against Finn, both of them pale and trembling. “Her eyes,” Willow whispered. “They were just… black.”
Finn didn’t offer a rational explanation this time. He just nodded, his face grim. “I know.”
Even Ash seemed shaken, his usual reckless energy replaced by a wary tension. He was scanning the surrounding woods, knife in hand, as if expecting the hollow-eyed girl to reappear at any moment.
Luna was the calmest, though her face was etched with a deep sadness. “They aren’t evil,” she said softly, looking at the others. “They’re trapped. Like the woman in the tree. They’re echoes.”
“Echoes that try to lure you into a fruit-filled nightmare,” Jasper muttered, sitting up.
As their heart rates began to return to normal, they took in their surroundings. The moss-covered ground was unnaturally flat in places, with straight lines and right angles barely visible beneath the organic blanket. And poking through the moss were stones. Not random rocks, but cut stones, arranged in deliberate patterns.
“Guys…” Willow said, her voice filled with awe. She knelt and brushed away a patch of moss, revealing the corner of a stone foundation. “This is it. We found it. This is Hollow’s End.”
They had been so focused on the horrors that they hadn’t realized their frantic escape had led them right to their original goal. They stood in the heart of the abandoned village. All around them were the skeletal remains of a forgotten settlement. Crumbled stone walls, the faint outline of a main path, and the dark, gaping maw of what must have been the village well, the one from the hiker’s photos. The ruins were almost completely swallowed by the forest, a testament to nature’s power to reclaim.
The air here felt different. The active malevolence of the orchard was gone, replaced by a profound sense of melancholy, a static of ancient sorrow.
“So the hiker was real,” Finn said, his voice low. He ran a hand over a crumbling wall. “He made it out.”
“Or the forest let him out,” Luna corrected. “To spread the story. To lure more people in. Like us.” It was a trade of sorts. One soul for six.
As they explored the ruins, a new presence made itself known. It wasn’t a sound or a smell, but a feeling. The distinct, prickling sensation of being watched. The shadows between the crumbling walls seemed deeper, darker than they should be.
“Something’s here,” Ash whispered, his knuckles white as he gripped his knife. “I feel it.”
They all felt it. A cold spot in the air that moved with them. A flicker of movement at the edge of their vision. They clustered together in the center of the ruins, their backs to each other, scanning the oppressive gloom.
And then they saw him.
He was standing at the edge of the ruins, partially obscured by the trunk of a massive, gnarled tree. He was tall, unnaturally so, and impossibly thin, a slash of black against the deep green and gray of the woods. He wore what looked like the tattered, dark robes of a bygone era. But it was his face—or lack thereof—that made their blood run cold. Where his features should have been, there was only a smooth, blank void, a canvas of absolute shadow.
The Shadow Man.
Jasper let out a choked gasp. Finn’s flashlight beam, which had been darting nervously, locked onto the figure. The light did nothing. It didn’t reflect off him; it seemed to be absorbed by him, making the darkness of his form even more profound.
The figure didn’t move, yet its presence was overwhelming. It radiated an aura of ancient authority and immense sorrow. This was not like the other apparitions. This was not an echo. This was a power.
Raven, driven by a surge of desperate courage, took a step forward. “Who are you?” she called out, her voice surprisingly steady.
The Shadow Man’s head tilted slightly, an eerie, inhuman gesture. When it spoke, the voice was not a sound that traveled through the air to their ears. It was a thought, planted directly inside their minds. A chorus of dry, rustling leaves and cracking wood.
I am the caretaker. The warden. The memory.
The voice was ancient, weary, and filled with a pain that was centuries old. Each of them heard it, a violation that made their skin crawl.
“Are you… The Shadow Man?” Willow asked, her historian’s curiosity warring with her terror.
The faceless head turned slowly toward her. I have many names. That is but one.
“You aren’t the evil in the forest are you?” Luna asked, although it was more of a statement.
No.
“You knew the village elder,” Raven said, putting things together, “helped her.”
Yes. She was the last to understand. The last to respect the old ways. The thought-voice was tinged with a deep bitterness. She warned them. But they were hungry. They were afraid. And fear makes men fools.
The figure glided from behind the tree, moving with a smoothness that was deeply unsettling. It didn’t walk; it flowed over the ground like smoke.
They broke the pact, the voice continued inside their heads, the words resonating with the force of a final judgment. They took the wood and spilled the blood. They woke the evil of the forest. And the forest… the forest is hungry.
“What do you want from us?” Finn demanded, fear still in his voice.
The Shadow Man stopped a dozen yards away. Long ago, we imprisoned the ancient evil in this forest. But that is no longer the case, and my time is at an end.
The empty space where its face should be seemed to fix on each of them in turn. The evil offers gifts. A path of glowing leaves. The sweet fruit of the orchard. The laughter of children at play. It learns. It adapts. It creates a lure for every heart.
His words clicked into place, re-contextualizing everything they had experienced. The beautiful path, the tempting fruit—they weren’t random hauntings. They were bespoke traps, tailored illusions.
Usually, it does not want people to leave, but I fear it has other plans for your lot, the Shadow Man explained, a chilling finality in its tone. Usually, it wants you to stay. To feed it. With your fear. Your hope. Your despair. To become new echoes. New whispers in the mist.
A horrifying realization dawned on Raven. “The children,” she said. “They weren’t villagers from Hollow’s End, were they?”
The Shadow Man’s form seemed to darken. The forest learns. It keeps souvenirs. The little girl with the red ball? She wandered in here thirty years ago during a town picnic. She was never found. Now, she is one of its favorite puppets. One of its most effective lures.
The truth was a physical blow. They weren’t just dealing with ancient ghosts. They were dealing with an intelligent, predatory entity that collected victims and turned them into part of its arsenal. The Hollow Children were an ever-growing collection.
“You have to help us,” Jasper pleaded, his voice breaking. “You can trap it again.”
That time has passed, the thought-voice replied, a profound sadness coloring the words. I can only offer these words. The forest is a child. A hungry, lonely child that does not know its own strength. It only knows its hunger. It feels you. It tastes your fear, and it wants more.
The Shadow Man raised a long, gaunt hand and pointed past them, through the ruins and into the trees beyond. It has grown bored with this game. It is already building you a new playground. A new trap.
As it spoke, a new sound filtered through the trees. It was faint at first, almost imperceptible beneath his rustling voice in their heads. It was music. A tinny, cheerful melody from a calliope, the kind you’d hear at a carnival.
The six of them turned toward the sound, their minds struggling to process the impossible shift. Carnival music in the middle of Black Hollow?
When they turned back, the Shadow Man spoke again. His voice sounded distant as the thick fog crept in. It wants something else from you. It wants… but his words were cut off; the fog completely consumed him. And just like that, he was gone.
The music grew louder, joined by the distant, happy screams of people on a roller coaster and the cheerful din of a crowd. Lights flickered through the trees—a kaleidoscope of bright, festive colors. Red, blue, yellow, green. It looked like a massive fair was happening just beyond the woods.
“What is that?” Ash asked, bewildered. “Is that… the town fair?”
“The fair isn’t for another two weeks,” Finn said, his voice a disbelieving whisper.
Hope, desperate and irrational, surged through the group. It had to be a way out. A rescue. The edge of the woods. The promise of lights, people, and safety was an irresistible siren call. After the oppressive darkness and terrifying apparitions, the cheerful chaos of a carnival felt like salvation.
“Let’s go!” Raven yelled, her fear momentarily eclipsed by a wave of relief. She started running toward the lights, toward the promise of home.
The others followed without hesitation, their exhaustion gone, the Hollow Man’s warning forgotten. They crashed through the final line of trees and stumbled out of the forest, the oppressive weight of Black Hollow lifting from their shoulders as if they had just surfaced from deep water.
They were standing on a wide midway, bathed in the brilliant glow of thousands of colorful lights. A massive Ferris wheel turned slowly against the night sky, its seats empty. Music blared from speakers mounted on lampposts. The air was thick with the smells of popcorn and cotton candy. Game stalls stood with prizes neatly arranged, beckoning them to play. The rides were all in motion—the tilt-a-whirl spinning, the carousel horses rising and falling, the roller coaster cars racing along their tracks.
It was a carnival, alive with light and sound and motion.
But it was utterly, completely empty.
They were the only ones there.
A chilling realization washed over them as they stood in the middle of the deafening, empty spectacle. The music didn’t sound cheerful anymore; it sounded manic, relentless. The lights weren’t festive; they were garish and overwhelming.
“Where are we?” Willow asked, her voice trembling. “This isn’t the Havenwood fairgrounds.”
They looked back. The dark line of the forest was still there, but it looked different, like the painted backdrop of a stage. They were in a new cage, just as the Shadow Man had warned. A brighter, louder trap.
Finn ran to a game stall, a ring toss, and tugged on the counter. “It’s real,” he said, his voice shaking. “It’s all solid.”
Raven felt a raging scream building in her throat. They had escaped the quiet, gothic horror of the woods only to be thrown into a surreal, technicolor nightmare.
And then, above the cacophony of the carnival music, they heard it.
A child’s giggle.
They spun around. Standing by the carousel, bathed in its flashing lights, was the girl with the hollow eyes. She wasn’t alone. Other children began to fade into view beside her, their faces pale, their eyes black pits. They were all smiling that same, wide, unnatural smile.
The forest hadn’t let them go. It had just changed the game. The rides spun, the music blared, and the Hollow Children began to walk slowly toward them, their empty eyes promising a new, eternal, and far more terrible kind of fun.
The Legend Of Black Hollow. © 2025 | Horrified Candles. All Rights Reserved.
