The air in Hollow Reach was... wrong.
It wasn't the temperature—mild, maybe a little damp. It wasn't the smell—though there was a faint sweetness, like overripe fruit left too long on porcelain.
It was the silence.
Not total, not dead—but too carefully curated. As if the wind waited for them to finish speaking before it moved. As if every creak of a warped shutter had meaning. As if the town was listening.
Lance stepped off the train behind Dani and Kenton, Dario pressed close to his heel. The station platform was cracked and tilting slightly sideways, like it had softened over time. Above them, a rusted sign dangled from only one chain:
WELCOME TO HOLLOW REACH
Time Lost, Time Kept
Below that, a smaller sign written in chalk:
Speak softly. He's learning to listen.
Lance stared at that one a little longer than he should have.
The streets of the town felt underused. Buildings leaned too close together, their windows either shuttered or open too wide. A streetlamp blinked in Morse code. A newspaper stand swiveled slowly on its own, like it was trying to show them something they didn't want to see.
The people—when they finally passed some—moved oddly. Not menacing. Just off. A woman in a pale green coat pushed an empty stroller while humming a lullaby with no words. A man stood facing a brick wall, head tilted back, mouthing a conversation no one else could hear.
Kenton whispered to Dani, "The town's still stabilized, but it's been grazed."
"Grazed?"
"Brushed by unreality. Something skimmed it and left fingerprints. That kind of damage... it doesn't scream. It settles."
Lance didn't speak. He couldn't stop watching the shadows. Not the ones that moved—but the ones that didn't.
They stopped at a convenience store that seemed functional. The neon "OPEN" sign buzzed just slightly out of sync with itself. A cardboard cutout of a cartoon mascot stood in the doorway—some off-brand cat holding a bag of ice. It had human hands.
Inside, the cashier wore sunglasses. The ceiling fans didn't move. The radio behind the counter played jazz, but only the drum track.
Lance stood by the refrigerator, staring at a single carton of milk. It wasn't the same brand. This one had a hand-scrawled sticker on it:
PROPERTY OF THE REACH. DO NOT WAKE.
He turned away. Fast.
Outside again, Kenton had his scanner out. "The farther in we go, the more stable it gets. That shouldn't be possible. It means something's rooted here."
Dani raised an eyebrow. "Rooted like...?"
"Like it built something underneath this town and hasn't finished."
They walked on.
A kid rode a tricycle in perfect, silent circles. The wheels never squeaked. His shadow had three heads.
By the time they reached the town square, the sun had stalled mid-fall in the sky. The clouds barely moved. Lance found himself slowing, heart thudding against his ribs for reasons he couldn't name.
He wasn't panicking.
He was remembering things wrong.
Dani said something. He didn't quite catch it. Her voice came through like a phone call from a tunnel.
"...You good?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
"I think so," he said. "I don't know."
Dario whined once, pressing tighter against his leg.
They stopped in front of a boarded-up building labeled TOWN HALL / OBSERVATORY in faded brass. A large set of binoculars had been bolted to the roof. They were aimed directly at the ground.
Kenton checked his scanner again and frowned.
"We should stay here tonight," he said. "The central field density is strongest in this block. If the symbiote's trying to construct a self from you, it might be slowed—confused—by this place."
"Like hiding a tree in a forest?" Dani asked.
"More like hiding a song in static."
They entered the building.
Inside, dust clung like memory. Desks long abandoned, clocks frozen on different times. A hand-drawn map of the town had been scribbled over in red ink—dozens of circled buildings, each labeled with things like "Still hears the hum" or "Unfolded but returned".
A line at the bottom read:
WE COUNT THEM SO THEY DO NOT COUNT US.
Lance sank into a chair by a window. He didn't say anything. His breath fogged the glass even though the air wasn't cold.
Dario sat beside him, ears twitching.
Kenton wandered the halls, mumbling to himself.
Dani stood nearby, arms folded, eyes scanning the corners.
Outside, the quiet deepened. The buildings across the street hadn't moved.
But somehow, they were closer now.
And above them all, Hollow Reach watched.
The air in Hollow Reach didn't cool at dusk—it thickened. The town square, so empty when they'd passed through earlier, now pulsed with low murmurs and soft footfalls. No announcement. No bell. Just people emerging from buildings like they were answering a signal only they could hear.
Lance pressed his forehead to the dusty window of the observatory, watching. Dario sat at his feet, ears perked, unmoving. Dani stood behind him, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. Kenton was seated at a nearby desk, scribbling something incomprehensible in a torn journal full of bent paperclips and symbols that refused to stay still when you stared too long.
"They're wearing masks," Lance muttered.
Dani moved beside him, peering down. "Cows," she said, flat.
"What?"
"Some of them. Cow masks. See?"
She was right. About a dozen figures, scattered among the slow-moving crowd, wore paper-mâché cow heads—oversized, painted bone-white, with eye holes cut unevenly. Some had crude horns. One dripped something black from its nostrils.
Kenton looked up sharply. "We need to stay inside."
"Tell me why," Dani said.
"Because they only do this when the boundary ripples. It's not just tradition. It's a... containment method."
Lance stepped back from the glass, throat dry. "What are they containing?"
Kenton didn't answer.
Outside, the crowd began to move in concentric circles around the square fountain. Some hummed. Others chanted in a language that felt like it should be understood—but resisted meaning, syllables slipping through mental fingers.
One of the cow-masked figures stepped forward.
It wasn't their gait or posture that made Lance freeze—it was the smile.
Human mouth. No eye holes. Lips pulled too wide across a face that hadn't moved otherwise. A smile like it had been practiced on someone else's skin.
The figure looked up.
Right at him.
Lance stumbled back, nearly knocking over Dario. "It saw me."
"No," Kenton said too quickly. "It remembered you."
The ritual intensified—arms lifted, heads tilted, murmurs rising into harmony with something below the audible spectrum. The cow-masked figure, still smiling, lifted a hand and crooked one finger.
Come down.
"Absolutely not," Dani muttered.
The front door rattled once. Then again. Not a knock. A testing.
Then a voice—wrongly distorted, like a throat mimicking speech without lungs to back it.
"Laaaaaaance."
Dani's gun was already in her hand. She didn't aim it. Just held it like an anchor.
The voice returned. "The boy who wore the wrong fear. Come see what you're becoming."
Kenton stood slowly. "We need to go. Not far. Just two streets north. There's someone I know—we can learn more from him. But we don't stay here tonight."
Dani frowned. "You said this place was stabilized."
"It was," Kenton whispered, "until they remembered him."
They left through the back.
Hollow Reach's alleyways were strangely smooth—worn flat like they'd been walked forever but never used. The windows watched. Doors breathed, slightly ajar.
As they reached the edge of the northern block, Dario stopped and growled. Low. Tense. Then stepped behind Lance.
The person sitting in the alley had once been a man.
Maybe.
He wore no shirt, just a rust-colored shawl that shimmered when he moved. His face was half-turned away, obscured by something—not cloth, not shadow, but a film, like melted transparency. His hands were wrong—too long, fingers curled inward like they were thinking for themselves.
And where his neck met his jaw, something pulsed beneath the skin. Not like a vein.
Like a tether.
The man turned.
His eyes were too clear. Too aware.
"Hello, Kenton," he said.
Kenton flinched. Just a flicker—but it was there. "You're still here."
"You're late," the man replied, and smiled—just the mouth, not the rest of the face.
He looked at Lance. Then at Dario. Then back to Lance.
"You're louder than they expected," he said. "You're not a wound anymore. You're an invitation."
Lance took a step back.
"I don't know you," he said.
"No. But I remember what you forgot."
Kenton hissed, "Don't listen to him. He's merged. Too much. He folded inward—let the contamination pick the parts it liked."
Dani raised an eyebrow. "And what, it liked the creep factor?"
The man chuckled, dry and delicate.
"You joke now," he said to her. "But in time, your memories will ask you who you really protected."
Lance stared, heart racing.
He could see it now—beneath the man's translucent throat, something twitching. Like a mass of wires trying to organize into a spine. Or a thought trying to wear a shape.
The man leaned forward.
And whispered.
"Would you like to know what it's building inside you?"
Lance didn't answer.
But Dario barked. Once. Loud. Piercing.
The man winced.
And then the shadows pulled back like curtains.
The town square roared with inhuman chants. Cow-masked figures moved again.
Something had seen them.
Kenton grabbed Lance. "We move. Now."
"Where?" Dani asked, already cocking the grenade launcher.
"Somewhere it doesn't remember," Kenton snapped.
"And that guy?" she nodded toward the merged man.
He hadn't moved. Just smiled. And said, to Lance:
"Soon, you won't need to knock. You'll be the door."