"Father."
The word echoed across the burning street like a curse wrapped in silk.
My breath caught in my throat.
Nathan's voice—my little brother's voice—should never have sounded like that. Too calm. Too steady. Too wrong.
But what made it worse…
The Carver obeyed.
---
He knelt in front of Nathan.
An ancient butcher, centuries old, a creature of legend, blood, and ritual—kneeling like a soldier before a new king.
Nathan stepped forward into the smoke, barefoot and unblinking, as the town watched silently from their darkened windows.
His skin looked paler than before, but his eyes burned orange like two jack-o'-lanterns lit from the inside.
I took a step toward him. "Nathan… it's me."
He didn't even look at me.
"You tried to protect me," he said softly, to the Carver. "But they lied to you. They made you into a monster and worshipped your pain."
The Carver stayed motionless, head bowed.
"You weren't carving the children," Nathan whispered. "You were carving the truth into the town. Piece by piece."
---
I stood there in the firelit street, blade still trembling in my hand.
This wasn't right.
This wasn't him.
"Nathan, stop. Whatever this is—whatever's inside you—you can fight it."
He finally turned toward me.
There was no warmth in his expression. No flicker of the brother I'd known my whole life.
Only cold understanding.
"I'm not possessed, Chloe. I'm awakened."
---
The town bells began to ring again.
Midnight.
One toll… two… three…
With each chime, Nathan walked closer to the Carver.
"I saw the pact," he said, staring up at the stitched, lifeless mask. "The truth they buried. They killed your daughter and blamed you. Made you the monster so they could stay pure."
The Carver slowly raised his head.
I saw something flash in those hollow eyes.
Recognition.
"Now it ends," Nathan said.
He placed a hand on the Carver's chest.
And the Carver began to burn.
---
Not in flames.
Not like wood or flesh.
But from within—a slow eruption of light, orange and flickering, leaking from every stitch, every scar, every crevice of his mask.
The townsfolk started to scream.
Doors slammed shut.
Porch lights blinked out like fireflies crushed between fingers.
Nathan turned toward the houses, toward the heart of the Hollow.
"They think it was you," he said to the burning Carver. "But it was always them."
Then he looked at me.
And smiled.
---
I don't know what came over me.
Maybe fear. Maybe fury.
Maybe just the last thread of humanity clinging to the idea that this was still my brother.
I ran at him, knife raised.
"Nathan!"
He didn't flinch.
I brought the blade down hard—right toward his chest.
But the moment it touched him…
It shattered.
The Carver's knife, centuries old, capable of cleaving souls from bodies—turned to ash against Nathan's skin.
And that's when I realized:
The Carver wasn't the monster anymore.
Nathan was.
---
The street around us cracked.
Splits appeared in the pavement like veins.
From the earth beneath, hands reached up—gray, dry, skeletal. The ground itself wept blood.
Pumpkins rotted in seconds. Jack-o'-lantern faces melted into screaming voids.
And the scarecrows—hundreds of them—marched from the fields.
They carried tools. Hooks. Rakes. Butcher blades. All covered in ancient rust and memory.
Nathan stood above them like a prophet.
"The Hollow must pay," he said.
---
I fell to my knees.
"Please," I whispered. "You're still my brother."
He crouched beside me.
"I remember you," he said gently. "I remember hiding under your blanket when it stormed. I remember how you gave me the bigger half of every candy bar."
I reached out, tears burning my eyes.
And then he said:
"But memories can't save us. Only carving can."
He turned to the town and raised his arms.
"Let the old flesh be peeled. Let the old masks fall."
---
The scarecrows charged.
---
They tore through the streets like a silent hurricane—no screams, no joy, no hesitation. Just purpose.
Each door they touched fell inward like paper.
I heard the first family die in muffled gasps.
The next screamed only once.
By the fourth, the wind howled louder than the human voices.
---
I stumbled through the fire, through ash and blood and splinters, dragging my feet toward the church—the only place that hadn't yet caught fire.
Inside, I collapsed beside the altar.
Above it hung a cross made from pumpkin vines and femurs.
I looked up at it and whispered, "Help me."
But no one did.
---
Footsteps behind me.
Nathan.
Alone.
He stood at the entrance, framed in firelight.
His eyes no longer glowed.
He looked tired. Human.
"I ended it," he said.
I looked at him, hollow.
"How many?"
"All of them," he said. "Except you."
"Why?"
He stepped closer.
"Because I remember."
---
He knelt beside me.
"Dagger's Hollow fed on its children. Every October, it planted fear and reaped flesh. It wore tradition like perfume. And no one stopped it."
I looked at the blade's ashes in my hand.
"You did."
"No," he said. "We did."
---
He held out his hand.
I took it.
And as he pulled me up, I saw the sky crack again—this time not from violence… but from release.
The fog lifted.
The pumpkins died.
The Hollow went silent.
---
We walked out of the church together, into a town emptied of its ghosts.
Houses stood dark. Streets slick with blood. The scarecrows had vanished.
The Carver's mask lay in the center of the square, split in two.
His blade… was gone.
---
Nathan looked up at the sky.
"It's done."
And I asked, softly:
"What happens now?"
He didn't answer.
Because behind us, from the church, a new bell began to ring.
Thirteen times.
Then silence.