The Hollow is quiet now.
No more bells.
No more masks.
No more monsters dragging blades through the streets.
But I don't trust the silence.
Because this town was built on forgetting—
And now I'm the only one left who remembers.
---
It's been three days since I destroyed the mask.
Since Nathan vanished for the second time.
I watched the sun rise over Dagger's Hollow for the first time without fog.
The sky was actually blue.
A bird landed on the windowsill.
For a moment, I believed it was over.
Then I saw the newspaper.
---
THE HOLLOW HERALD
Front Page – October 31st
> "Dagger's Hollow Prepares for Annual Harvest Festival"
"Town Tradition Returns After 13-Year Hiatus"
I dropped the paper like it burned me.
They didn't remember.
Or worse—
They chose not to.
---
I walked the streets that morning.
Same porches. Same pumpkins.
Freshly carved.
Smiling.
Children dressed in costumes chased each other between houses, swinging fake knives, laughing with teeth too white for what lived beneath them.
I passed the church.
It was full.
The sermon was titled: "A Season of Renewal."
No one mentioned the fires.
The screams.
The disappearances.
Not even the Carver.
Especially not him.
It was like the town had simply erased everything.
---
I reached the old well.
Still sealed.
But now it was decorated.
A scarecrow stood beside it, holding a basket of candy.
Its face was made of felt, stitched into a permanent grin.
At its feet was a sign:
> "Offer to the Old Traditions."
I laughed.
Then cried.
Because I realized—
The Hollow didn't forget.
It just rewrote.
---
That night, I stood in my backyard, staring at the soil where Nathan's pumpkin had been buried.
There was a fresh patch of grass now.
Too green.
Too perfect.
And on it sat a single pumpkin.
No face.
No candle.
Just waiting.
I approached it with the blade in my hand—
The one I'd reforged from the Carver's shards.
But when I touched the pumpkin…
I heard it breathe.
Not Nathan.
Not the Gourdfather.
Just the Hollow itself.
---
It spoke in the wind, in the leaves, in the hum of porch lights.
> "We remember through you."
"You carved the final chapter."
"Now carve again."
I screamed at the sky.
"No! You don't get to choose what I remember. You don't get to bury my brother in smiling lies!"
The pumpkin pulsed once.
And then cracked.
---
Inside it was a slip of paper.
Handwritten.
In Nathan's scrawl.
> "The Hollow is memory carved in flesh.
If you want to change it,
then carve something new."
—N
I fell to my knees.
I finally understood.
---
The Hollow didn't need monsters.
It just needed stories.
And if I didn't want to be part of its cycle—
I'd have to rewrite the story myself.
---
So I did.
---
I walked through the town with the Carver's blade wrapped in linen and salt.
I entered each home, one by one, under the cover of darkness.
I didn't kill.
I carved.
Not flesh.
Not faces.
But truth.
On doors. On walls. On the backs of mirrors.
I left notes beneath pillows.
Messages inside candy buckets.
Old names painted over street signs.
And one by one…
People started waking up.
---
Old Mr. Kettle, who used to sharpen the carving blades—
He burned every mask in his attic.
The librarian—Mrs. Quinn—unearthed a journal buried in the church garden.
And the school principal?
He stepped in front of morning assembly and said:
> "I remember the screams."
---
By the second week, the pumpkins stopped smiling.
By the third, no one dared place one outside their house.
And on the final day of October…
We burned the well.
---
It wasn't easy.
The vines fought back.
The fog screamed.
The wind twisted into human shapes and clawed at our legs.
We heard names we'd forgotten.
We felt fingers reaching up from the soil.
But we stood together.
Every one of us who remembered.
We poured oil down into the pit.
We lit the flames.
And we watched the Hollow's throat burn shut.
---
The fire burned for thirteen hours.
When it was done, the ground sealed.
The moss died.
And for the first time in over a century—
Dagger's Hollow stopped breathing.
---
Now the town is quiet.
But not with fear.
With peace.
Real peace.
We don't hide the truth anymore.
We teach it.
In schools.
In homes.
In stories that don't end with blood.
---
As for me?
I left the Carver's blade buried under the oak tree.
I placed a real pumpkin on top—uncarved. Untouched.
It doesn't glow.
It doesn't smile.
It just waits.
And beside it, I placed the last thing Nathan ever gave me:
His mask.
Split down the middle.
Still warm.
---
If you're reading this…
Maybe you're in a town like mine.
Maybe you've heard bells that shouldn't ring.
Seen scarecrows that seem to move when no one's looking.
Maybe your pumpkins smile just a little too wide.
Then let me tell you:
> Some traditions shouldn't be passed down.
Some stories don't deserve to survive.
Some carvings should never be finished.
So when the Hollow calls—
Don't answer.