Kye ran.
At first, he thought it was for exercise. That's what his legs told him, pumping through the loamy forest floor, branches whipping past his face. But his chest knew better. His heart beat not like a drum, but like a scream—sharp, ragged, urgent.
The silence behind him was the worst part. There should have been footsteps. Heavy ones. Loud ones. But they weren't like that.
They didn't chase like people. They drifted.
And yet he knew they were following.
Something had changed. The air thinned, the light warped, and the moment he'd slipped from the hiking trail to piss—just ten minutes ago—the whole forest turned into a stage set, like reality was trying too hard to be natural. The shadows moved after he looked away. Leaves rustled where he hadn't stepped.
Now—now they were hunting.
As he curved sharply around a tree trunk, he crashed into someone. The impact sent them both tumbling into a bed of ferns and rotted leaves.
"Kye?" a familiar voice wheezed. Luca.
Luca's eyes were wide, his hands scraped. "They're after us," he panted. "You saw them too, right? Mr. Gwala's face—his mouth—it—it opened too wide, man."
For a moment, Kye felt relief. Not alone.
Luca got to his feet fast. "We need to hide. Over here—I found a dip behind some roots. Come on!" He tugged at Kye's sleeve.
But something in Luca's face didn't sit right.
There was dirt under his fingernails, but only on one hand. The other was too clean. His shirt was torn, but not at the shoulder where he should've landed. His shoelace wasn't even dirty.
Kye followed anyway.
They slid into the hollow beneath a fallen tree. It was cramped. Quiet. Luca's breaths were slow now. Too even. His chest barely moved.
Kye looked at him. Really looked.
The skin beneath Luca's left eye was twitching. Like something inside was adjusting.
"Luca..." Kye whispered, backing slowly out. "What happened to your—"
The voice that answered didn't belong to Luca. "They're fast, Kye. But not smart. You still have time."
Luca smiled. It split too wide. A little too sideways. The twitching eye blinked, but vertically.
Kye bolted before the thing could finish opening its jaw.
---
The chase that followed didn't start with a scream or a howl—it started with laughter. Other students appeared, sprinting too, some bumping into Kye as they "ran."
"Come on, man! They're behind us!"
"It's not safe!"
A girl he vaguely remembered from class, Keisha, slammed into him. She looked terrified, eyes wide and wet—but the moment she passed, her neck craned backwards. Her head rotated just enough for her mouth to curl into a grin after he looked away.
Kye's knees buckled. He collapsed against a tree, chest heaving. Every breath hurt.
He had to hide. Think.
There was a crawlspace beneath the old scout storage cabin near the woods. If he could get there—just for a bit.
The sprint drained him. His body throbbed. But worse was the weight in his head, like something was convincing him he was tired. A trick. A lie being whispered directly into his bones.
He stumbled across a fallen log and faceplanted into dirt. Something moved in the trees above—too fast to see clearly.
No time.
He reached the cabin. Slid beneath. Waited.
Breathed.
And then—footsteps. Slow. Sniffing.
Something padded near the side of the cabin. Heavy. Its shadow stretched unnaturally across the underbrush. And then—
"Where'd you go?" It sounded like Arun. But Arun didn't usually echo like that. His voice now had layers. Like multiple mouths speaking at once.
Kye pressed his face to the dirt, holding breath. A worm crawled past his cheek. His arm itched. He ignored it.
The voice passed.
He stayed.
Ten minutes. Maybe more.
Then—another voice. "You in there?" It was Miss Naledi, the admin.
He peeked out.
She looked... normal.
Until she crouched, and her knees bent backwards.
He didn't scream. Not when her neck tilted too far, or when a long grey tongue slithered from her sleeve instead of a hand.
Not even when he heard it speak in its real voice. Like bones cracking under frost.
"We smell the break in you, Kye."
His eyes burned. He wanted to close them. But he needed to see. He had to understand.
That's when he saw it—the creature form.
They weren't people. Not really. Not anymore.
Skin flayed like paper, hung loosely over sinew. Their eyes were sideways, like shark gills, blinking where cheeks should be. Their limbs twisted wrong, but moved with a jerked speed that blurred them.
He would come to know them later by their true name: Hollowkins.
They wore skins like theatre masks, played roles. But inside—inside they were hunger in the shape of memory.
---
Kye scrambled from under the cabin just before Miss Naledi's hand-tongue reached him.
He rolled, sprinted, vaulted a stump, and bam—something tackled him.
Another student. It was Darren.
They wrestled—Darren was fast, strong—but not perfect. Kye managed to stab him in the eye with a snapped stick. Darren reeled. Gurgled. But laughed as his face began to fall off, revealing the writhing meat underneath.
Kye ran again. Limbs aching. Vision swaying.
It wasn't the running that was tiring him.
It was them. Whispering, always whispering...
You're breaking... you're breaking...
Behind his eyes, images of home flickered. His room. His mother's voice. A photo of him and Luca laughing.
Why would that memory hurt?
---
In the distance, a light. A campfire?
No. Electric. Flickering.
The Admin Office.
It was supposed to be a safe place, right? Had radios. Phones. Doors.
He limped toward it, not noticing the trail of blood he left behind. Or maybe it wasn't his.
He didn't care.
Behind him, the laughter began again. Some of it even sounded like his own.
And then he heard a voice—whispering from the bushes.
"Kye... it's safe now... come quick, I found something."
He froze. He knew that voice.
It was his own.