The lantern trembled in my grip, its light guttering like a dying breath.The book had already chosen for me, its pages spread open, ink writhing as if alive.
File III: The Hollow-Eyed Children.
The title alone chilled me. But the words beneath it were worse.
File III: The Hollow-Eyed Children
The file began not with text, but with drawings.
Children. Dozens of them. Faces sketched in rough strokes, their eyes erased—just empty hollows smudged into the paper. Some smiled. Some wept. Some stood in rows, their small hands linked.
And all of them stared outward with sightless sockets.
The text followed:
They appear at the edge of settlements after disasters.
Towns gutted by fire.Villages drowned in flood.Cities abandoned after plague.
The Hollow-Eyed Children wait among the ruins. They never speak, never cry. They only watch.
Witnesses claimed the children followed them for days. Sometimes one would stand in a doorway at night, staring into the dark house until dawn. Sometimes they would appear on rooftops, or in mirrors, or standing waist-deep in rivers without making a ripple.
The file grew darker as it continued.
Do not approach them.Do not answer if they knock.If you speak to them, they will follow you home.If you feed them, they will never leave.And if you touch them—
—they will take your eyes, so you may see what they see.
The last line was smeared, as if written in haste, but one phrase remained legible at the bottom of the page:
There are more of them every year.
The Whispers in the Stacks
I turned the page quickly, but the next was blank. The file ended there.
At least, on paper.
Because the whispers began immediately.
Soft. High-pitched. Laughter, almost, but wrong. Children's voices echoing from the shelves.
I froze. The lantern dimmed.
Between the aisles, small shapes moved. Shadows only shoulder-high, darting just out of sight. My breath hitched as the laughter grew louder, circling me like wolves.
Then I saw one.
A figure stood at the far end of the row. Small. Still. Watching.
A child.
But its eyes—two yawning holes, darker than the archive itself.
The lantern's light bent away from its face, as though refusing to illuminate the void.
It tilted its head. Not curious—judging.
And then, without moving its lips, I heard it speak inside my skull.
Why did you read our story?
The Circle
I backed away, heart pounding, but more of them emerged.
From behind shelves, crawling out between fallen books, slipping silently from the corners of shadow. Dozens. Scores. Their pale faces ringed me in, every one hollow-eyed, staring.
I wanted to scream. To run. But the air itself felt heavy, pressing me down.
The voices filled my mind, layered and overlapping.
We waited. We waited for you. You opened the page. Now we can follow.
The lantern flickered wildly, throwing their faces in and out of sight. Each time the light dimmed, they moved closer. Each time it flared, they froze again—always nearer.
I stumbled backward until my spine struck a shelf. Books cascaded down around me, spilling open.
The children reached for them. Small pale hands snatching pages, stroking words, pressing sigils into their hollow eyes as if reading without sight.
One book ignited in their grasp, consumed by silent flame. The child didn't flinch. It just stared at me as ash fell through its fingers.
The voice came again.
You touched the book. You touched us. Now we will show you what we see.
The Vision
Cold hands seized my wrist.
I cried out, trying to wrench free, but the grip was iron. The child's fingers burned with a freezing heat, sinking through skin to bone.
Its hollow gaze opened into mine.
And I saw.
Not the archive. Not the shelves. Not even the chamber.
I saw a ruined city.
Skyscrapers toppled like broken teeth. Streets split open, rivers of ash flowing through them. And everywhere—children. Dozens, hundreds, standing in silence, watching the destruction with their hollow gaze.
They were not survivors. They were harbingers.
Wherever they appeared, disaster followed. Or perhaps disaster came because they appeared.
At the center of the ruined city stood a tower—black, jagged, the same tower I had seen in the vision of the Black Signal. The children faced it, hands outstretched, as though waiting for something to emerge.
And in the tower's shadow, I saw shapes. Tall, thin, faceless. Waiting too.
The Bargain
The vision snapped back. I was on the floor, gasping, the children closing in.
One stepped forward, taller than the rest. Its voice was clearer, heavier, filling the air rather than just my mind.
The archive keeps our stories. You read them. That makes you one of us. You carry the record now.
Its hollow gaze seemed endless, drawing me in.
But you are not ready to see. Not yet. If you wish to survive, you must take another file. Each one you open makes you less, until only the archive remains.
The children leaned closer, voices rising in a chorus.
Read. Read. Read.
I clutched the lantern to my chest, though its light barely held. My pulse thundered.
And then—without warning—the children vanished.
Not into shadow. Not into smoke. Just gone.
The silence was deafening.
The book lay open once more, its page turned.
The Next File
I could hardly breathe. My hands shook as I looked down at the new heading.
The letters seemed carved into the parchment rather than written, gouged deep by an unseen hand.
File IV: The Pale Diver.
The lantern guttered low, as if dreading the story to come.
And from somewhere deep within the archive, I heard the distant sound of dripping water.