The wind clawed at them as they slipped back inside the hotel through the garage door, slamming it shut behind them. The silence that met them was worse than the storm—thick, suffocating, as if the building itself had been holding its breath. The halls felt cavernous, their steps echoing against the walls like accusations.
"Where the hell do we even start?" Vera whispered, clutching her coat tighter around her.
"Anywhere he could hide," Ivy replied, her voice cold but shaking at the edges. "We don't leave a single door closed."
Mason led the way, broad shoulders tense, fists clenching and unclenching as though itching for another fight. Leo trailed just behind him, his usual grin gone, replaced by a jittery focus, eyes darting into every shadow.
They moved down a narrow corridor, lamps flickering weakly, the wallpaper peeling in long strips. The deeper they went, the heavier the air became, until Mason stopped dead.
"Shh," he hissed, holding up a hand.
The others froze. At first, nothing—just their breathing. Then it came again: a muffled scrape, like wood dragging against wood. And beneath it, a faint, wet cough.
Vera's eyes widened. "Someone's in there."
The sound had come from a heavy oak door at the end of the hall, its brass handle dulled with age. Deep gouges scarred the surface, like fingernails clawing from the inside. Mason tried the knob. Locked.
"Step back," he muttered.
"Mason—" Ivy started, but he was already moving. He slammed his shoulder into the door with a crack that made the hinges rattle. The wood groaned but held. He snarled, stepped back, and drove himself into it again. This time it splintered, the lock snapping free.
The door flew inward, the crash reverberating down the hallway.
Inside was a cramped chamber, more study than bedroom, lined with shelves sagging under the weight of books and bottles. The air stank of old smoke, and something sharper—blood.
Ellis sat slumped in a high-backed chair, head tilted against the wall. A dark streak of red ran from his temple down his jawline where it had smeared into his collar. His eyes fluttered open at the sound, unfocused at first—then sharpening with eerie calm as they landed on the group.
Slowly, impossibly, a smile spread across his lips.
"As expected," he rasped, voice rough but steady. "You came back."
Mason didn't wait for pleasantries. He strode forward, fists knotting in the collar of Ellis's bloodied shirt, yanking him upright. Ellis gave a sharp grunt as Mason dragged him from the chair, but the smile never left his face.
"You think this is funny?" Mason growled, slamming him back down into the seat. The chair screeched across the floorboards, splinters snapping under its weight.
Leo moved in quick, grabbing Ellis's wrist and pinning it to the armrest. His hands trembled, but his grip was iron. "No more games," he spat. "You're done running."
Ellis tilted his head, blood dripping lazily from his temple. His eyes glinted with a mixture of pain and something colder—amusement. "So decisive," he murmured. "You've come a long way from the timid little roles you've each been playing."
"Shut up." Mason pressed a forearm across his chest, holding him firm. The tendons in Mason's jaw stood out like cables, sweat slicking his brow. "You're not getting out of this room unless you tell us why. Why us? Why bring a bunch of strangers to your twisted little hotel?"
For the first time, Ellis's smile faltered, his breath hitching as if Mason's weight had forced something deeper to the surface. Then, slowly, his lips curled again.
"You're not strangers," he said softly, eyes sweeping over each of them in turn. "Not to me."
Vera swallowed hard, standing just beyond the light, the hairs on her arms rising. "Then start talking," she whispered.
Ellis leaned forward against Mason's hold, his voice low, intimate, almost reverent. "I chose you because you're cracks in the glass. People who wear masks so convincingly that no one else notices they've already broken."
His gaze shifted to Mason first. "A fighter desperate to prove he's more than his scars. The cage may have emptied, but the war in your head hasn't stopped ringing, has it?"
Mason's grip tightened, but his eyes flickered with something raw.
Then Ellis turned to Vera. "The artist who feeds on fear like it's oxygen. You hide behind your camera, your thrill for terror, pretending it's for art—but really, it's for you."
Vera's lips parted, but no words came.
Leo leaned in, snarling. "Don't you dare—"
But Ellis's attention had already cut to him. "The entertainer," he whispered. "The clown who makes the world laugh, when all he wants is to hear his sister's voice again. Tell me, Leo… when you walk into a room, do you still look for her face in the crowd?"
Leo froze, breath caught in his throat.
Ellis's eyes slid to Ivy next. "And the financier with blood on her hands. A choice made in a boardroom, wasn't it? Two suspects. You knew which one was guilty. And yet… you saved him. Numbers over justice. And you've been waiting ever since for the bill to come due."
Ivy's mask cracked, a twitch in her jaw, though her eyes burned cold.
Finally, Ellis let his gaze drift to the empty space where Asha should have stood. His voice softened, almost tender. "And poor Asha. Broken, desperate," Ellis sneered, his voice dripping with mock sympathy, "the broken bird who thought patching up other people would mend the bruises inside herself. A mind born from pain, desperate to make sense of it all eventually bringing pain to others."
The group stiffened at once, a silence slamming between them like a door.
Ellis chuckled weakly, blood dripping from his chin. "There. The truth you wanted. Now tell me… do you feel free?"
Leo shifted uneasily, then cleared his throat, breaking the heavy silence. His voice was steadier than he expected, but sharp with accusation.
"Alright, Ellis," he said, eyes narrowing, "enough with the creepy fairy tales about us. Tell me something useful. What the hell is a Wendigo? What did you feed us at dinner? Why were there bones in the freezer? And why the hell do the walls in this place move like we're in some kind of trap?"
The questions snapped through the air, one after the other, and for the first time Ellis faltered. His smirk trembled at the edges, not gone, but thinning—like a mask finally showing the strain beneath.
He leaned back against the chair, his blood-matted hair sticking to his forehead, and chuckled hoarsely.
"You really want to know?" His eyes gleamed, feverish. "The Wendigo is more than a legend—it's fear with teeth, hunger made flesh. They prowl those woods, and I… learned to make use of them."
He let the words sink in, savoring their unease before continuing.
"As for dinner…" he licked his lips mockingly, "…you already know the answer, don't you? Flesh. Human flesh. A delicacy these mountains have supplied for decades."
Vera swallowed hard, bile rising in her throat. Mason's hands clenched on Ellis's shoulder, veins bulging in his arms.
Ellis tilted his head toward Ivy. "And the bones? You saw them. Every guest leaves something behind in Hollowpine. Some more than others."
Finally, his voice dropped to a whisper that slithered through the room.
"And the walls? They move because this place was built to deceive. Hidden passages, shifting spaces… Hollowpine is my stage. My castle. Built to trap, and terrify—crafted by hands that learned from monsters before me."
His laughter broke into a cough, wet and ragged, but his grin lingered. "You were never guests. You were parts of the story I've been writing all along."
Ivy suddenly moved, her heels clicking against the warped floorboards as she stepped out from the shadowed corner. Her face was sharp, pale, but her voice carried a cold authority that sliced through Ellis's laughter.
"Enough," she said, each syllable like glass. "Enough of your stories, your games, your pathetic riddles." She came closer, her eyes narrowing on him with the precision of a scalpel. "You brought us here. You planned every second of this nightmare. Which means you know the way out."
Ellis tilted his head, the smile tugging back into place, but Ivy's tone didn't waver.
"So here's what's going to happen," she continued, leaning just close enough that he could see the tremor of rage in her jaw. "You're going to tell us how to get out of this place. Every door, every hidden passage, every road. Or—" her voice dropped to a whisper sharp enough to cut, "we'll tie you to that chair and toss you into the woods. Let's see how long your Wendigo friends let you play master out there."
For the first time, Ellis's grin faltered. The room seemed to hold its breath, the only sound the slow drip of blood from his temple onto the wooden floor.