The Hollow Season arrives like a fever dream, a time when the world tilts askew. For one month each year, the veil between the living and the unknown breaks apart.
Shadows flicker without bodies to cast them. Whispers slither through cracks in walls, speaking in tongues no one can decipher.
Across the globe, people vanish, some return, hollow-eyed and silent; most don't. Cities brace for it. Rural towns board their windows. Scientists call it a "spike in unexplained phenomena"; priests call it judgment. No one agrees on why it happens, only that it does. In the city of Ashwick, the air grows heavy as October dawns, and the streets hum with a nervous quiet. The Hollow Season is here again.
Seed Wallace knows the season's weight better than most. At thirty-two, he carries the look of a man who's seen too much and slept too little. His dark hair is streaked with premature gray, his hazel eyes shadowed by years of unanswered questions. He sits at his desk in the cluttered office of The Ashwick Chronicle, surrounded by stacks of files and a flickering computer screen. The newsroom is a relic, peeling paint, coffee-stained carpets, and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights. Seed's fingers hover over his keyboard, but his mind is elsewhere, snagged on a memory that cuts deeper today.
Five years ago, his little sister, Lila, vanished during the Hollow Season. She was seventeen, vibrant, with a laugh that could light up a room. They'd been close, the kind of siblings who shared secrets and fought over the last slice of pizza. That October, she'd gone to a friend's house and never came back. No body, no clues, just an empty bedroom and a police report that gathered dust. Seed had torn through Ashwick, knocking on doors, chasing rumors, but the Hollow Season had swallowed her whole. The police called it a runaway case. Seed knew better. Something unnatural had taken her, he just didn't know what.
Journalism became his weapon. After Lila's disappearance, law enforcement was his first thought, but the badge came with too many rules. Reporting, though, gave him access to crime scenes, police contacts and whispers of the city's underbelly. If Lila was out there, or if her fate was tied to the Hollow Season, he'd find it in the stories he chased. Every missing person case, every strange occurrence, was a thread he pulled, hoping it led to her.
Today, October 1st, is the anniversary of Lila's disappearance. It's also her birthday, she'd be twenty-two now. And it's the first day of this year's Hollow Season. The coincidence sits like a stone in Seed's chest as he grabs his notepad and heads out for a story. The call came in an hour ago: a family of four; father, mother, two young sons, missing from their apartment on Crescent Street. The landlord, chasing three months of unpaid rent, found their home untouched. Clothes in closets, dishes in the sink, a half-eaten pizza on the counter. No signs of a struggle, no note. Just gone.
The drive to Crescent Street is short, but Ashwick feels different today. The sky is a bruised gray, and the streets are quieter than usual, as if the city holds its breath. Seed parks outside the apartment building, a squat, red-brick structure with cracked windows. Police tape flutters across the entrance. A small crowd of neighbors murmurs nearby, their faces tight with unease. Seed spots Officer Delgado, a grizzled cop he's known since his early days at the Chronicle. Delgado nods as Seed approaches, his expression grim.
"Wallace," Delgado says, scratching his stubble. "Another weird one. Family's been gone at least a month, maybe more. Landlord says the place smells like they were there yesterday."
Seed jots notes, his pen moving on instinct. "Any leads? Witnesses?"
"Nada. Neighbors heard nothing, saw nothing. It's like they evaporated." Delgado lowers his voice. "Hollow Season's starting, though. You know how it gets."
Seed's jaw tightens. He knows. He's covered enough vanishings to see the pattern, spikes in missing persons, strange sightings, all brushed off as coincidence. He steps past the tape, flashing his press badge, and enters the apartment. The air inside is stale, heavy with the scent of mildew and something sweeter, like rotting fruit. The living room is frozen in time: a kid's toy truck on the rug, a coffee mug on the table, a TV remote half-buried in couch cushions. Seed's stomach twists. It's too familiar—Lila's room had looked like this, lived-in but abandoned.
He snaps photos, asks the landlord a few questions (the man's more annoyed about the rent than worried), and exchanges nods with the other officers. There's nothing concrete to report, just the eerie absence of answers. By the time Seed leaves, the sky has darkened, and a chill bites through his jacket. The Hollow Season's presence feels like static on his skin.
Back at his apartment, a cramped one-bedroom on the edge of Ashwick's downtown, Seed drops his keys on the counter and slumps onto the couch. The place is a mess, empty takeout containers, stacks of old newspapers, a bulletin board pinned with articles about missing persons. A photo of Lila sits on the coffee table, her smile frozen at seventeen. Today, her birthday and the anniversary of her loss, the grief is a blade, sharp and relentless. He pours a glass of whiskey, the burn a small distraction, and lets the memories flood in.
Lila had loved October. She'd drag him to pumpkin patches, laughing as she carved lopsided jack-o'-lanterns. That last day, she'd hugged him goodbye, promising to be home for dinner. Seed had been too busy with a deadline to notice the flicker of unease in her eyes. He'd give anything to go back, to follow her, to stop whatever took her. The Hollow Season had stolen her, and now it's back, mocking him with its return.
A knock at the door jolts him. It's late—past 9 p.m.—and he's not expecting anyone. Frowning, he opens the door to find a package on the mat, no sender's name, no address. Just his name, Seed Wallace, scrawled in black ink. The box is small, wrapped in brown paper that feels oddly warm. Inside is a book, no, a ledger. Its cover is leathery, unnervingly soft, like skin stretched over bone. A faint pulse seems to hum from it, though Seed tells himself it's his imagination. A note slips from the pages, written in the same sharp script:A ledger of The deaths to come. Read it. Act on it. Or don't. Your choice.
He scoffs. A prank, it has to be. Some sick joke tied to the season's rumors. He flips open the cover, the pages brittle and yellowed. The first entry stops his breath: Rebecca Hayes, Apartment 3B. Strangled by her own hair. 9:10 p.m. His neighbor, Rebecca, the quiet artist who always waves in the hall. Seed glances at the clock, 9:05 p.m. Five minutes. He laughs, a nervous bark, ready to toss the ledger aside. It's absurd. A coincidence.
Then a muffled shriek cuts through the thin apartment walls.
Seed freezes, his heart hammering. The sound is faint but unmistakable, coming from Rebecca's apartment next door. It's not a scream of pain, not yet—but of fear, high and desperate. The clock ticks to 9:06. His eyes dart to the ledger, its ink seeming to shimmer in the dim light. This can't be real. But the shriek comes again, sharper, and something else, a wet slithering sound, like ropes twisting.
He grabs the ledger and bolts for the door, his mind racing. The Hollow Season had begun, and whatever this book is, it's no prank. Rebecca's life hangs in the balance, and Seed's world is about to unravel.