Story 941: The Forsaken Gateway

The iron gate groaned as it yawned open, revealing nothing but swirling darkness beyond. The Hollow Junction trembled, ancient stones cracking beneath an unseen force. The Hollow Man lurched forward, its mass of writhing flesh dragging across the floor, mouthed screams overlapping like a broken choir.

Draven didn’t hesitate. He fired into the thing’s shifting body, but the bullets vanished, swallowed by the void of its flesh. It wasn’t dying. It wasn’t even living.

“The book—use it!” Zara shouted, hacking through the skeletal hands still trying to drag them down.

Mira clutched the Cursed Book, its pages fluttering violently as if something inside was waking. The whispers from its depths merged with the Junction’s wailing spirits, growing into an unbearable crescendo of agony.

The Trainmaster merely watched, his skeletal grin stretching wider. “You were never meant to leave.”

Then the shadows moved.