Pixiom

Ten years after her brother’s tragic death, Clara Carter receives a letter in his handwriting: “Come home, Clara. I’m waiting.”

But Hollow’s End is no ordinary town.

Its cobblestone streets swallow secrets. Its fog hides faces that aren’t quite human. And beneath the abandoned mill, something ancient stirs—a hunger that feeds on stories, twisting grief into lies and memories into cages.

Returning to bury her guilt, Clara discovers her brother Liam is neither alive nor dead. Trapped in the realm of the Weaver, a primordial entity that weaves reality from stolen tales, he warns her of the town’s curse: “They’ll wear you like a mask.”

As Clara digs into her family’s past, she uncovers a chilling truth. The Carters were never victims—they were keepers of the Hollow, sacrificing loved ones to pacify the Weaver. Now, the entity wants a new story. Hers.

The Weaver’s Hollow

Clara barely registered the sound—her eyes locked on the smaller mirror where Liam's reflection flickered, his hands pressed desperately against the glass. "The well!" he repeated, voice muffled as if underwater. "Behind the mill. It's the only way to—"

The thing wearing Liam's face loomed in the doorway, its form bloated and distorted, skin peeling like old wallpaper to reveal writhing threads beneath. The air turned viscous, syrup-thick with the stench of rotting lilacs. Clara's lungs burned.

"Liar," the entity rasped, its voice a chorus of whispers. "He lies. We are your truth."

Clara grabbed the journal and hurled her father's desk lamp at the mirror. Glass shattered. The entity recoiled, howling as shards embedded in its flesh, oozing black ichor. She didn't wait—she leapt through the attic window.

The fall knocked the breath from her lungs. Clara staggered to her feet, the journal clutched to her chest, and sprinted toward the mill. The town warped around her. Streets bent like melted wax. Houses leaned closer, windows gaping like hungry mouths. Shadows pooled at her heels, hissing.

The mill rose ahead, its broken wheel creaking in the wind. Behind it, half-hidden by thorn-choked brush, stood the well—a crumbling stone maw veiled in mist.

Liam's voice echoed in her memory: "It's in the well."

But the journal in her hands screamed warnings. Her father's handwriting spiraled into madness on one page:

"The well is not a well. It is an eye. A throat. Do not look. Do not speak. Do not—"

The whispers began the moment she peered over the edge.

Not from below—from inside her.

Clara gripped the stones, her knuckles white. "Shut up," she muttered.

"But it's true," purred a new voice.

A girl stood behind her, maybe sixteen, in a lace-collared dress straight out of a century-old portrait. Her face was porcelain-perfect, but her eyes… twin voids, threaded with silver.

"I'm Evelyn," the girl said, smiling. "The first Carter to bargain with the Weaver. I've been waiting for you."

"The Well of Whispers"