BLACK HOLLOW
The bus ride to Black Hollow felt endless.
Each mile farther from the city, the trees grew taller and thicker, swallowing the road until it felt like they were driving into another world entirely.
By the time the bus pulled into the one-lane station, Aria's phone had lost signal and her last ounce of patience.
She pressed her forehead against the window.
The sign outside was as crooked as the town itself: WELCOME TO BLACK HOLLOW. POPULATION: 2,143.
Someone had spray-painted RUN WHILE YOU CAN over the bottom in dripping red letters.
Not exactly a warm welcome.
Aria wrapped her jacket tighter around herself as she stepped off the bus, the cold evening air stinging her cheeks.
The whole place smelled like pine, wood smoke, and rain-soaked earth.
She expected her uncle Ezra to be waiting—he had promised, in his usual gruff, two-word text, I'll be there.
But the cracked lot was empty except for a stray dog nosing through trash.
Her chest tightened. Ezra was all she had left now.
Three weeks since her mother's funeral, and the ache still felt raw, like someone had carved a hollow space in her chest. Ezra hadn't even shown up for the service.
He'd just told her to come to Black Hollow, like it was the most natural thing in the world to pack up her entire life and move to a half-forgotten logging town in the middle of nowhere.
She hit redial on her phone for the fourth time. No answer. Just static before it cut out again.
"Perfect," she muttered, shoving it in her pocket.
The sun was sliding behind the mountains, bleeding the sky orange and violet. The crescent moon already hung pale and ghostly overhead.
The longer she stood there, the heavier the silence became.
Black Hollow wasn't just quiet—it felt watchful.
She started walking, boots crunching on gravel. Ezra's cabin was two miles down the road, and her duffel bag dug into her shoulder with every step.
The storefronts she passed looked like something out of a forgotten postcard: a diner with peeling paint, a gas station where the attendant didn't even glance up from his cigarette, a police station so small it could've been mistaken for a tool shed.
Everyone she passed—few as they were—stared at her like they knew something she didn't. Not hostile, exactly Just… wary.
Halfway down Main Street, her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
"The moon is almost full. Stay inside at night. Do not trust anyone."
Her stomach knotted. She typed back Who is this? but the message failed to send. No signal.
"Okay, that's not creepy at all," she muttered under her breath.
The wind picked up, cold and sharp, carrying the faint rustle of pine needles.
She pulled her jacket tighter and kept walking, trying to shake off the growing unease. It was just a weird text. Black Hollow was just a weird town.
She'd laugh about it later.
Except…
The road ahead curved toward the trees, and the shadows under the pines were darker than they should've been. Too still. Too deep.
Something moved.
A low growl rolled through the air, so deep it vibrated in her chest. Aria froze, scanning the dark.
"Hello?" Her voice came out thinner than she wanted.
A shape detached itself from the treeline—a wolf, but bigger than any she'd ever seen.
Its fur was silver-gray, its shoulders level with her ribs, its eyes glowing faintly gold in the fading light.
Her breath caught.
Before she could even move, another growl answered. From behind her.
She spun. A second wolf, black as midnight, padded out from the shadows, its steps slow and deliberate. They weren't attacking.
Not yet. They were circling. Stalking.
Every instinct screamed at her to run.
Her legs moved before her brain caught up, pounding against the road as she bolted toward the faint glow of Ezra's porch light up ahead.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, lungs burning, the sound of paws on gravel somewhere behind her, steady and unhurried.
She didn't dare look back. Not until she hit the cabin steps, nearly tripping as she scrambled to pound on the door.
"Uncle Ezra! It's me—open up!"
The door swung open before she could knock again.
It wasn't Ezra.
The man filling the doorway was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair that caught the porch light like raven feathers.
His eyes were the same shade of gold as the wolf in the trees.
He didn't look surprised to see her.
"You shouldn't be out here," he said, his voice low and calm, but with an edge that sent a shiver through her.
"Not tonight."
Aria's heart was still hammering, every instinct screaming don't trust him, but behind her, the woods were alive with the sound of something moving closer.
And for reasons she couldn't explain, she had the sudden, gut-deep certainty that her life had just shifted in a way she couldn't undo.
The road to Black Hollow felt like it had no end.
Pines crowded the highway so tightly that the weak glow of Aria's headlights barely cut through the darkness.
Her phone had lost service miles back, and the GPS had frozen on a gray screen with one word that made her uneasy: Searching…
Ezra's voice echoed in her head, the last voicemail he'd left before vanishing two weeks ago:
"If something happens, don't trust the Dravens. And whatever you do, don't go into the woods at night."
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. The trees seemed to close in closer, like they were listening.
The compass on her passenger seat slid an inch, as if nudged by something she couldn't see. She caught it just before it hit the floor, her thumb brushing the crack in its glass.
It felt warm against her skin. Too warm.
Then, faintly, over the low hum of her engine, came a sound she couldn't place.
Not the wind. Not the engine. Not even the distant hoot of an owl.
A low, rhythmic howl—drawn out, carrying through the trees. It wasn't close, but it wasn't far enough, either.
Her headlights flickered. Once. Twice.
And then the engine died.
The car coasted to a stop in the middle of the empty road, the forest pressing in on both sides.
The silence that followed was absolute—until, somewhere in the dark beyond the pines, a second, deeper howl answered the first.
And this one was closer.