Morning came slowly, dragging pale light through the bedroom curtains. Chizzy hadn't slept well. The voice from her dream echoed in her mind—soft and cold, like breath on glass. "You're almost ready."
Ready for what?
She rose stiffly, still wearing the clothes from the night before. The red key lay on the nightstand, pulsing in her thoughts like a heartbeat. She didn't dare touch it this time.
The house greeted her with stillness, but it was the wrong kind—too still, like everything was holding its breath. As she crossed the floorboards toward the kitchen, they creaked beneath her feet. One board near the pantry groaned louder than the others.
She stopped.
Bent down.
Tapped her fingers lightly across the surface. One plank sounded…hollow.
Chizzy grabbed a knife from the kitchen, pried up the edge of the loose floorboard, and lifted.
A compartment.
Inside was a small, rusted tin box. Her hands trembled as she opened it, revealing brittle papers tied in red string and a faded photograph. She unfolded it slowly.
Her mother and father stood smiling—before the fire, before everything changed. But behind them stood a figure. Blurred. Unclear. Its shape was just wrong enough to send a chill down her spine.
She turned the photo over.
A message was scrawled in her mother's handwriting: "Don't let him take her. She must choose the light."
Her stomach turned. Was the message about her? About the Hollow Man?
The floor creaked behind her.
Chizzy spun around—nothing.
Yet the air had changed. Heavier. Closer.
Then came the voice. Not from a dream this time. It rose from beneath the floorboards, deep and gravelly, like earth grinding against itself:
"You found the truth, little one. But can you live with it?"
Her breath caught in her throat. She dropped the box and backed away as the whispering intensified, a chorus of echoes rising beneath her feet. She clutched the red key instinctively, and the voices fell silent—cut off like a severed cord.
The house was quiet again.
But Chizzy knew the silence now. It was no comfort. It was a warning.
Something was awakening.
And it knew her name.