Hollow Ground

When seventeen year old Elias Hart arrives in Black Hollow, all he wants is to disappear. But the quiet mountain town isn't empty, it's watching. The forest presses close on every side, ancient and unmoving, and something within it knows his name. It begins slowly: strange dreams, a voice that speaks only to him, a pull beneath his skin like a thread tightening with every breath. The other students avoid him. His reflection shifts when he isn't looking. And always, the woods wait. Whispers speak of a boy who vanished last winter. A name: Silas. A coat left behind. A carved token that shouldn't be warm. As Elias begins to unravel the town's buried history, something buried in him awakens. The line between memory and identity blurs. He is being watched, guided, changed and the deeper he follows the call, the more he begins to wonder if he was ever meant to escape. The bond is ancient. And the forest remembers.