Ellios (Hollow affection)
by rocketcat2.0
Competing Love InterestFemale LeadHorrorLocal ProtagonistNon-Human Lead
For Larisa, survival at her parents' tavern, The Velvet Malthouse, means balancing the greasy, chaotic commoners' area with the silk-draped luxury of the elite VIP room. Like everyone else in town, she believes the Elderleaf Forest is nothing more than a foggy playground for wealthy hunters, blissfully unaware that deep within the abandoned war tunnels, an unseen horror resides.
When Larisa chases a group of petty teenage thieves into the dark, rusted-iron void of the tunnels, she expects to drag them out by their ears. Instead, she stumbles upon a sickening terror. She finds one of the boys dead, his warm body snapping into a rigid Lazarus sign as she turns him over. His face has been agonizingly warped into dirty, cracked porcelain. Not wanting to stay around the horrific scene any longer, Larisa decides to leave.
She refuses to acknowledge the event as reality, choosing instead to believe it was an exhausted hallucination. But will the Entity just let her leave after such an interruption?