Episode 2: “The Sound Beneath”

Whispers in the Hollow

The Sound Beneath

Light seeped through the threadbare curtains like fog through broken glass. Luke lay stiff on his bed, fists clenched as if holding some invisible, terrible truth. His eyes snapped open.

There was no birdsong. No rustling wind. Only static.

Not distant, not ambient, personal.

His fingers twitched. Soil, dry, black, flecked from beneath his nails.

I washed them… I washed them twice, he murmured, as if confessing to something the walls already knew.

A voice pressed through the static, soft and pulsing: Luke. I saw you in the roots.

He rose. Floorboards groaned beneath him like tired lungs. Each step down the hallway echoed too long, as if time itself was reluctant to follow.

A family portrait shuddered in its frame. No wind. Just presence.

Outside Marissa’s door, the old radio hissed to life.

It hadn’t worked in years.

Inside, its glow pulsed green, then red, like a wound deciding what kind of memory to bleed.

Marissa sat upright in bed, her eyes glassy, her reflection unmoving in the cracked mirror.

It hasn’t worked in years, she said, though no one had asked.

The static shifted. A child’s voice cut through: We’re still in the hollow. You just brought it with you.

Marissa stood. Slow. Deliberate. She drifted toward the mirror, but her reflection remained seated.

I dreamed of children with no mouths, she whispered. They sang into my stomach. They planted songs.

Luke reached out to stop her.

She turned, too fast.

The mirror cracked.

Her reflection grinned.

Its eyes were hollow.

Its teeth were familiar.

But they weren’t hers.

At night, the house lay silent. Choked by the weight of memory. Luke stood in the living room, staring at the rug, which twitched, almost flinched.

Knocking. From below.

He tore it aside.

There was a trapdoor. New wood. No dust. Painted clean.

We never had a cellar…

He opened it.

The descent was unnatural. The walls turned from plaster to clay to root. Wood pulsed with life. The air dripped breath.

Voices wove themselves into the dark:

We remember you. You buried the brother. You forgot your dream. You owe.

At the bottom stood Marissa.

Or something wearing her.

Her eyes too round. Her mouth barely moved.

They opened me, Luke, she said gently. Like a book without pages.

He reached for her. Her hand was coarse, brittle, salt.

She crumbled.

The stairwell bled into a room curled like a womb.

Candles floated midair. No flame. Just memory of light.

A vinyl record skipped endlessly, murmuring: We are not what we bury. We are what whispers beneath.

In the center stood a mirror.

Black glass.

Luke stepped closer.

His reflection had no eyes.

Behind that void, something moved.

You brought them home, didn’t you?

He awakened in a chapel with no doors, no ceiling.

Stained glass floated like memories. Each pane twisted a childhood moment: A birthday cake spoiled with teeth. Marissa cradling a Bible made of root. Young Luke laughing with his eyes stitched shut.

The floor was warm, pulsing, flesh masquerading as wood.

Whispers encircled him: You will forget your name. You will remember the song.

Figures approached. Their robes made of moth wings. Their chants humming backward.

One held a lantern casting pure darkness.

Luke fell to his knees. A gown, stitched from his childhood sheets, clung to him. Symbols marked his chest, drawn in ash, beating like a second heart.

An old woman, flickering between grandmother and skull, offered him a chalice.

Inside, Marissa’s voice. They showed me your heartbeat, Luke. It skips when you lie.

He drank.

The chapel shattered into ink and scream.

He landed in his childhood kitchen. Familiar. But drowning in black liquid.

Photos peeled off the walls like regrets. The fridge oozed red scripture: Every echo wants a mouth.

He opened the pantry.

It was lined with mirrors.

In each reflection, a different Luke. And every one chanted.

Elsewhere, the sun split the morning.

Marissa blinked hard, her lids padded with dream residue. The cracked mirror watched her.

The radio sang. Not static, a lullaby.

A woman walks with empty hands. A town walks behind her. Where do they go when the breath stops counting?

She touched her chest.

No heartbeat.

Then two.

Then none.

She moved to the bathroom. The faucet bled pink, then cleared. Her voice echoed from the walls.

I dreamed of a stone that bled truth. It was inside me. It’s still warm.

She brushed her hair. For a moment, her hand was a child’s, fragile and hollow.

The mirror showed: Her house, rearranged. Her mother, hanging skin like laundry. Luke, walking backward into woods.

She screamed.

But it came out beautiful.

Barefoot, she wandered through Crest Hollow.

No one noticed.

But trees leaned toward her. Windows fogged as she passed.

At the church, the door was sealed.

She raised her hands.

The bell tolled.

You were chosen because your grief is pure, said the voice from within. Let us teach you how to hollow others.

End of Episode 2 Next: Episode 3 , “The Mouth That Sings You Back” Where grief becomes ritual. And forgotten names learn to speak again.