Final Episode: Exit Interviews

The Hollow Names

Final Episode: Exit Interviews
By Candle Light Chaos

Previously on The Hollow Names (Episode 5)

Elmhurst’s nightmare reached its apex. Drawn by the echo of the intercom’s final call, Lena, Amber, and Nico descended into Ward Omega, where Dr. Halbrook’s twisted philosophy of names, guilt, and hollowed souls was laid bare. Joel stood at the center of it, torn between his borrowed name and the monstrous code written into him. In a shattering choice, he rejected Halbrook’s control, fracturing the doctor’s illusions. Halbrook crumbled to ash, their doubles burned in silent flame, and the friends escaped Elmhurst’s rotting grasp. But some wounds never truly close, and some names never truly die.

1. PATIENT DISCHARGED

The sun never fully rose the next morning.

A thin, bruised light hung over the horizon, leaving the world dim and uncertain. Elmhurst crouched behind them on the ridge, silent at last, windows gaping like eyeless sockets. No intercom. No flickering lights. Only a vast hush, as though the building had finally exhaled.

Joel sat on the edge of the road, arms wrapped around his knees. He hadn’t spoken since they burned Halbrook’s lecture hall. His skin looked too thin, stretched over sharp bones.

Lena crouched beside him, brushed sweat-matted hair off his forehead. Her eyes caught on his wrist. The old patient tag was gone, if it had ever truly been there. Only a faint scar remained, a jagged “J” scratched into skin like a memory trying to fade.

Amber stood a few feet away, arms folded tightly. “He’s not the same.”

Nico picked up a rock, tossed it into the weeds. Watched it vanish. “Neither are we.”

When they climbed into the truck, Lena made sure to leave the asylum gates wide open. On purpose.

2. MOTEL ROOM B7

The motel they found was old. Deserted. The vacancy sign buzzed half-lit in neon pink, insects crawling across its cracked surface. Room B7 smelled of mold and bleach.

Lena sat on the edge of the bed with her laptop balanced on her knees. Her fingers hovered over the keys. Then she uploaded the last reel.

No title. No description. Just four words typed below the grainy thumbnail of Elmhurst’s hallway, Joel standing in fire, eyes clear for one terrible heartbeat.

“He gave it back.”

The video was live for three hours. In that time, it racked up 43,000 views. Then it vanished, removed for violating guidelines no one could explain.

The only comment left behind, pinned by some unseen moderator:

“Rounds never truly end.” – USER_Halbrook2079

Lena closed the laptop, nausea curling in her gut.

3. THE LOST TAPE

Days blurred together. They changed motels twice. Avoided highways. Avoided each other’s eyes.

Then, one stale afternoon, Amber found a package sitting on the trunk of the car. No postage. No note.

Inside:

• A hospital bracelet, blank.

• A Polaroid of the four of them, smiling, alive, taken outside Elmhurst before they’d ever stepped inside.

• A small black cassette tape. Its label written in smeared red ink.

“Exit Interview: Subject Candle”

Back in the motel, they crowded around a battered tape player they found in the closet. Amber pressed play.

Voices spilled out. Their own. Out of order. Describing moments that hadn’t happened yet. Fragments of memory:

Nico: “He was under the bed, whispering about the trees.”

Amber: “I didn’t mean to keep the bracelet. It just… didn’t feel right to let it go.”

Lena: “I keep writing names on walls. Then blacking them out. It’s like scratching an itch that never ends.”

At the end, Joel’s voice, thin, half-laughing.

“You ever wonder what happened to the ones who passed the treatment?”
“They don’t get released.”
“They get reassigned.”

The tape cut off in a harsh squeal.

4. INHERITANCE

They burned the tape that night in the motel sink. Watched black plastic curl and hiss, acrid smoke filling the tiny bathroom.

Amber kept the hospital bracelet anyway. Slipped it into her pocket with shaking hands.

Nico started sleepwalking again. Lena would wake to find him standing by the window, forehead pressed against the glass, whispering names she didn’t recognize.

Lena herself began scrawling words on motel walls. Names that might have been theirs, or might have belonged to people Elmhurst had already swallowed. Then she’d cross them out, hard enough to score the plaster.

Joel rarely left the floor. He slept beneath the motel bed, saying the shadows felt safer. Sometimes, Lena caught him tracing invisible spirals into the carpet with a fingertip, humming lullabies she knew were older than any of them.

5. FINAL INTERCOM TRANSMISSION

Their last night in Swainsboro, they packed the truck in tense silence. Amber pulled out the parking lot receipt from under the windshield wiper and found a new set of initials scrawled on it.

H.B.

In the room, Joel curled up on the bed, eyes half-open. Watching. Listening.

Then the motel TV clicked on by itself, static roaring in the small space. The screen rolled, lines crawling.

From the speaker, Halbrook’s voice spilled out, unhurried, warm.

“You’ve completed all five rounds. We thank you for your contributions.”
“You may proceed to Phase Two.”

Amber slapped her hands over her ears. Nico backed into a corner. Lena gripped Joel’s wrist so tightly he flinched.

Then the voice named someone new.

“Subject B-03: Billy Beaner.”

A name none of them had spoken in weeks, but one they’d all heard before. A name that belonged to Elmhurst long before them.

The screen went black.

6. THE ROAD AHEAD

At dawn, they left Swainsboro for good. The sky was pale, raw. As if the sun couldn’t quite decide to rise.

Joel sat in the backseat, leaning against the window. The faint “J” on his wrist had faded entirely. In its place, across his shoulder, was something new, inked deep in jagged, looping script. None of them could read it. But somehow, they all understood.

It meant Witness.

As they drove, Lena traced spirals into the condensation on the glass. Over and over, until her finger went numb.

Nico asked, voice cracked, “What’s next?”

Amber didn’t turn from the road. “Wherever that name leads.”

The highway curved, slipping into a dense thicket of cypress. Taller now. Darker. Watching.

The Series is Complete: The Hollow Names

But somewhere, another story has already begun to whisper.

A new location.
A new horror.
A new name to wear, or tear away.

Coming soon to Candle Light Chaos…

Billy Beaner: Hollow Gospel

“They said he escaped the Institute. He didn’t.
He transferred.”