970: Story 970: The Hollow Man’s Grin 970: Story 970: The Hollow Man’s Grin The tunnels breathed.
Draven could hear it—a low, shuddering inhale that rattled the station walls.
The girl in white stood motionless, her blackened eye sockets fixed on him.
The last thing she had said still rang in his skull.
“Run.”
A second breath, closer this ti.
The air behind Draven thickened, curling with sothing unseen yet suffocating.
His instincts scread at him to turn around, to see what had crawled from the void.
He didn’t.
Instead, he bolted.
His boots slamd against the cracked stone platform as he sprinted for the rusted exit gate.
His fingers brushed the cold tal—
A hand clamped onto his shoulder.
Not a normal hand.
Too long.
Too many fingers.
Draven whipped around—and found himself face to face with nothing.
The tunnel was empty.
The girl in white was gone.
But the shadows rippled, stretching unnaturally toward him.
A familiar voice slithered from the darkness, dripping with cruel amusent.
“You can’t run, Draven.”
The voice wasn’t deep.
It wasn’t a growl.
It was light, almost playful—like a child imitating a monster.
The Hollow Man.
Draven’s breath hitched as the tunnel warped, shifting around him like it was alive.
The once-empty station now teed with figures standing just beyond the edges of the dim moonlight—not quite visible, but present.
Watching.
A dry chuckle drifted from the abyss.
“You never left the train, Draven.
You only stepped deeper inside.”
Draven gritted his teeth.
“Then I’ll find the damn way out.”
The shadows lunged.
Draven barely dodged as an inky clawed limb lashed out, slamming into the stone where he had stood a second ago.
He ran, weaving through the shifting corridors of the cursed station.
Doors led to dead ends.
Stairs spiraled into voids.
The walls pulsed as if they were breathing, shifting, laughing.
The Hollow Man was playing with him.
A shrill giggle echoed in the distance, reverberating through the tunnels.
Then—another voice.
Faint, but real.
Mira.
“Draven!
Keep moving!”
He twisted toward the sound.
A flicker of light in the distance—a doorway, impossibly bright compared to the oppressive gloom.
Mira stood there, reaching for him.
But as he ran toward her, her expression twisted in horror.
“Behind you!” she scread.
Draven didn’t turn.
He felt the air shift.
The shadows lunged again.
He dove forward, grasping Mira’s hand just as a cold, jagged force raked down his back.
Pain ignited through his body.
His vision blurred.
But Mira pulled him through—
And the darkness vanished.
Draven collapsed onto solid ground, gasping.
The station was gone.
Mira knelt beside him, her face pale.
“You saw him, didn’t you?”
Draven swallowed hard.
“Yeah.” He forced himself to sit up, blood staining his shirt.
“And he was smiling.”
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