Chapter 3 Are We The Ones? - The Cabin At Hollow Creek

Devon's scream dissolved into laughter before anyone could reach the stairs.

"Got you!" His face appeared over the railing, grinning like a kid who'd just pulled off the world's greatest prank. "Holy shit, you should see your faces. Mara, you went white."

"You absolute asshole," Aria snapped, but her hand was pressed to her chest, heart visibly racing. "That's not funny."

"It's a little funny," Devon said, jogging down the stairs. "Come on, you all looked like you were about to call an exorcist."

Mara's hands were shaking. She'd dropped the photograph, and it now lay face-down on the floor. She didn't pick it up, because for just a moment, she'd been certain—absolutely certain, that it was happening again. That the screaming would never stop, that she'd lose someone else to these woods.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Eli was in Devon's face now, all coiled tension. "You don't do that here. Not in…" He stopped himself, glanced at Mara, then back to Devon. "Just don't."

Devon's smile faltered. "Whoa, man. It was just a joke. I didn't mean…."

"It's fine," Mara said quietly, though it wasn't. Nothing about this was fine. "What did you find upstairs?"

The deflection worked. Devon's natural enthusiasm bubbled back up, the tension dissipating like smoke. "Okay, so you know how I said there was writing? I was messing around about the 'your name' part, but there is carving. Lots of it. Old stuff, all over the walls in the back bedroom."

"Probably previous renters," Theo said, though he'd moved to the stairs, curiosity overriding his irritation. "People carve their initials, dates. It's common in vacation properties."

"Yeah, but these aren't initials." Devon was already heading back up, expecting them to follow. "It's like... symbols? And there's this one phrase that keeps repeating. Can't make it out though, looks like Latin maybe?"

Aria was up the stairs before he finished speaking, her academic interest piqued. "If it's Latin, I can translate. My thesis research covered ecclesiastical inscriptions."

The group migrated upward, drawn by collective curiosity and the need to stay together, though no one would admit that last part. Mara went last, each step feeling heavier than it should. The photograph remained on the floor behind them, their faces smiling up at an empty room.

The second floor was darker than the first, the hallway narrow and lined with closed doors. Four bedrooms, just as advertised. Devon led them to the farthest one, at the end of the hall where the shadows pooled thickest.

"In here," he said, pushing open the door.

The room was small, barely large enough for the double bed and single dresser it contained. But Devon was right, the walls were covered in carvings. Not recent, either. The wood had darkened around the cuts, suggesting decades of age. Symbols spiraled across the walls in no discernible pattern: circles within circles, intersecting lines, shapes that might have been letters in an alphabet Mara didn't recognize.

And words. Carved deep, repeated over and over:

CONFITEMUR

"It means 'we confess,'" Aria breathed, running her fingers over the nearest carving. Her voice had gone soft with fascination. "Present tense, first person plural. 'We confess' or 'we acknowledge.' It's a verb used in religious contexts—confession, admission of guilt."

"Super not creepy," Juno muttered, but she was filming, of course, panning slowly across the walls. "This is going to get so many views."

Sienna had gone very still in the doorway, her face pale. "I don't like this room," she said simply. "Something's wrong with it."

"It's just old graffiti, babe," Rhett said gently, but he moved to her side, protective.

"No." Sienna shook her head. "Look at the bed."

They did.

The mattress was bare, ancient, the fabric stained with age and things best left unidentified. But on top of it, arranged with careful precision, were objects: a rusted pocket watch, its face cracked. A tarnished silver locket. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses with one lens missing. A child's shoe, small and rotted. A leather journal, its pages swollen with moisture.

And in the center was a Polaroid photograph.

Eli reached for it before anyone could stop him.

"Don't…" Mara started, but he'd already picked it up.

His face went slack. "What the fuck."

"What?" Devon leaned over his shoulder, then went very quiet. "That's not possible."

Theo took the photograph from Eli's unresisting fingers. Studied it with his clinical gaze. Mara watched his jaw tighten, watched the muscle jump in his temple, the only sign that his composure was cracking.

"Someone's messing with us," Theo said finally. "This is a prank. Has to be."

"Let me see," Aria demanded.

The photograph showed the cabin. Their cars parked outside, Eli's Suburban, the Honda that Aria had driven with Theo and Devon. And standing on the porch, clear as day despite the image's faded quality, were eight people.

Eight people who looked exactly like them.

But the photograph was old. Not days old. The Polaroid film had the distinctive yellowing of decades, the edges curled with age, the white border spotted with mildew.

"Check the back," Juno whispered, her camera finally lowered.

Aria turned it over.

Written in faded ink, barely legible:

October 10, 1982

The Hollowed Ground

God forgive us

The silence that followed was absolute.

"Okay," Devon said, his voice unnaturally loud. "Okay, so someone's definitely fucking with us. This is like, I don't know, some elaborate haunted cabin experience thing? Maybe the owners set this up for atmosphere?"

"For forty-three years?" Aria's voice was sharp. "They've been maintaining this prank since 1982 on the off chance someone would rent the cabin?"

"Photoshop exists," Eli said, but he sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "You can age photos digitally, print them on old film stock…"

"Look at the cars in the image," Theo interrupted, pointing at the photograph. "That's your Suburban, Eli. Same rust pattern on the wheel well. Same dent in the rear panel from when you backed into that pole last month."

Mara stepped forward and took the photograph from Aria's hands. Studied her own face looking back at her—younger somehow, eyes wider, smile genuine in a way she hadn't smiled in five years. She turned it over, read the date again, the words.

The Hollowed Ground.

She'd heard that phrase before. Where? When?

"We're leaving," Sienna said suddenly. "Right now. Pack up, get in the cars, and go."

"It's almost dark," Rhett pointed out gently. "That road was barely passable in daylight. We'd never make it back in the dark."

"Then we leave first thing in the morning," Sienna insisted. "Please. Something is wrong here."

Mara looked at the photograph one more time, then at the objects arranged on the bed. Offerings? Mementos? Evidence?

She thought of the photograph downstairs on the mantle. The one that showed them in modern clothes, in sharp focus.

Two photographs. Same eight people. Decades apart.

Outside, the sun was setting, and the forest was growing dark. Soon, it would be night in Hollow Creek.

And something in the walls around them seemed to exhale, satisfied.