Red Tears

I still remember the first time I heard about Hollow Pines.

At the time, I thought it was just another local rumor.

My sister Amy was always fascinated by abandoned places and old stories. She spent hours looking through forgotten forums, old maps, and archived documents, trying to find places that had been erased from history.

Most people laughed at her.

I did too.

But Amy was convinced there was a small abandoned town somewhere beyond the northern forests, a place that had been cut off from the rest of the world after a series of harsh winters and disasters.

“It’s real,” she kept telling me.

“There are people who lived there. There are records.”

I told her she was chasing a ghost.

Then she disappeared.

Amy told me she was going away for a week.

She packed a backpack, some food, a camera, and a notebook.

That was three months ago.

At first, I thought she was just ignoring my calls.

Then the police got involved.

They searched everywhere they could, but eventually they told me the same thing.

There was no evidence of where she went.

No trail.

No witnesses.

Nothing.

That was when I decided to look for her myself.

A man named Robert, someone Amy had spoken to before she left, gave me directions.

“Follow the old forest road,” he told me.

“You’ll find the river. Follow it east. There’s a bridge. The town is on the other side.”

He made it sound simple.

It wasn’t.

The forest felt endless.

The trees were dead, frozen by years of brutal winters. Snow covered everything, and the only sounds were the wind and my own footsteps.

Robert said it would take thirty minutes.

He was wrong.

After hours of walking, I started wondering if I had made a mistake.

Maybe Amy never found anything.

Maybe she had gotten lost.

Maybe I was walking into the same trap.

But then I saw something below the hill.

A valley.

And scattered across it were old vehicles.

At first, I thought they were abandoned machinery.

Then I realized they were cars.

Dozens of them.

They looked like they had been sitting there for decades.

One caught my attention.

A faded blue truck.

The windows were shattered, and bullet holes covered the side.

Inside, hanging from the mirror, were two small black dice.

I remember thinking it was strange.

Something so normal in a place that felt completely forgotten.

Then I noticed the person sitting inside.

A man.

Dead.

The cold had preserved him.

His skin was grey, and his face looked frozen in fear.

But what disturbed me most were his eyes.

They were covered in dark red marks.

At first, I thought it was blood.

I reached through the window to check.

That was when I realized the marks weren’t on his face.

They were under his skin.

Like something had happened to him before he died.

I pulled my hand away.

And that was when the body moved.

I fell backward as his hand grabbed my arm.

His teeth sank into my hand.

I screamed and pulled away.

I fired my gun once.

The sound echoed through the valley.

I didn’t wait to see what happened.

I ran.

I wrapped my hand with a piece of cloth and kept moving.

At that point, I stopped caring about finding answers.

I just wanted to survive.

Eventually, I found the river.

And then I saw the bridge.

Beyond it was a town.

A real town.

A rusted sign stood at the entrance.

Hollow Pines.

My heart started racing.

Amy was right.

The town existed.

But something was wrong.

There was nobody there.

No cars.

No lights.

No people.

The buildings looked abandoned, but not destroyed.

Like everyone had simply left.

Then I noticed something in the snow.

Footprints.

Fresh ones.

But they were strange.

Too large.

Too deep.

I followed them with my eyes.

That was when I saw movement.

A person standing in the street.

At least, I thought it was a person.

It was too tall.

Too thin.

Something about the way it stood made my stomach turn.

Then another one appeared.

And another.

I reached for my gun.

But before I could do anything, I heard my name.

“Terra?”

I turned.

Amy.

She was standing in a second-floor window.

Alive.

I ran toward her.

She opened the door and pulled me inside.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said.

I didn’t care.

I hugged her.

For the first time in months, I knew she was alive.

But she wasn’t happy.

She was terrified.

Amy explained everything.

She had found Hollow Pines three months earlier.

The town wasn’t abandoned.

Not completely.

There were others here.

Explorers.

Travelers.

People who got lost.

But one by one, they disappeared.

Nobody knew what those things outside were.

They weren’t animals.

They weren’t people.

They only appeared at night.

And they never entered buildings.

Amy survived because she learned the rules.

Stay inside.

Never follow the sounds outside.

Never look at them for too long.

Never leave after dark.

I wanted to believe her.

Then she showed me something.

A room in the back of the building.

Inside was a man named Mike.

Or what was left of him.

Amy told me he was attacked while exploring.

He came back injured.

At first, he seemed fine.

Then he started acting differently.

He became violent.

He attacked the others.

Amy had to stop him.

That was when she noticed my hand.

The bite.

Her face changed.

“Where did you get that?”

I didn’t answer.

She already knew.

“Terra…”

I looked away.

I knew what was coming.

Whatever happened to Mike was happening to me.

“I don’t want to become one of those things,” I whispered.

Amy started crying.

“No.”

“Promise me.”

“Don’t ask me that.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

For a long time, we sat there in silence.

Then Amy grabbed her gun.

Her hands were shaking.

“I can’t do this.”

I looked at my sister.

The person I spent my entire life protecting.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you too.”

I closed my eyes.

I waited.

But the gunshot never came.

Instead, I heard Amy crying.

“I can’t.”

The next thing I heard was another gunshot.

Then silence.

When I opened my eyes, Amy was gone.

I sat there for hours.

Then I noticed something was wrong.

My vision was changing.

Everything looked different.

The walls.

The lights.

The world around me.

A strange metallic smell filled the room.

I knew something was happening.

I ran outside.

I don’t know why.

Maybe I wanted to escape.

Maybe I wanted to find answers.

But the moment I stepped out, I saw them.

Three figures standing in the street.

Watching me.

Waiting.

I ran back inside and locked the door.

One of them walked closer.

Slowly.

It stopped outside the window.

And looked directly at me.

I could see my reflection in its eyes.

Red.

Terrified.

Changed.

I stayed there until morning.

When I finally left Hollow Pines, I never told anyone the full story.

Nobody would believe me.

The police still list Amy as missing.

The town doesn’t appear on any modern maps.

But sometimes, when I look at the old pictures she left behind...

I see something in the background.

A figure standing between the trees.

Watching.

Waiting.

And I still wonder if I ever truly escaped Hollow Pines...

Or if it simply let me leave.