The Hollow Choir

The Hollow Choir


The rain hadn’t stopped for two days. It soaked the city until the streets were veins of black water, carrying trash, blood, and whatever else the gutters couldn’t hold anymore. The neon lights blurred into smears across puddles, as though the city was dissolving itself in its own reflection.

I sat on the rusted chair by the motel window, cigarette burning low, gun heavy in my lap. Evelyn lay unconscious on the bed, breath shallow, every rise and fall of her chest a countdown I didn’t know how to stop. My sister hovered over her like a shadow stitched to flesh, refusing to blink, refusing to move as though stillness alone could keep Evelyn alive.

The room smelled of rot, old wood, and fear. The wallpaper peeled in long strips, like it was trying to crawl off the walls to escape the things that had followed us here.

And then the mirror in the corner started to hum.

Not a sound exactly more like the vibration of a throat trying to remember a song. My reflection inside it shifted, lagging behind my movements, then smiling when I didn’t.

“Not now,” I muttered, voice hoarse from too much smoke and not enough sleep.

But she didn’t listen. She pressed her palm against the glass. My palm. Pale, dripping. I could almost feel the cold bite against my own skin.

My sister finally looked up, her voice small. “Grace… it’s starting again.”

Before I could answer, the knock came at the door. Three taps. Careful. Patient.

We froze. Evelyn twitched, lips moving, whispering something I couldn’t catch.

I raised the gun, stood, and crossed to the door, boots silent on the wet carpet. “Who’s there?”

The voice that answered carried both familiarity and rot. “Grace.”

Max.

Or what was left of him.

The mirror-woman’s smile widened behind me. My sister tightened her grip on Evelyn’s wrist.

“Stay quiet,” I mouthed to her. She nodded, though her eyes screamed panic.

The knock became pounding, steady as a heartbeat. The door shivered on its hinges.

I leveled the gun. My voice cracked into the storm. “You should’ve drowned.”

His laugh seeped through the door, low and guttural. It was wrong. Too deep. Too layered. Like a choir buried alive.

The mirror groaned. Cracks ran across its surface, spiderwebbing from the palm pressed against the glass. My double leaned forward, whispering in my voice.

“You can’t keep me locked away. I’ll come through. I always do.”

The doorframe split. A hand pushed through, black veins pulsing, nails clawing into the wood. The stench of saltwater and decay spilled into the room.

My sister screamed. Evelyn sat bolt upright in bed, eyes rolling white, her body convulsing like a puppet on cut strings.

I aimed at the door, fired. The shot thundered, wood splintering. Silence followed. For a second.

Then laughter again, closer. He wasn’t stopped. Just amused.

The mirror shattered.

She came through, drenched and grinning. My double. Water dripping off her, pooling into the carpet, hissing like acid when it touched the floor. Her eyes locked onto me my eyes, only darker, empty of everything but hunger.

“Grace,” she purred, “did you miss me?”

I lunged first, slamming the butt of the gun into her face. She staggered, then laughed, blood and water spraying from her mouth. Her hands clawed at me, freezing cold, nails digging trenches into my skin.

We crashed into the dresser, smashing it to pieces. My head rang with impact, vision blurring. She pressed her forehead against mine, grinning. “We’re the same. You just don’t want to admit it.”

“No,” I snarled, driving my knee into her gut, forcing her back. “You’re the part I killed.”

She shrieked, high and sharp, water bursting from her like ruptured pipes. My sister lunged, knife flashing. She drove it deep into the shadow’s side. The double howled, convulsing, smoke pouring from the wound.

I grabbed her hair my hair and smashed her face into the mirror frame. The shards sucked at her, dragging her in as she clawed at the edges, screaming my name in rage. Her face disappeared last, stretched too wide, until only silence remained.

I staggered back, chest heaving, knuckles bleeding.

Then the door caved in.

Max stepped through, or what had replaced him. His face was his, but wrong skin too tight, eyes glowing faint red, veins pulsing with black sludge. His smile was stretched, stitched into place.

“You’re wasting time,” he said softly, voice crawling under my skin. “She’s already gone.”

He nodded toward Evelyn.

She was seizing again, back arching, mouth frothing with red. My sister clutched her shoulders, screaming.

Max stepped closer, the floor sagging under his weight, his shadow stretching longer than the room allowed. “Give her to me, Grace. Let her drown, and I’ll let the rest of you live.”

I raised the gun again, finger trembling on the trigger. “I’d rather choke on glass.”

He chuckled. “That can be arranged.”

The ceiling groaned. Plaster snowed down. The floor vibrated. Something beneath the motel something older screamed.

The windows exploded inward, rain and glass tearing across the room. The lights blew out, plunging us into a red gloom from the neon bleeding through the storm.

Max tilted his head, listening. For the first time, he looked… uncertain.

The floor cracked. Black water surged up through it, flooding the carpet, cold enough to burn. Evelyn screamed, a sound that didn’t belong to her throat.

The mirror split again, shards glowing faintly. A hand pressed through. Not hers this time. Something bigger. Something scaled, wet, ancient.

I froze. My sister dragged Evelyn toward the window, eyes wide in terror. “Grace—”

Max grinned again, but there was strain in it. “It’s awake.”

“What is?” I demanded, though part of me already knew.

He didn’t answer. He just spread his arms like a preacher welcoming the end.

The floor gave way.

Water roared up, swallowing everything. I grabbed for the bedframe, lungs filling with spray. My sister screamed my name, Evelyn thrashing in her arms. Max laughed, voice booming like thunder.

The hand from the mirror clawed wider, pulling a shape behind it. Tall. Twisting. Wrong.

The motel was collapsing around us, swallowed by flood and shadow.

And then silence.

Everything froze.

Water suspended in midair. Shards of glass hanging like stars. Max staring at me with his smile finally broken.

And a voice, deeper than anything human, whispered in the dark.

“Choose.”