The Feeding Tide
The Hollow One’s voice echoed through the communications chamber long after it stopped speaking.
Not through sound alone.
Through the water.
Through the walls.
Through the survivors themselves.
Nora Vale physically felt the creature’s words vibrating inside her chest while black seawater surged around everyone’s legs. The flood level had nearly reached their waists now, and pieces of broken equipment floated slowly through the ruined communications room beneath flickering red lights.
Around the chamber, the drowned remained motionless.
Watching.
Waiting.
Like they already knew escape no longer mattered.
God.
The Hollow One was enjoying this.
That realization terrified Nora more than the monster itself.
The massive pale limb stretching through the flooded tunnel shifted slightly closer while dozens of faces beneath its flesh continued moving silently, expressions twisting between grief, rage, and something worse.
Awareness.
The people inside it were still conscious somehow.
Kai stared at the creature like his brain had stopped functioning properly. “I need someone to tell me we’re hallucinating.”
Nobody answered.
Because nobody could.
The Hollow One slowly raised another limb into the chamber, its enormous body scraping against the collapsing tunnel walls while concrete cracked loudly around it. Seawater poured continuously from the creature’s flesh as if the ocean itself lived inside it.
Then one of the faces across its body changed.
Nora’s heartbeat nearly stopped.
Her brother’s face emerged briefly beneath the pale skin.
Water streamed from his eyes while his mouth opened slowly.
“Nora…”
God.
The voice sounded exactly like him.
Not copied.
Not distorted.
Real.
The Hollow One noticed her reaction immediately.
Dozens of mouths across its body smiled wider.
“You hear them better now,” it whispered softly.
Selene grabbed Nora’s arm hard enough to hurt. “Don’t listen to it.”
But Nora couldn’t stop staring.
Because her brother’s face still moved beneath the creature’s skin.
Trapped.
Alive somehow.
Another face surfaced beside his.
A child crying.
Then an old man screaming silently beneath translucent flesh before disappearing again into the shifting mass of bodies inside the Hollow One.
Kai’s voice sounded shaky now. “It keeps people inside itself.”
Elias nodded once, his expression hollow with guilt. “The infection doesn’t kill consciousness completely.” He swallowed visibly. “The Hollow One absorbs memories, identities… pieces of people.”
Another tremor shook the chamber violently while more seawater burst through cracks in the walls.
The island was collapsing faster now.
And somewhere above them, thunder rolled endlessly through the storm consuming Blackwater Island.
Jace stepped protectively in front of the others while gripping the fire axe tighter. “How do we stop it?”
For the first time since they met him—
Elias hesitated too long.
God.
There wasn’t a good answer.
Then softly, almost ashamed, he whispered:
“You don’t stop it.”
Silence.
Only rushing water and distant thunder filled the room afterward.
The Hollow One slowly shifted farther into the communications chamber now, enormous pale limbs folding unnaturally through the underground structure while drowned creatures moved aside reverently around it.
And suddenly Nora realized something horrifying.
The drowned weren’t servants.
They were bait.
The Hollow One itself was the real predator.
The creature lowered itself slightly toward the survivors while black eyes opened across multiple sections of its flesh simultaneously.
Watching.
Learning.
Then one of the mouths across its body formed into Elias’s face.
“You should’ve let us drown.”
Elias physically flinched.
God.
There it was again.
That guilt.
Nora looked toward him sharply. “What happened here?”
The older man stared at the Hollow One silently for several seconds while the chamber continued flooding around them.
Then finally—
he broke.
“We trapped people down here.”
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Elias’s voice shook now beneath the storm and screaming metal around them.
“When containment failed, the researchers sealed the lower levels to stop the infection spreading to the mainland.” His face twisted with self-hatred. “Hundreds of people were still alive underground.”
Selene looked horrified. “You left them here?”
“We thought the Hollow One would stay buried if it had enough bodies to consume.” Elias’s eyes darkened painfully. “We were wrong.”
Another pulse rolled through the water beneath the chamber.
Then every drowned in the room slowly turned toward Elias simultaneously.
God.
The hatred inside their black eyes looked horribly human.
The Hollow One smiled wider.
“They screamed for days,” it whispered through dozens of overlapping voices.
Elias lowered his head slightly like he’d heard those screams every night since.
Kai whispered softly, “Oh my God…”
Suddenly the communications tower sparked violently overhead.
The transmitter signal surged louder throughout the chamber while emergency lights flashed bright white for one terrifying second.
And every drowned creature froze again.
Listening.
Then from somewhere beyond the underground tunnels—
came answering screams.
Hundreds of them.
Not inside the island.
Outside.
Selene looked toward the flooding tunnel entrance in horror. “What was that?”
Elias slowly turned pale.
“The ocean.”
Another scream echoed faintly upward through the flooded tunnels.
Closer this time.
Then another.
God.
Nora realized what was happening before anyone said it aloud.
The signal had spread beyond Blackwater Island.
Something beneath the ocean heard the Hollow One calling.
The creature seemed pleased by the realization.
Its massive body shifted higher into the chamber while dozens of faces beneath its skin began laughing softly all at once.
“The tide always returns,” it whispered.
Then suddenly the entire communications chamber shook violently.
A deafening crash exploded somewhere above them.
Concrete rained from the ceiling.
And through the cracks high overhead—
moonlight appeared for the first time all night.
The storm outside had broken open.
But that wasn’t the terrifying part.
The terrifying part was what Nora saw through the collapsing ceiling above Blackwater Island.
Shapes.
Hundreds of shapes moving in the ocean surrounding the island.
Swimming toward shore.