Speaker 1: Calarogu Shark Media, Hello and welcome to Ghost Scary Stories.
This episode is titled Veil's Edge, The Unraveling of Hollow Creek,
Episode two, Echoes of the Forgotten.
Speaker 2: Good Evening, Dear listeners, Reverend Arthur Blackwood here once again,
though I confess, I speak to you now with a
heavy heart and a troubled mind. The events I'm about
to recount, well, they've shaken me to my very core.
I find myself questioning not just the nature of our reality,
but my own place within it. But I'm getting ahead
of myself. Let us return to Hollow Creek, where the
veil between worlds grows ever thinner, and the echoes of
forgotten truths are beginning to resound with terrible clarity. It's
been three days since Young Timothy's return, and the wrongness
that accompanied him has spread through our town like a
malignant fog. I've taken to walking the streets at night,
unable to find rest in my own bed. The darkness
whispers you see, and in those whispers I hear things,
things I'd rather not repeat. Last night, as the moon
hung bloated and sickly in the sky, I found myself
outside the old Pearson place. You remember old Elias Pearson,
don't you. No, of course you don't. No one does
not any more. But I I remember Elias Pearson disappeared
some forty years ago, long before most of you were born.
His house has stood empty ever since, a decaying monument
to forgotten tragedy, Or so I thought, as I stood there,
lost in memories, I'm no longer certain of my own.
A light flickered to life in one of the upper windows.
I froze, my breath catching in my throat. It couldn't be.
The house was empty, had been empty for decades, and
yet I approached the front door, my footsteps unnaturally loud
on the creaking porch. The door swung open at my touch,
as if welcoming me home. The air inside was thick
with dust and the musty smell of long abandoned places.
But underneath that there was something else, a scent I
recognized but couldn't quite place, like deja vus give an
olfactory form. Hello, I called out, my voice, sounding thin
and reedy in the oppressive silence. Is anyone here? No
answer came, But as I climbed the stairs, I could
have sworn I heard the faint echo of laughter, children's laughter,
high and sweet and terribly terribly wrong. The upper floor
was a maze of shadows and half remembered layouts. I
found myself in a room I knew couldn't exist, its
dimensions too vast for the house that contained it. And
there in the center stood Elias Pearson. He looked exactly
as he had the day he vanished, not a day older.
His eyes, when they met mine, held no recognition. But
his smile, Oh, his smile was like Timothy's too wide,
too knowing You're not supposed to be here, Arthur, Elias said,
his voice resonating with harmonics that set my teeth on edge.
You're early, It's not time yet. I opened my mouth
to respond to demand answers, but no sound came out. Instead,
I felt a sudden, sickening lurch, as if the floor
had dropped out from under me. The room spun colors
bleeding into one another, and when my vision cleared, I
was standing on the street outside the Pearson House. The
windows were dark, the house as abandoned as it had
been for decades. Had I imagined it all a waking dream,
perhaps brought on by stress and lack of sleep. But
as I turned to leave, my foot struck something there.
Buried in the overgrown lawn was a child's toy, a
small wooden horse, its paint faded and chipped. I knew
that toy. I'd seen it before, long ago, in Elias
Pearson's house. In that moment, dear listeners, I felt the
fabric of my reality begin to fray. For you see,
I suddenly remembered something I couldn't possibly know. I remembered
Elias Pearson playing with his son, a son he'd never had,
a son who'd never existed. The next day brought little
respite from the growing strangeness. Sarah Holloway, young Timothy's mother,
came to see me, her eyes wild with a mixture
of fear and something that might have been hope. Reverend,
She said, her voice barely above a whisper. I I
think I'm losing my mind. This morning I woke up
and Timothy, Timothy was normal, his eyes, his voice, everything.
He didn't remember anything about disappearing or the man in
the woods. But then I blinked and he was He
was back to how he's been. That thing wearing my
son's face. What's happening to me. I wished I had
answers for her. I wished I could offer comfort, assurance
that all would be well, but the word stuck in
my throat, tasting of ash and bitter truths. Instead, I
found myself telling her about Elias Pearson, about the house
that was and wasn't there, about memories that couldn't be
real but felt more solid than the ground beneath our feet.
As I spoke, I saw something flicker in Sarah's eyes, recognition, understanding,
or perhaps the first embers of a terrible realization. Reverend,
She said, slowly, how long have you been in Hollow Creek?
A simple question. It should have had a simple answer,
but as I opened my mouth to respond, I felt
the world tilt sideways. How long had I been here?
I remembered coming to Hollow Creek as a young man,
full of fire and faith. I remembered decades of sermons,
of christenings and funerals. But I also remembered other things,
older things, Hollow Creek as it was before it was
Hollow Creek, a different name, a different time, but the
same thin places in reality. I I don't know. I
admitted the words, tasting of defeat and dawning horror. Sarah nodded,
as if my confusion confirmed something for her. I think,
she said, carefully, that we're all forgetting something important, something
about this town, about ourselves, And I think Timothy, or
whatever Timothy has become, is trying to make us remember.
As she spoke, a chill wind swept through the room,
carrying with it the faint sound of childish laughter. We
both turned towards the window, but there was nothing there,
nothing but our own reflections, distorted and strange in the
old glass. For a moment, just a moment, could have
sworn I saw something else in that wavering reflection, not
Sarah and myself, but two other figures, older, sadder, wearing
faces that were almost, but not quite our own. When
I blinked, the image was gone, but the feeling remained,
a sense of wrongness, of displacement, as if we were
actors who had forgotten we were in a play, suddenly
becoming aware of the artifice of our surroundings. Sarah left
shortly after, leaving me alone with my increasingly fragmented thoughts.
I tried to pray, to seek guidance from a higher power,
but the words felt Hollow echoing in my mind like
bullets in an empty chamber. That night, as I prepared
for bed, I caught sight of myself in the mirror.
For a heartbeat, My reflection didn't match my movements. It
stood still, watching me with eyes that held secrets I
was afraid to learn. I'm afraid, dear listeners, afraid of
what's happening to Hollow Creek to its people. But more
than that, I'm afraid of what's happening to me, to
my memories, my sense of self. Something is coming, something
vast and terrible and patient. It waits just beyond the
veil of our reality, and that veil is growing thinner
by the day. I fear that when it finally tears,
will be faced with truths that will shatter not just
our world, but our very understanding of existence. As I
sit here recording these words, I can hear it, the
whisper of forgotten voices, the echo of lives unlived. They
call to me, promising answers, promising release from the growing
uncertainty that plagues my every waking moment. Part of me
wants to answer that call, to step through the looking
glass and face whatever waits on the other side, but
I resist. For now, at least I resist. Sleep eludes me,
dear listeners, For in my dreams, I see Hollow Creek
as it truly is, a place between places, a nexus
of realities. And in those dreams I am not always myself.
Sometimes I am Elias Pearson, sometimes I'm Timothy Holloway, and
sometimes sometimes I'm something else entirely, something old and vast
and hungry. I bid you good night, though I doubt
sleep will bring any of us peace, and I urge
you with every fiber of my being. Question your memories,
question your reality, For in Hollow Creek, nothing is as
it seems, and the truth may be more terrible than
any lie. Until next time, dear listeners, if there is
a next time, if time itself doesn't unravel before then,
leaving us adrift in an ocean of fractured realities, God
help us all, if God even exists in this shifting,
uncertain world of ours.
Speaker 1: Ghost is a Caloroga Shark Media production written and hosted
by Alexander Ian McIntyre, produced by Mark Francis. Executive producers
Mark Francis and John McDermott. Portions of this podcast may
have been created with the assistance of AI. This show,
along with hundreds of others from Caloroga Shark Media, is
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