Something Reaches Back

While the party slept, unaware, the moon fractured over them like a shattered eye. 

Somewhere, something sang.

And in their world, the one they left behind, someone heard them.

It began quietly.

Del’s old laptop crackled to life during a storm delay.

A song played through the static. No lyrics. Just a low, looping melody that felt hollow.

The file said “DHAELITH.mp3.” But the file didn’t exist when the laptop went back to sleep.

Silas’s neighbor, the one who always complained about the noise, left a note taped to the door:

“Love the new song. Creepy but kinda beautiful. Can’t stop humming it.”

Except no one had played anything. Not for weeks.

Blaze’s group chat caught a voice-memo. No message, just three minutes of music.

Soft. Echoing. Like it had been recorded underwater. The metadata was timestamped for 3:20 AM.

Every time someone tried to delete it, it returned.

Saharrah’s car radio snapped on, the stereo playing it on loop. She turned it off. It kept playing.

Rowan stopped by Elliot’s apartment to see if he’d heard a new track that showed up on their playlist, but no one opened the door to the knock.

The track is now out there. Spreading.

No origin. No artist. Just a name: The Hollow King.

And it is always exactly three minutes and twenty seconds.

Every time it plays, something else slips through. Not a monster. Not a curse. Something worse:

Memory.

The track is a thread.

And if you follow it far enough, you do not find a song.

You find a door.

You can listen, if you want.

But if you do, and you dream of a crown with too many points and no shadow beneath it, just know this:

They are not as far away as we thought.

Listen to The Hollow King, but only once.

And if it starts playing on its own, he remembers you now, too.