mystictf

[mystictf]

Chapter 16: Sacrifice

Word count: 1237

The wind howls through the Hollow like it remembers.

Remembers blood.

Remembers promises.

Remembers betrayal.

You stand in the centre of the manor’s crumbling wardroom, surrounded by the last flicker of scarlet light, runes half-smeared in ash. The air feels too thin. Too loud.

The ley lines scream.

The Hollowheart is waking.

And the veil - what’s left of it - bleeds open at the seams.

Clint is the first to speak.

“We don’t have long,” he says. “An hour. Two at best.”

You stare at the map burned into the wooden table. It’s shaking. So are you.

Yelena paces like a wolf in a too-small cage. Her bones shift when she walks, skin rippling unnaturally beneath her jacket. Her voice is low, almost a growl.

“It needs a keeper. That’s what Wanda said. A guardian. Like her grandmother.”

Wanda - sitting now, barely upright, eyes glowing dimly red - nods once.

“To seal the Hollow, someone must bind themselves to it. Anchor the veil. Stand between the world above and what sleeps below.”

She looks at you.

“Someone has to choose to stay.”

The words echo.

Stay.

Not die. Not exactly. But something close.

To become the tether.

To take the place of the blood-keeper.

To give up the life above and live with the monster below.

Not forever, not quite.

But long enough.

“I’ll do it,” Wanda says quietly.

You whip toward her.

“No.”

She doesn’t flinch. “It was always supposed to be me. I was trained for this. My magic is already tied to the ley lines-”

“Wanda, no-”

“You’re too important now.”

Steve steps forward. “Then it’s me.”

You blink. “What-?”

“I can survive things most people can’t,” he says. “You said the Hollow wants blood. I’ve got plenty to give.”

You laugh once - sharp, bitter. “You think this is noble?”

He meets your eyes. “I think it’s right.”

Bucky hasn’t spoken yet.

He stands at the edge of the room like a statue, shadows carving him in half.

Then.

“No.”

One word. Broken. Final.

You glance at him.

His fists are clenched. His jaw was tight. When he finally looks at you, it’s not anger in his eyes. It’s fear.

“She’s not doing this.”

You whisper, “I never said I would."

“You don’t have to. I see it. I feel it.”

He takes another step forward. Then another.

“I told you to stay away from me. That I was cursed. But this-” He gestures wildly. “This is worse than anything I’ve ever done. I’ve killed people. I’ve lost myself. But I never wanted this for you.”

You don’t speak.

You can’t.

Because he’s not wrong.

But it still has to be you.

The choice isn’t made in one conversation.

It settles over the next few hours.

Like fog. Like fate.

Wanda prepares the ritual. She draws the bloodmarks. She burns the sage until your lungs sting.

Clint and Yelena reinforce the outer wards.

Steve… doesn’t argue again. But he doesn’t leave your side either.

And Bucky-

He disappears.

You find him by the stone circle in the woods.

The same place you first saw him, eyes glowing under moonlight, blood on his hands, pain in his voice.

He’s on his knees now, hands buried in the dirt like he’s trying to claw something from it.

He doesn’t look at you.

“I didn’t think I’d care,” he says.

You kneel beside him.

“I thought I’d lost that part of me a long time ago. The part of me that was human. The part that could… feel anything like this. And then you came walking into the Hollow like a ghost.”

He laughs softly. Bitterly.

“I should’ve run.”

“So should I,” you whisper.

He finally looks at you.

You wish he wouldn’t.

His eyes are red-rimmed, lips trembling, breath shallow. You’ve never seen him this undone. Not even the night he told you about his curse.

“I can’t stop you,” he says. “Can I?”

You shake your head. “It won’t work if it’s not me.”

He closes his eyes. Like it hurts to hear.

You press your palm to his cheek. He leans into it, just barely.

“I’ll come back,” you promise.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again.

“Liar,” he whispers.

You don’t correct him.

The veil breaks at twilight.

You feel it. Like a rib shattering.

The sky turns wrong. The sun glows too red. The air is thick with salt and smoke and something older.

The Hollowheart rises.

You don’t see it at first.

You hear it.

A hum, then a howl. Then screaming - deep and low and inhuman, coming from the cracks in the earth and the river runs black.

You go to the circle with Wanda, Steve, and Clint.

Yelena keeps watch, half-wolf now, her body already trembling from the proximity of the thing beneath.

“Do you feel it?” Wanda asks.

You nod.

It’s already inside you.

Calling. Beckoning. Waiting.

The Hollow doesn’t want to destroy you.

It wants you back.

The ritual is carved in blood.

Three circles. One key.

You step into the centre, barefoot, your palms sliced clean.

Wanda chants in old Sokovian, her voice raw and trembling.

The wind howls louder.

The trees bend like they want to run.

Steve’s voice breaks when he says your name. “You don’t have to-”

“Yes,” you say.

Your voice is clear. Calm. Final.

“I do.”

You feel the power rise through your feet.

You feel your blood turn to light.

You feel the Hollow scream.

The stones begin to burn with golden sigils.

Bucky is the last to arrive - blood on his shirt, his knuckles torn.

He doesn’t speak.

He just watches.

And you don’t look away from him until the light takes you.

You fall.

And fall.

And fall.

Through roots and rivers and bones and memory.

You see everything.

The first curse.

The second guardian.

The bleeding of the veil.

The thousands of lives taken - not for cruelty, but for containment.

And then-

You land.

At the heart of the Hollow.

The creature is there.

It has no true shape. It flickers like fire. Like shadow. Like all your nightmares at once.

But it doesn’t attack.

It recognises you.

Your blood.

Your voice.

Your purpose.

You reach forward.

And bind it.

The scream that follows splits the earth.

But the light holds.

The ward reforms.

And you… disappear.

Aboveground, the circles collapse.

Steve stumbles, coughing blood.

Wanda collapses. Clint catches her.

Yelena howls to the sky.

And Bucky-

Bucky falls to his knees in the ruins of the ritual, hands buried in the ash, like he’s holding onto the last part of you still warm.

It’s quiet for a long time after that.

The Hollow seals.

The creature sleeps.

And the world - slowly - begins to breathe again.

One week later.

The manor is quiet.

Repaired, mostly. The wards pulse dim gold. The river runs clear again. The veil is thin - but whole.

Clint patrols the woods.

Wanda sleeps longer each day.

Yelena leaves letters for you, even though she knows you can’t read them.

And Bucky…

He visits the circle.

Every night.

Sometimes he talks.

Mostly he doesn’t.

Until one evening, when he feels it - just for a second.

A flicker of warmth. A pulse beneath his palm where the stone once burned gold.

And a voice. Faint.

“I’m still here.”

He doesn’t cry.

Not quite.

But he presses his hand to the earth.

And whispers back.

“I know.”

[mystictf]

Chapter 15: The Curse Revealed

Word count: 1072

The Hollow dreams, and you dream with it.

You wake in the manor, body aching, power humming beneath your skin like a second pulse. There’s blood on your fingertips. Your own - or someone else’s - you don’t know. Wanda hasn’t stirred. Bucky’s sleeping somewhere near, curled in the deepest shadow of the room like he’s afraid of the light.

Steve sits by the window, eyes on the forest beyond.

He hasn’t said a word in hours.

Outside, the town is too quiet. Like the earth’s holding its breath.

You breathe in.

And something shifts.

Like a door opening inside you.

The memory hits you like lightning.

One second you’re standing.

The next, you’re not you.

 You’re a girl - barefoot, wild-eyed, with blood smeared across your hands and a circle of ash at your feet.

The Hollow is younger, the sky is purple with stormlight, and the air hums with something ancient.

There are others around you. A coven. Your sisters.

They chant. They bleed.

And you speak the final words.

“Bury it. Lock it. Let our blood seal it. Let none wake what sleeps below.”

The circle blazes gold.

A creature writhes at the centre - huge and shifting, all limbs and mouths and hunger. It screams, and the earth shakes.

You force it down.

With your magic. Your will.

You carve the ward into the stone of the Hollow with your ancestors' bones.

You trap it there. 

And you curse everything that touches it - this land, this forest, this town - with your final breath.

Not to punish.

To contain.

You wake up gasping.

Steve is beside you, gripping your shoulders. “You were gone,” he says, panic laced in his voice. “You just - collapsed.”

“I saw it,” you whisper. “I was her.”

“Who?”

“My ancestor. The one who made the curse. She didn’t curse the town to keep people in - she cursed it to keep that thing down. That monster under the Hollow. It wasn’t banished. It was buried.”

Steve goes still. “And now it’s waking up.”

You nod. “Because the bloodline’s breaking. The magic’s fading. The Order cracked the seal wide open”

“What happens if it escapes?”

You look up, throat dry.

“The world ends.”

You find Wanda in the attic hours later, barely conscious, red magic flickering weakly around her fingertips.

She’s muttering in a language you don’t know - but your blood does.

It remembers.

She grabs your wrist when you touch her. Her eyes fly open.

“You saw it,” she rasps. “Didn’t you?”

You nod.

She smiles grimly. “Then you understand.”

“What do we do?”

“You keep the curse.”

You flinch. “It nearly killed her.”

“It did kill her. That’s the cost. It always has been.”

You shake your head. “There has to be another way.”

Her grip tightens. “There isn’t. That thing - the Hollowheart - it feeds on choice. On blood. The key must choose to remain. Or the gate opens.”

“I’m not ready -”

“You were born ready,” Wanda whispers. “Your grandmother died to buy you time. I bought you more. Don’t waste it.”

Downstairs, Bucky’s awake.

He looks hollow.

His eyes are shadowed. His hands are stained.

You sit beside him in the dark, the old stone of the manor still warm with warding marks.

“They used me,” he says quietly. “To open it. I felt it pulling through me like rot.”

“You fought it.”

“I almost didn’t.”

You hesitate. “Do you remember what you did?”

He nods once. “Enough to know I should’ve lost control. But I didn’t.”

You meet his eyes. “Why not?”

He doesn’t look away. “Because you were there.”

You swallow hard.

There’s something electric between you, always has been - ever since that night in the woods, when he looked at you like a ghost from another life.

Now, it hums louder.

And hungrier.

You reach for his hand. He lets you.

Your pulse is steady. His is not.

“We can fix this,” you say.

“You sound sure.”

“I have to be.”

He watches you.

Then, quietly. “If you fall trying… I’ll drag you back."

That night, you walk the ley lines alone.

They’ve grown unstable - glowing too bright, pulsing too fast, cracking like ice under pressure. You can hear whispers rising from the earth. You don’t know the language, but the meaning is clear.

The seal is breaking.

The creature below - the Hollowheart - is stirring. 

You reach the stone at the centre of the crossroads.

The one with the carved symbol your grandmother marked in her letters.

The one from Steve’s sacred spot.

You kneel before it.

And the memory rises again - not a vision this time. A gift.

You see your ancestor, older now. Alone.

She whispers to the stone. “Let my blood bind. Let my breath guard. Let my pain feed the lock.”

She places her hand on the carving. Cuts her palm.

And as she bleeds onto the mark - it glows gold.

You do the same. 

The stone burns beneath your hand.

The blood steams.

And the Hollow whispers your name.

Not your voice.

Hers.

The blood-keeper.

The last.

Steve finds you at dawn.

He looks worse - shoulder torn, clothes ragged, still smelling of smoke and magic.

“You okay?”

“No,” you admit.

He sits beside you.

The forest is quiet around you. Too quiet.

“I should’ve told you sooner” he says.

You glance at him. “Told me what?”

“That I felt it. The connection. From the beginning. Not just to the Hollow. To you.”

You freeze.

He looks away, jaw tight. “But Bucky… he saw it too. You chose him.”

Your voice is soft. “I haven’t chosen anyone.”

He nods.

“I know.”

A long silence.

Then. “But if it comes down to it - if you have to be the lock - I’ll stand beside you. Whatever that means.”

You rest your head on his shoulder.

“I know.”

You return to the manor.

The stones are groaning.

Wanda’s asleep again. Clint returned, bloodied and limping.

Yelena arrives just after you - half shifted, eyes glowing, her voice a snarl.

“The veil’s down. Something’s moving beneath the river.”

You stiffen. “The Hollowheart”

She nods once.

“It’s hungry.”

You meet their eyes. All of them.

Steve.

Bucky.

Wanda.

Clint.

Yelena.

A shattered family forged in shadows.

“Then we hold it,” you say. “Unti we can bury it again."

Wanda stirs behind you, whispering. “Or kill it.”

You don’t dare say it aloud yet.

But the truth is already bleeding in.

This time, burial may not be enough.

[mystictf]

Chapter 14: The Order Strikes

Word count: 974

It begins with fire.

You wake to smoke choking your lungs, the sound of glass shattering downstairs, and Wanda’s wards screaming as they shatter - one by one - like bone under boots.

Outside, the manor is glowing orange.

You bolt upright.

“Bucky?”

No answer.

You find a note, scrawled on the back of a torn book page:

“I’m out on patrol. Back before dark. Don’t open the door for anyone but Steve or Wanda.”

But it’s well past dark now.

You throw open the window - and chaos meets you.

Figures moving through the trees in black coats and silver masks, each bearing the insignia of The Order of Ash: a charred tree, branches twisted like antlers.

Gunfire cracks in the air. Then something inhuman howls from deeper in the woods.

The veil is broken. The Hollow is open.

And the Order has come to burn it all down.

You grab what you can - a blade from Clint, a warding charm from Wanda - and sprint into the smoke-filled dark.

The town is under siege.

Houses are burning. Creatures - half-flesh, half-shadow - are loose in the streets. You see a wraith rip through a soldier. See a child vanish into fog. See a woman from the bakery raise her hands and summon flames - only to be gunned down before the fire could spark.

And in the centre of it all stands John Walker.

Not masked like the others. Face bare, proud.

He holds a torch in one hand, and in the other - a silver blade soaked in something dark and old.

When your eyes meet, he smiles.

“Found you.”

Steve crashes into him before the torch can fall.

The sound of their impact shakes the air.

Walker snarls, blade swinging - Steve shifts mid-motion, golden eyes burning, claws flashing. The two of them move like lightning, like gods, colliding in a storm of blood and snarls and fury.

You try to run to them, but -

“Y/N!”

It’s Wanda. She grabs your arm, her magic flaring red-hot, and hurls you back just a net of silver wire slams into the ground where you’d stood.

You roll, coughing. “Where’s Bucky?”

Her face is pale. Lips trembling.

“They took him.”

“What?”

“An hour ago. They tricked him with sunlight wards and holy ground. He didn’t stand a chance.”

You stagger.

Wanda’s voice breaks. “They’re going to use him to rip the ley lines open. Sacrifice him to invert the ward.”

“No.”

“Y/N-”

“No.”

She grabs your shoulders. “Listen to me. The lines are breaking already. The veil’s bleeding. I can hold it - but I need you to keep the seal intact.”

“How?”

Her grip tightens. “With everything you are.”

You sprint toward the chapel ruins. Where it all began.

Where the ley lines cross.

Where the Hollow breathes the deepest.

The sky above pulses red. The earth below moans.

The Order’s already there - ringed in a circle of black salt, Latin chants echoing, candles burning green.

And Bucky is on his knees in the centre.

Stripped of his coat and dignity. Silver chains around his wrists and neck. A knife pressed to his throat.

His eyes meet yours.

And for a moment, the world stills.

You move.

But you’re not fast enough.

Walker slams his foot down on the centre rune and cuts.

The line splits.

The ground screams.

Bucky arches back in pain, fangs beared, and the ley lines explode in colour.

You’re thrown across the clearing.

Your hands burn. The sigils from before - glowing again, brighter now, alive. You smell iron and ash. Feel magic rising in your blood like a storm.

And then - Wanda.

She arrives like a tempest.

Scarlet magic tears through the air, ripping soldiers from their feet. Her cloak flares like wings. Her scream splits the night.

She destroys them.

She turns salt to glass. Rips chants from throats. Crushes the ritual mid-spell.

But it costs her.

Blood drips from her nose.

Her eyes rolled back.

And the last thing she does before she falls is shove the rest of her magic into you.

It’s like being flayed open.

Every nerve ignites. Every memory burns.

You see your grandmother’s face.

Your mother’s hands.

The Hollow, young and untouched. The ward when it was whole.

You see Bucky, centuries ago - fighting. Bleeding. Cursed.

You see the thing beneath the town.

A shape without a name. Something old and endless, coiled in roots and stone. It sleeps. It dreams. It hungers.

And now it stirs.

Because you woke it up.

You crawl toward Bucky.

The chains are searing, pulsing with anti-magic.

You touch one - and your palm burns.

But you don’t stop.

“Y/N,” Bucky rasps. “Go.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

His eyes are wild. “They’ll use me. I’m the crack in the seal. Kill me before they do.”

“Don’t you dare ask me to do that.”

His voice breaks. “Then run.”

“I told you. I’m not leaving you.”

You raise your hand - sigils flaring - and burn through the chains.

Bucky falls forward, into your arms, shuddering.

You feel his fangs near your neck.

But he doesn’t bite.

He just trembles.

“I tried,” he whispers. “I tried not to fall.”

You hold him tighter. “I know, I know. I’ll always be here to catch you.”

Steve finds you there.

Half-conscious. Covered in ash and blood.

His face is torn. One of his arms was broken. He barely stands.

But he smiles when he sees you both alive.

“Good,” he breathes. “You’re still here.”

Then he collapses.

Later - much later - when the sun finally rises, the fires are out.

Walker is gone.

Half his men are dead or missing.

Wanda hasn’t woken.

Clint is wounded.

And the ley lines are unstable.

But you…

You feel different.

You feel full.

Of power. Of purpose. Of something your blood was always meant to carry.

The Hollow is changing.

And so are you.

[mystictf]

Chapter 13: The Hollow Breaks

Word count: 1120

It starts with screaming.

Distant, muffled by trees. Then close. Too close.

You’re in the manor kitchen when it happens. Cold tea in your hands, thunder rumbling in the bones of the house. The air tastes wrong - metallic, like stormlight and old blood. Then the scream comes again, shrill and sudden.

It rips through the air like a dying animal.

You drop the cup. Porcelain shatters. Tea seeps into the cracks.

And the wards break.

You don’t see it, not really - but you feel it. Like a thread pulled too tight, snapping against the back of your skull. Like something tearing open inside the walls of the world.

You stagger to the window. Outside, the woods sway violently though there’s no wind.

The trees look like they’re breathing.

And then you see the mist.

Low, slithering across the ground like it’s alive. It hisses where it touches iron and shrinks from salt. But it moves with purpose. Like it knows where to go.

Like it’s searching.

You barely have time to grab your coat before Clint bursts through the front door.

He’s soaked in sweat and blood, eyes wild.

“Pack your things,” he says. “Now.”

“What -”

“They’re gone,” he says. “The Jenkins family. The house was gutted. No bodies. Just… scorch marks. And a symbol burned into the floorboards.”

Your mouth dries. “What symbol?”

He doesn’t answer. He just shoves a folded slip of paper into your hands.

You open it - and feel your heart stop.

It’s the same sigil from the stone Steve showed you. From your grandmother’s letter.

But this time it’s… wrong.

Twisted. Inverted.

“Someone’s trying to reverse the ward,” Clint says. “Turn it into a summoning symbol.”

You stare at him. “To summon what?”

He looks out the window.

“Whatever your grandmother died to keep buried.”

You ride with Clint into town. The streets are empty. Not quite - empty. Doors hang open. Lights flicker behind broken glass. There are no sounds. No birds, no footsteps. Not even wind.

Like the Hollow itself is holding its breath.

“The veil’s thinning,” Clint says. “I can feel it.”

You do, too.

Everything looks the same but… off. Like a reflection on water - shimmering, wrong. Trees cast shadows in directions they shouldn’t. Lights hum with colours your eyes weren’t meant to see. And every now and then, something flickers at the edge of your vision.

A face in the window.

A hand sliding behind a tree.

Eyes. Watching.

“They’re not supposed to be here,” Clint mutters. “Not yet."

“Who?”

He doesn’t answer.

Just parks the truck beside Wanda’s cottage and says, “Don’t trust anyone but her. Not even me, if things go bad.”

“What do you mean?”

But Clint’s already moving. Weapons drawn. Eyes sharp.

You knock once on the door before it opens itself.

Wanda is waiting.

She looks different now. Less human. More… elemental. Her red magic pulses faintly from her skin like heat waves. Her eyes glow.

She doesn’t ask how you are. Doesn’t offer tea.

“The Hollow is bleeding,” she says.

“I know.”

She steps aside. You enter. Her house hums with protective wards - barely holding. You feel it. Something pressing against the walls like a storm surge, eager to break in.

“They’re hunting,” she says.

“Who?”

“The Order. They opened something. Or tried to.”

She lifts her hand and conjures an illusion - fog and fire, people screaming, shadows with too many teeth.

“They didn’t understand what they were touching.”

“Then close it.”

Her eyes find yours. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re the key now.”

You flinch.

“What does that mean?” You whisper.

Wanda waves her hand. The illusion vanishes. The room dims.

“Your grandmother’s death wasn’t natural,” she says. “She burned herself into the ward to keep it sealed. Blood magic. A last sacrifice. That kind of power doesn’t just disappear.”

Your skin crawls.

“She passed it to you,” Wanda says. “Through blood. Through bond. You are what anchors the barrier now. You are what holds the seal.”

You stumble back. “No. No, that can’t be-”

“It is. And you need to make a choice.”

Your voice trembles. “What choice?”

She steps closer and takes your hand. Her touch is hot, almost burning.

“You can reinforce the seal,” she says. “Lock it down. Imprison whatever stirs beneath the Hollow. Keep it sleeping.”

“Or?”

“Or you can let it rise.”

You rip your hand away.

“Why would I ever do that?”

Her gaze is unreadable. “Because there’s a war coming. And monsters are better allies than ghosts.”

You leave before Clint returns.

You need air.

You need to think.

The forest is worse now.

Every breath you take feels heavy. Like you’re inhaling fog. The trees whisper names that are not yours. The river runs too red.

And then you feel it -

The pulse.

Not yours.

Not human.

The Hollow is alive.

And it remembers you.

You stumble into the old chapel ruins just as the sun begins to fall.

Light filters through the shattered windows in pale shards.

And standing among the pews is Bucky.

His coat is torn. His hands are bloodied. His hair damp with river water.

He looks like he’s been fighting the forest itself.

He looks beautiful,

“Where have you been?” You ask.

He turns slowly. Eyes dark.

“Feeding,” he says.

You flinch.

He notices.

“I didn’t take lives,” he says softly. “Just enough to survive.”

You swallow. “They say the ward’s breaking. That I’m the key now.”

His expression shifts.

“You are,” he says. “I felt it the moment she died.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?"

“Would you have believed me?”

Silence.

He steps closer.

“There’s something under this town,” he says. “Something your blood keeps asleep.”

“I know.”

“It’s stirring.”

“I know.”

He reaches for you - but doesn’t touch.

“You shouldn't be here.”

“And where would I go?” You snap. “It will follow me. All of it.”

He lowers his voice. “If you won’t go. Then let me stay. I can help.”

“You told me not to trust you.”

“I don’t trust myself either.”

You look up into his face, shadowed by ruin and regret.

“Then why are you here?”

His voice is raw.

“Because I don’t want you to face this alone.”

And for the first time in days, you let yourself lean into him.

Just for a moment.

Just long enough to remember you are still human.

Still scared.

Still alive.

That night, you light the wards around the manor itself.

Old sigils from your grandmother’s books. Blood. Ash. Bone.

They flare faintly, barely enough.

In your dreams, you hear the Hollow breathing beneath your floorboards.

And when you wake, the house is colder.

Something is whispering your name from the woods.

And it’s getting closer.

[mystictf]

Chapter 12: Moonlit Promises

Word count: 708

The moon is almost full when Steve finds you.

You’re in the greenhouse, what’s left of it - glass cracked and scattered on the ground, ivy reclaiming the walls. You’ve been trying to draw the sigils from memory, sketching them in the dirt with a twig. Your hands are stained. Your mind aches from sleepless nights and visions of a future to come.

“You shouldn’t be out alone,” Steve says, stepping through the doorway like the night itself let him in.

You don’t look up. “I’m not alone.” You say quietly.

He pauses

“Is he here?” His voice is careful. Neutral.

You glance at him. “No.”

Something in him relaxes. Barely.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” you say.

He shrugs. “You’ve had… company.”

The words sting more than they should. But you’re too tired to argue.

“What do you want, Steve?” You say. Your voice low, gentle, tired.

He looks at you for a long moment, then says, “Come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”

You walk in silence.

Through the trees heavy with shadow. Over roots that curl like claws. The forest breathes around you - slow, steady, ancient. You’re beginning to hear it now. Feel it.

Like something is waking inside you that’s always belonged here. Belonged to the Hollow.

Steve doesn’t speak until you reach the clearing.

It’s circular. Perfect. Lit silver by moonlight that seems to fall only here.

At its centre is a flat, moss-covered stone.

Carved into its surface is a symbol.

You kneel, brushing leaves away, and feel your breath catch in your throat.

You’ve seen it before.

In one of your grandmother’s letters. The one marked for when the Hollow speaks.

“Do you know what it means?” Steve asks.

You nod slowly. “Blood. Binding. Memory.”

“She brought me here once,” he says. “Your grandmother. Said it was the heart of the Hollow. Said it would remember the ones who were meant to protect it.”

You look up at him.

His golden eyes gleam in the moonlight. Not wild. Not wolf. Just… Steve.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” you whisper. “I feel like I’m unravelling.”

“You’re not,” he says, crouching beside you. “You’re becoming.”

You frown. “Becoming what?”

He doesn’t answer.

Instead, he reaches into his jacket and pulls out something wrapped in cloth. He offers it to you.

You unfold it.

Inside is a charm. Carved from bone. Bound with red thread.

“It’s a ward,” he says. “For protection.”

“From what?”

He hesitates. “From him.”

Your hands still.

Steve’s jaw tightens. “I know what Bucky is."

“So do I.” You say quietly.

“That doesn’t mean he won’t hurt you.”

“He hasn’t.” You snap.

“Yet.”

You stare at the charm. It glows faintly. The thread feels warm in your palm.

“I’m not afraid of him,” you say.

“You should be.”

You look up. “Are you?”

Steve doesn’t speak.

That’s answer enough.

He sits beside you on the stone. The silence between you stretches again - but it's different now. Sharper.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he says quietly.

You laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “You never had me to begin with.”

“Not like that,” he agrees. “But you were mine in a different way. Before all this.”

You close your eyes.

Steve has always been light. Golden. Familiar.

And now, that light is dimmed by something heavy. Something aching.

He reaches out, brushing your hair back, and when his fingers linger against your cheek, you almost lean in.

But you don’t.

Because he’s not the one who haunts your dreams.

He pulls away before the moment goes any further.

“I’m going to protect you,” he says. “Even if it’s from me. Even if it’s from him. Even if it’s from yourself.”

You nod.

Because you believe him.

And because part of you knows -

You may need protection.

From what you are becoming.

Later, you return to the manor with the charm tucked in your pocket and Steve’s promise echoing in your ears.

The moon follows you.

The symbol from the stone burns behind your eyes

And when you sleep that night, you dream of blood blooming across snow -

And a voice, deep and familiar, whispering your name like a vow and a warning.

You are not ready.

[mystictf]

Chapter 11: Hunger

Word count: 995

Bucky disappears.

No note. No warning. Not even the usual shadow at your window.

He’s just… gone.

You don’t sleep much. You leave the light on in the hallway, just in case. You check the woods each morning, your boots soaked in dew and your breath fogging in the cold.

Wanda says nothing at first. She just watches you closely with those witch-born eyes. Clint avoids your questions. Steve doesn’t.

“He’s dangerous when he’s hungry,” he says on the third day. He’s standing in your doorway, golden-eyed and stiff like he’s barely keeping something inside him.

“He said he’d never hurt me,” you whisper.

Steve leans against the frame. His jaw tightens. “He doesn’t want to. Doesn’t mean he won’t.”

“He hasn’t fed in years, right?”

“That you know of.” He says it gently. Like a warning disguised as kindness.

You look down at your hands - sigils still etched deep and angry. “What if he can’t fight it this time?”

Steve exhales, stepping closer. “Then I’ll find him before it’s too late.”

But you’re the one who finds him.

It’s nearly midnight when the Hollow pulls you from your bed.

The wind whispers his name. The trees lean toward you. Your breath stills. Something in your blood knows.

He’s at the edge of the manor’s northern field, half-hidden in the shadows.

At first, you think it’s not him at all.

He’s too still. Too broken.

Then he shifts - only slightly - and the moonlight catches his face.

He’s crouched low, fingers clawed into the dirt, hair tangled and damp with sweat. His skin is ghost-pale, veins dark beneath it. His lips are red.

Not stained. Fresh.

“Bucky,” you whisper.

His head snaps up.

You freeze.

There’s no recognition in his eyes. Only hunger. Wild and deep and feral. His chest rises and falls like he’s trying to breathe through the ache.

“I told you not to come,” he rasps, voice shredded at the edges.

“You were gone,” you say softly, stepping closer. “I didn’t know if -”

“Stay back!” His voice cracks like a whip, but there’s pain behind it. Fear. “I haven’t fed. I can’t - I can’t control it.”

You look at him - really look - and feel the truth of his words in your bones.

He’s starving.

And he’s fighting it with everything he has.

“I trust you,” you say.

His laugh is a broken thing. “You shouldn’t.”

You kneel, ignoring the bite of his words. Of the cold earth beneath your feet, and reach for him.

“Take what you need.”

His eyes flash. “No.”

“Just enough to help.”

He shakes his head, backing away like a wounded animal. “Please. You don’t understand. I don’t sip. I tear. I ruin things. I -”

You reach again. “Then don’t ruin me.”

That breaks him.

He looks at you like you’re the last thing that's holding him together. His hands tremble as he crawls closer, dragging himself through the dirt like he’s afraid to move too fast.

You offer your wrist.

He stares at it like it’s a curse and a blessing.

“I’m trying,” he whispers, his breath hitching. “I’m trying.”

“I know.”

His hand wraps around yours, firm but careful. His mouth hovers just above your skin.

And then -

His lips brush against your pulse.

You shiver.

He lingers for a breath. Then another.

And then his fangs sink in.

The pain is sharp, then gone. Replaced by heat. Pulling. A thread unravelling from deep inside you.

He drinks slowly. Measured.

Your fingers dig into his shoulder to ground yourself. His hair falls across your arm. His other hand presses against your back, anchoring you both.

It’s intimate. Terrifying.

Beautiful.

You feel him tremble as he pulls away, lips red, eyes darker now. Clearer.

You’re dizzy. Warm. Lightheaded in a way that feels strangely safe.

He stares at you like he’s never seen anything so stupid. Or kind.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

You smile faintly. “Too late.”

His forehead presses to your shoulder. “I could’ve killed you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“You taste like magic.”

You smile. “That… feels on brand.”

He laughs - a real one this time. Soft and wrecked.

Later, when he helps you back to the manor, you lean into him more than you’d like to admit.

He doesn’t let go.

Inside, he helps you sit on the edge of the old velvet chaise, then disappears to fetch water.

When he returns, he kneels in front of you, holding the glass like an offering.

“Don’t make this a habit,” he says, but there’s no heat behind it.

You sip, then murmur, “Is that what I am to you? A habit?”

His gaze snaps to yours. “No. Never.”

You let the silence stretch between you. It crackles.

Then: “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

He looks away. “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

“Starving?”

“Weak.”

You reach for his hand. “You’re not.”

He flinches when your fingers touch. Like your skin still burns from the trust you gave him.

“I’m not human,” he says.

“I know.”

“I’ve done awful things.”

You squeeze gently. “So have I. I just don’t remember all of them yet.”

He meets your eyes.

And something settles.

Like the night stops breathing for just a second.

“You’re changing,” he says softly. “I can feel it.”

“So can I.”

He exhales. “The Hollow chose you for a reason.”

You think of the sigils. The blood. The way the trees bend closer when you walk through them now.

“Maybe it made a mistake.”

“No.” His voice is firm, for once. Steady. “You’re exactly what it needs.”

You rest your head against the back of the chair.

And when he moves to leave, you stop him with a hand on his wrist.

“Stay?”

He hesitates.

Then nods.

And when he settles in the chair across from you, watching as you drift to sleep, you feel safer than you should.

But it’s not safety that clings to your dreams.

It’s hunger.

[mystictf]

Chapter 10: A Taste of Power

Word count: 916

The dream begins with fire.

Not the kind that warms, but the kind that devours. Smoke clogs your lungs. Your skin stings. You’re in the woods, running, chasing - or being chased - you can’t tell anymore. Every tree bleeds shadows. Every branch seems to reach for you.

Something howls.

You don’t look back.

When you wake, the manor is silent - but wrong.

You lie tangled in your sheets, skin damp, heart thrumming a strange rhythm. It’s not fear. Not quite. It’s something deeper. Older. Like something inside you is waking up with teeth.

And then you hear it.

The knock.

Three soft raps at the front door.

You slip from your bed, heartbeat thudding louder than your steps as you descend the stairs.

The knock again.

When you open the door, no one’s there.

Just the wind. Just the night. Just the trees leaning a little too close.

And then - 

A scream.

High. Human. Close.

You bolt into the woods without thinking.

Branches lash at your arms. Your bare feet sting on rocks and roots. You follow the scream, already fading into something gurgled, something wrong. The night folds around you like a cloak, and your breath comes fast, sharp, scared.

Then you find them.

Two figures.

One slumped against a tree, face soaked in blood.

The other - a man, broad-shouldered, holding a blade stick with red. His face shadowed. His eyes catching the moonlight.

He turns toward you.

You freeze.

He steps forward.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says, voice like gravel.

You back away, but your heel hits a root, and you fall hard.

He comes closer.

You throw your hands up to shield yourself.

And something breaks.

The world explodes.

But not outward-inward.

A heat erupts from your chest. From your palms. From your bones. You hear yourself scream, but it’s not pain - it’s power.

Light sears the air.

Sigils blaze on your skin like brands, old and furious.

And then - 

Black.

You wake in the dirt.

Alone.

Your hands are red.

Dripping.

Your mouth tastes of copper and ash.

The man is gone.

But the tree behind you is split down the middle - charred, smoking, bleeding from the bark like it weeps sap and flame.

Your breath comes in shallow bursts.

You look at your palms.

The sigils are still there - angrier now. Etched in red, pulsing like wounds.

You don’t know what you did.

You don’t know how.

And you’re terrified.

Wanda finds you before dawn.

She steps out of the fog like she belongs to it - cloaked in crimson, eyes glowing faintly. She doesn’t flinch at the blood on your hands.

She kneels before you, her fingers gentle as they tilt your chin up.

“You felt it,” she says softly.

You nod.

“You used it.”

You nod again. “I didn’t mean to.”

She exhales slowly, like she’s been expecting this.

“Power like yours doesn’t ask for permission. It has a mind of its own and it demands.”

You swallow. “I didn’t even know I had power.”

Her gaze darkens.

“Your grandmother sealed it. Tucked it away. Kept you normal. Safe. But the Hollow doesn’t let its blood-keepers forget forever. And now, the seal is broken.”

You stare at your hands. “What did I do?”

“You unleashed something,” she says. “And it listened.”

“Did I kill him?”

Wanda doesn’t answer at first.

Then: “If it was one of Walker’s men, it doesn’t matter.”

Your stomach turns.

She offers you her hand. “Come with me. You need to see.”

Wanda leads you beyond the woods, to a stone circle hidden beneath the roots of ancient trees. The earth here pulses. It hums beneath your bare feet.

“This is where the first blood-keeper made their vow,” she says. “To guard the Hollow. To bind it.”

“To trap it?” You ask.

“To balance it,” she corrects. “The Hollow has always been both sanctuary and storm. It births monsters, supernatural creatures - but it also protects them. It remembers wounds. And you - your line - was chosen to keep it from destroying itself.”

You kneel beside the runes carved in the stones. They’re the same ones etched into your palms now.

“I didn’t ask for this,” you whisper.

“No,” Wanda says gently. “But it asked for you.”

You touch the stone and feel it answer. Not with words, but with sensation - weight, depth, age. A memory not your own.

Blood. Fire. Screams.

And a name carved into the Hollow’s very bones: Yours.

You pull back. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You will,” she says. “We all do.”

“But I’m not like you.”

Her eyes soften. “No. You're like her.”

You look up sharply.

“Your grandmother.”

Back at the manor, the blood has been cleaned from your skin, but the sigils remain. No soap can scrub them off. No bandages can hide the way they glow faintly in the dark.

You curl up on the window seat, watching the trees sway.

The Hollow knows.

You hear it whisper your name in the wind.

And when you finally sleep, you see flashes behind your eyelids:

Steve, eye golden and afraid.

Bucky, pale and still, whispering your name like a prayer.

Yelena, running through the fog with something chasing her.

And a shape beneath the river, awake and watching.

You wake to find Wanda standing at the foot of your bed.

She looks tired.

“You’ve only scratched the surface,” she says. “The real power? The real fight? It’s just beginning.”

You nod.

Because somehow, you already know.

[mystictf]

Chapter 9: What Hides in the Water

Word count: 1073

The Hollow’s river runs colder than you remember.

Colder than it should be, even at dawn.

You stand at its edge, fog laced over the surface like the town’s own breath. Everything is hushed here - the woods mute, the birds too quiet, even the trees seem to be holding their breath. It doesn’t feel like morning. It feels like the moment before something terrible happens.

And still, something draws you closer.

The pull starts deep in your chest - a tug, a tread, a heartbeat you didn’t know belonged to you. Maybe it’s the sigils burned into your palms. Maybe it’s the letters whispering from your grandmother’s study. Maybe it’s the way the Hollow watches you now, waiting.

You step into the shallows.

The water curls around your boots like fingers.

You do deeper.

It reaches your calves. Your knees. Ice enough to burn.

But you don’t stop.

Not until you see it.

Something beneath the surface, just beyond where the trees reflect.

Something massive. Sleeping.

No. Breathing.

You don’t scream.

You can’t.

Its eyes open first. Wide, pale, almost human-almost. But too large, too old. Ringed in silver, gleaming in the fog. It watches you without blinking.

Your blood turns to ice.

You step back, but the water doesn’t let you. It climbs.

A wave rises, slow and deliberate, though there’s no wind.

And then - hands.

Wet. Grey. Wrong.

They reach up from the depths and grab your legs.

You’re pulled under.

The cold is immediate. Like knives. Like winter’s final breath.

You fight - kick, thrash, scream - but nothing escapes your throat.

The creature pulls you deeper. Its face is closer now. Elongated jaw. Teeth like glass. Gills that twitch and pulse.

You hear your heartbeat slowing.

You see stars - not in the sky, but behind your eyes.

And then -

CRACK.

You break the surface with a scream.

Hands yank you from the water.

You’re on the riverbank, coughing, drenched, alive.

And hovering over you is a woman with a knife and a smirk.

“Seriously?” She huffs, tossing her wet braid over her shoulder. “You’ve been here, what, two weeks? And you’re already trying to get yourself eaten?”

You blink, water streaming from your lashes.

She crouches beside you, dark leather jacket soaked, boots caked in mud. Her accent is Russian, her voice sharp, amused, unimpressed.

“I’m Yelena,” she says. “I’m your rescue party.”

You sit by her fire an hour later, wrapped in a thermal blanket that smells like cigarettes and gun oil. Yelena hands you a tin cup of something hot - probably not just tea, based on the sting - and waits until you’ve stopped shaking before she speaks again.

“You found it,” she says.

You nod slowly. “What was that?”

She tilts her head. “We call it the Hollow Deep. It’s older than the town. Older than the river. No one knows where it came from. No one talks about it.”

“But it’s alive.”

“Yes,” she says simply. “And it remembers.”

You stare into the fire.

“Why was it watching me?”

Yelena pulls her knees to her chest. The shadows flicker over her sharp features - eyes too smart, too tired for someone so young.

“Because it knows what’s happening to you,” she says. “Like I do.”

You glance at her. “What is happening to me?”

“You’re changing.”

You flinch.

“It’s not bad,” she adds. “But it’s real.”

You don’t say anything.

She pokes the fire with a stick, like she can conjure meaning from flame.

“Your blood remembers things. Old things. Forgotten things. Your grandmother protected the ward, but it wasn’t just a spell - it was a contract. Bound by blood. Now that she’s gone, the Hollow is waking up to see if you can take her place.”

You blink. “I don’t even know what I am.”

Yelena looks at you.

“You’re a blood-keeper. A thread between the living and the ancient. A bridge.”

You try to laugh. It comes out hollow.

“That thing in the water didn’t want a bridge. It wanted to eat me.”

Yelena snorts. “Yeah, it does that. But only to people who aren’t ready to accept who they are.”

Your heart stutters.

“So I failed?”

She gives you a look. “You’re still breathing, aren’t you?”

You exhale. Shaky.

She rises and stretches. You watch the way her body shifts - too fluid, too graceful.

“What are you?” You ask.

She flashes you a grin full of teeth.

“Shapeshifter,” she says. “Born feral, raised in the shadows, professionally pissed off.”

“That tracks.”

She laughs and tosses you a dry jacket. “Come on, river girl. I’ll walk you back.”

The walk is quiet at first.

The Hollow feels different now. Every twig underfoot makes you flinch. Every gust of wind sounds like a whisper. You glance over your shoulder more than once.

Yelena notices.

“They’ll come faster now,” she says.

You frown. “Who?”

“The Order. The Hollow Deep stirred. That kind of ripple echoes.”

You wrap your jacket tighter around yourself.

She glances at you sideways. “You’ve met the vampire, haven’t you?”

“Bucky?”

Her lips twitch. “He doesn’t usually show himself. Must’ve smelled something interesting.”

“Yeah,” you mutter. “Me.”

“Could be worse,” she says. “He’s broody, but not the worst monster in town.”

You stop walking.

She does too.

“Are you one of them?” You ask. “A monster?”

Yelena shrugs. “I’ve been called worse.”

“And yet you saved me.”

Don’t get used to it,” she says, grinning. “You’re just interesting right now.”

You smile despite yourself.

Back at the manor, the fog is thicker.

Yelena doesn’t follow you to the porch.

“You’ll be okay,” she says. “Just… don’t go back to the river alone.”

You nod. “Will I see you again?”

She raises an eyebrow. “You’re in the Hollow now, blood-keeper. You’ll see all of us eventually.”

She shifts then - right before your eyes.

Her body bends, blurs, becomes something smaller, faster, golden-eyed. A fox. Lean and lithe. She darts into the woods without a sound.

You stand alone.

The river still clings to your skin like a memory.

And in the distance, deep beneath the earth, something sings.

Not a song of joy.

A call.

A promise.

A warning.

That night, you wake with damp hair and cold feet.

There’s mud on your floor.

You trace it to the window.

And on the sill, marked in river silt, is a symbol.

The same one that burns in your palm.

The Hollow hasn’t finished with you.

Not yet.

[mystictf]

Chapter 8: The Order of Ash

Word count: 1165

You meet Clint Barton at dusk.

He arrives like a ghost through the back woods, muddy boots silent on the ground, cloak blending into the trees. You only notice him because the birds go quiet, like they know what walks among them.

You’re standing in the clearing behind the manor, the place where boundary stones are cracked and the sigils burn low. You’ve been coming out here at sunset, when the ward pulses weakest, when the Hollow exhales in flickers and moans.

You feel it now - something behind the trees watching.

Then it shifts, and he steps forward.

Not a monster.

But not normal, either.

There’s somethin about Clint Barton that feels… unfinished. Like he’s made of edges and regrets. His bow is slung low on his back. His coat is frayed at the hem. His face is older than you expected - weathered, haunted - but his eyes are sharp.

Too sharp.

You flinch, reaching for the blade in your coat.

He doesn’t move.

“Not here to hurt you,” he says, voice low, dry as kindling.

“Most people who say that are lying.”

He cracks a half-smile. “You’re not wrong.”

You stare at each other across the mossy stretch of dying ward line.

“Clint Barton,” he offers after a pause. “Used to hunt monsters. Now I mostly clean up after them.”

You raise an eyebrow. “What’s the difference?”

He shrugs. “Intent.”

You study him. “Why are you here?”

His gaze shifts to the manor, to the crumbling walls and whispering windows.

“Because they’re coming,” he says “And you need to know who’s going to try to kill you before they knock on the front door.” 

He doesn’t ask to come inside.

He doesn’t need to.

Clint walks through the manor like he’s been here before. He traces his fingers across the banister in the front hall, avoiding the cracks in the floor like old habits still matter. 

In the study, he settles into a chair by the fire, hat off, boots still dusty with pine needles.

You keep your distance. You don’t trust him. Not yet. But you listen.

Because something about him feels true.

“Your grandmother and I knew each other,” he says.

“Let me guess - when she was the blood-keeper?”

He nods. “When I was younger. Before the Order came back.”

You frown. “The Order?”

His eyes darken

“The Order of Ash. They're not protectors. They’re cleansers. They think the only way to keep the Hollow safe is to purge it. Fire, salt, iron. Doesn’t matter if something’s peaceful or violent - if it’s supernatural, it burns”

“And you were part of that?”

“I left before they went full frantic.”

You sit down across from him.

Clint leans forward.

“There’s a man named John Walker,” he says. “Used to be military. Got pulled into the Hollow years ago - lost his wife to something in the trees. Instead of grieving, he turned it into religion.”

You shiver.

“He started preaching about purification,” Clint continues. “About fire cleansing the earth. He’s got a following now. About a dozen strong. Armed. Trained. Convinced they’re doing the Lord’s work.”

Your voice is tight. “And me? How do I fit into this?”

“You’re a blood-keeper. The last one. You’re the seal’s tether. That makes you a threat.”

You stare at the fireplace, at the dying embers.

“Why tell me?” You ask. “Why risk warning me?"

Clint leans back in the chair, eyes hooded.

“Because your grandmother saved my life,” he says. “And because I owe this town more than just silence.”

Later, you show him the letters.

He doesn’t touch them.

But his expression softens.

“She really believed in you,” he says quietly. “She thought you’d be the one to finish what she started.”

You feel the weight of those words settle into your bones.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” you admit.

“You don’t have to yet,” Clint replies. “You just have to stay alive long enough to learn.”

You snort. “Great. Just survive. No pressure.”

He cracks a small smile again. “You’ve got allies, you know. The wolf-boy - he’s still watching. And the pale one…”

“Bucky?”

“Yeah. He’s dangerous.”

“He hasn’t hurt me.”

Clint’s eyes narrow.

“Doesn’t mean he won’t. Vampires don’t change what they are. They just learn how to lie quieter.”

You meet his gaze.

“He’s not lying.”

Clint doesn’t argue. But he doesn’t agree, either.

That night, the town is louder.

You hear trucks moving through the main road long after midnight. You see smoke rise from the east hill, where the old church used to be. Clint leaves before dawn with a promise to return - and a quiet warning. 

“They’re not going to wait much longer.”

You nod.

He places a hand on your shoulder as he passes you on the porch.

“If you see a red flare in the sky, don’t run toward it.”

“Why?”

“Because it means someone’s started burning.”

You don’t sleep.

Instead, you return to the hidden room beneath the manor - the one where the heartstone lives. The one that pulses when your blood gets too warm.

You kneel beside the basin.

The water glows faintly now, more alive than it was days ago. It ripples when your hand hovers about it, like it wants you.

You whisper, “What am I supposed to do?”

It doesn’t answer.

But something does stir behind you.

Bucky.

He doesn’t speak as he enters the room, silent as a grave.

His eyes are darker tonight. More shadow than storm. He stays by the wall, close to the carved sigils.

You watch him through the water’s reflection.

“You know about them,” you say softly.

“The Order?”

You nod.

He nods too.

“I’ve fought them before,” he murmurs. “A long time ago. In another place. Another war.”

You turn. “What do they want?”

“To erase us. To erase the supernatural. To erase the world until it makes sense to them.”

You study him, his stillness.

“They’re coming for me,” you whisper.

“I know.”

“Will you help?”

His jaw tense. “You shouldn’t trust me.”

“I already do.”

His eyes flicker to yours.

“You smell like power,” he says. “Like blood that remembers. They’ll want to break you open and see what comes out.”

You step toward him. “What if something’s already coming out?”

He doesn’t smile.

He just steps closer.

“You’re changing,” he says. “I can feel it.”

You look down at your palms - sigils burned into flesh, faintly glowing now.

“I don’t know if it’s a good thing. I don’t know if I’m ready.”

He tilts his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because the Hollow’s not going to wait for you to feel ready.”

He vanishes before dawn.

No goodbyes. No warning.

Just leaves behind a feather coated in silver ash, resting on the basin edge.

You stare long after he’s gone.

Because it’s not just any feather.

It’s from something not of this world.

And it means only one thing:

Something’s already crossed the boundary.

And Clint was right.

The Order won’t wait much longer.

[mystictf]

Chapter 7: Letters from the Dead

Word count: 1065

The manor is quieter now.

Not peaceful - never peaceful - but quieter, like it’s watching instead of whispering. Like it’s waiting.

It happens on a rainy morning. The kind where the sky never quite turns to day, where light drips through the windows like milk gone sour. You’re in the attic - where the dust breathes thicker than the air - and something draws your eye to the far wall. Not a sound. Not a shadow. Just a… pull.

There’s an old chest tucked beneath a sagging window frame. Not hidden exactly. Just forgotten.

The lock clicks open far too easily.

Inside: fabric eaten by time, the scent of dried lavender and old firewood. Beneath a stack of yellowed linens, your fingers find paper.

Not brittle. Not mold-soft.

Letters.

Stacked in twine. Marked in a curling script you haven’t seen in over a decade.

Your name.

Written in your grandmother’s hand.

Your throat tightens before your heart even has time to catch up.

The first letter is dated over a year ago. Before her death. Before she ever sent for you.

Before you ever dreamed of Black Hollow.

My darling girl,

I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner.

But I needed time. Time to remember, time to regret.

You are reading this because you came. That means I am gone. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.

But the Hollow is waking. And you are the last.

You sit down hard, the air gone from your lungs.

The words press into your bones. The rain taps harder on the roof, like even the sky wants to listen.

You unfold the next.

There is a power in you.

More than you’ve guessed. More than I ever taught you. It isn’t just blood, it’s memory. It remembers its task.

We are the last of the blood-keepers. Our line stretches back beyond this place - beyond the founding of the Hollow, beyond even names. We were made to guard something. Something older than the town. Older than the forest.

And now the ward is breaking.

You read all six letters by lantern light.

Each one is a confession. A lesson. A warning.

She tells you about the seal beneath the manor. How your blood reacts because it knows. She tells you about the creatures in the forest - not just Bucky. Not just Steve. Others. Some that wear faces, some that borrow them. She tells you about the heartstone, hidden in the manor’s foundation. A relic, pulsing with something ancient and alive.

She tells you not to trust the Hollow’s silence.

The last letter is short. Unsteady in handwriting.

I was wrong to run from it.

Don’t make the same mistake.

Let the blood remember.

Let the Hollow speak.

But never open the door without your name.

Not unless you’re ready to bleed.

Love always,

Nana.

You cry when you finish it.

Not because it hurts. Not really.

You cry because suddenly you understand. Why you were called here. Why the air changes when you breathe too deep. Why the manor pulses under your feet like a buried heart.

Because you’re not just a girl in a haunted house anymore.

You’re a key.

You’re a weapon.

You’re the last line of a broken bloodline - and something is clawing at the ward to get in.

Or to get out.

That night, the dreams return.

Your grandmother’s voice calls through the trees, soft and low like a lullaby. The manor burns around her silhouette, and her eyes glow red like coals buried too long in ash.

“It’s not just hunger,” she whispers. “It's a memory.”

The forest turns black.

And something with antlers and too many teeth crawls out of the roots.

You wake to thunder.

But it isn’t the sky.

It’s the manor.

It’s shaking.

You stumble out of bed, grabbing the bundle of letters, and race toward the study - where the floorboards moan, where the sigils on your palms always ache the most.

The door is back.

That strange, wooden one. The one carved with your name. Only now, it’s glowing - a pale, pulsing light around the edges like it’s lit from inside.

The letters buzz in your grip.

You reach for the handle.

The sigils flare.

And from behind you - a sound.

Not the manor groaning. Not the wind.

A voice.

“Don’t.”

You spin.

Steve stands at the top of the stairs, eyes dark, shirt damp from the rain. His expression is strained - something between warning and regret.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you whisper.

He steps closer. “I told you to leave.”

“And I told you I’m not going anywhere.”

He stares at the glowing door. His jaw flexes.

“You found the letters,” he says. Not a question.

You nod.

“She knew,” he says. “Your grandmother. She kept the seal alive as long as she could.”

You search his face. “And you? What are you keeping alive?”

He doesn’t answer.

Instead, he says, “The moment you open that door, things change. You’ll change.”

“I already am.”

He looks at you like you’re made of glass. Of prophecy. Of something too close too breaking.

“She died to keep it closed,” he says.

“She died because it was opening anyway.”

Thunder rumbles again.

Only now you know it’s not from the sky.

Steve turns as if he hears something beyond the walls.

“I can protect you from them,” he says quietly. “But not from what’s in there.”

You place your hand on the doorknob.

The sigils burn.

And then you say it:

“I don’t want protection.”

And open the door.

Inside:

Dust. Cold. Dark.

And a staircase.

Stone. Spiralling. Leading down.

At the bottom is a room that hums like a living thing.

The walls are carved with sigils matching the ones on your palms. The air smells of iron and violets and earth.

And in the centre of the floor:

A stone basin.

Filled with water that glows faintly red.

You step closer.

Your sigils pulse

Your bloodline remembers.

A voice - her voice - echoes from the corners of the room, half dream, half memory.

“Feed the stone, and it will remember you. Feed it nothing, and it will forget you.”

The water shimmers.

You stare at your palms.

Then at the letters.

Then back at the water.

You press your fingers to the edge - and the basin ripples with light.

The room whispers a name.

Your name.

And the Hollow breathes.

[mystictf]

So I made a wheel. A very chaotic wheel. A wheel packed full of AUs, tropes, and character dynamics. Some classic, some cursed, some completely unhinged. And because I have no self-control and a deep love for chaos, I spun it twice for each participant!

The result? Everyone got assigned two completely random prompts, and their mission was to write a fic combining both prompts! The only limit being it had to be for a Sebastian Stan / Chris Evans character.

Below is the masterlist of all the brilliant works that came out of this little gamble with fate. There are still plenty of writers working on their fics (including me!) so this list will be continuously updated.

Please do check out their fics, leave likes, reblogs, comments, love letters, snacks, offerings of devotion...you get the idea. Every single person who took part is wildly talented and made this challenge so much fun. I’m honestly in awe of the imagination and heart poured into each piece <3

⚡︎ - means the fic contains smut - but check tags for full warnings.

carve me clean by @societyfolklore ⚡︎ ↳ cult au, chef au - nick fowler - being extended into a series

dark desires behind black eyes by @buck-star ⚡︎ ↳ teacher au, demon - chase collins

orchids to ashes by @wildflowersandvibranium ↳ apocalypse au, childhood friends to lovers - bucky barnes

in it for the tips by @daydreamgoddess14 ↳ coffee shop au, sugar daddy au - nick fowler

ride 'em, cowboy by @azriona ⚡︎ ↳ breeding, chubby, tattooed, cowboy - bucky barnes

setting the scene by @navybrat817 ⚡︎ ↳ cam boy, club owner - bucky barnes - being extended into a series

stranded in the stacks by @sunday-bug ↳ teacher, stranded au - bucky barnes

too late by @probablybucky ↳ best friend's sister, lovers to enemies - bucky barnes

beans and badges by @writing-for-marvel ↳ cop au, barista - bucky barnes

i don't know who to choose by @sergeantbarnessdoll ↳ temporary amnesia, love triangle - carter caizen / tj hammond

beneath the bones of the land by @marvelstoriesepic ↳ vampire, farmer au - bucky barnes

run to you by @ramp-it-up ⚡︎ ↳ security guard, one bed - nick fowler

big thank you for @buck-star for encouraging the madness and helping me make the wheel! and to all the lovelies on discord for going along with this chaotic and unorganised event lol! if anyone else feels like joining hmu!

[mystictf]

j | 30s | she/her | main | tutorials | divider recs!

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[mystictf]

Chapter 6: Old Teeh, New Blood

Word count: 826

You find Bucky at the edge of the dead tree clearing, just before sunset.

He’s standing perfectly still, bathed in twilight, like he belongs to it. Like dusk is his natural hour - when the world forgets what’s human and what’s not.

He doesn’t look at you when you approach. Doesn’t speak.

But he knows you’re there.

The sigil on your palm hums when you step into the clearing. It’s been doing that more lately - reacting to places, people, him.

He finally turns his head, just enough to glance at you over his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t keep coming here,” he says.

You ignore the warning. “There’s a door in the manor. It wasn’t there before. My name is carved into it.”

He says nothing.

“I haven’t opened it,” you add. “But I can feel it breathing.”

“Then don’t open it,” he replies, too fast.

You take another step. “You know what’s behind it?”

He finally faces you. His eyes - gray and deep and endless - are tired.

“I know what wants to be behind it,” he says.

“And what’s that?”

He doesn’t answer.

Instead, he takes a slow breath. It shudders out of him like he’s holding something back.

“You came for answers,” he says.

“I came for the truth.”

He nods, jaw tight. “Then you should know - some truths don’t want to be found. They bite back.”

You don’t flinch.

“You should be scared of me,” he says softly.

You hold his gaze. “Then prove it.”

Something in him shifts - tightens. Like a dam cracking.

He moves to the edge of the clearing and sits on a fallen log, arms resting on his knees. He looks like a ghost trying to remember how to be a man.

“You want the story?” He says without looking at you. “Fine.”

You sit across from him, careful and quiet.

He begins.

“Before I was cursed, I was a man with blood on his hands. A soldier. I followed orders, no matter how sharp they cut. I thought loyalty meant survival.”

His fingers curl slightly.

“There was a village - small, hidden in the mountains. We were told they were harboring something dangerous. Magic users. Witches. Subversives. Threats to peace.”

You feel your stomach drop.

“They weren’t.” His voice is flat now. “They were farmers. Mothers. Children. Old men who prayed over herbs. But orders were orders.”

He pauses.

“We burned it. All of it.”

You don’t move. You barely breathe.

“One woman survived. I remember her face better than my own. Her eyes were red - not from tears. Not from blood. From power. She didn’t scream. She just looked at me and said one word: ‘Curse.’”

He leans forward.

“And then she vanished.”

You say nothing.

“After that, I didn’t sleep. I didn’t bleed right. I couldn’t eat. I stopped aging. I couldn’t die. My body turned on itself - teeth, claws, thirst. I killed men in my sleep. I drank from them. I didn’t want to, but I did.”

He finally looks at you.

“I don’t feed on people anymore,” he says quietly. “Haven’t in years.”

“But you still want to,” you say.

He doesn’t deny it.

“My scent,” you murmur. “You said the forest remembered me. Is that what you meant?”

“No,” he says. “You’re not just blood. You’re familiar. Like something I lost.”

His voice drops to a whisper.

“And I can smell you everywhere.”

Your pulse spikes. You swallow.

“Bucky…”

He stands suddenly, pacing, muscles taut beneath his shirt like he’s barely holding them in place.

“I hear your heartbeat when I’m nowhere near you. I can feel you in the trees, in the air, in the soil. I haven’t fed in so long, and it’s getting harder to breathe.”

“You haven’t hurt me.”

“Yet.”

You step forward. “If you were going to, you would’ve.”

“I’m not safe,” he breathes. “You should stay away from me.”

You don’t stop walking.

“I’m trying,” you whisper.

The space between you shrinks, until you can feel the warmth of him. Or maybe it’s the cold.

You reach out, hand brushing his sleeve.

He inhales sharply, jaw tightening.

“I remember what I was before the curse,” he says. “I had choices. Control. Now all I have is instinct and shame.”

“You still have a soul,” you say. “You wouldn’t feel guilt if you didn’t.”

He closes his eyes like the weight of that almost breaks him.

“You trust too easily,” he says.

“I don’t trust you,” you whisper. “But I see you.”

He opens his eyes.

And for one second, you think he’s going to kiss you.

But instead, he steps back.

“If the Hollow wakes fully,” he says, “everything buried will rise. That includes me.”

You watch him melt back into the shadows like he was never fully here to begin with.

You don’t stop him.

Because your sigil is glowing again.

And behind your name-carved door, something has begun to whisper in a voice that sounds almost like your own.

[mystictf]

Shadow Protocol (Interlude Mission)

Word count: 2216

Midnight Briefing - Location Classified

Rain hammered the windows of the blacked out - ops room. Val paced in front of a holographic screen, the glow casting her face in a colder shade of cruelty.

“We lost contact with an asset embedded inside an off-books HYDRA offshoot - codename: Echo Circuit. Think black market tech, synthetic enhancements, human experimentation. They’ve gone quiet. Which is bad.”

She clicked a button. The screen filled with grainy drone footage: bodies on stretchers. Glimpses of metallic implants. Strange machinery glowing blue in an underground lab.

“Our asset’s last message contained one phrase: ‘Protocol unlocked. They’re testing on themselves now.’”

She turned to the team.

“You’re going in. Find the asset. Shut Echo Circuit down.”

No jokes. No protests. Just silence.

Bucky’s jaw clenched.

Yelena tapped her leg rhythmically.

Ava phased slightly without meaning to.

Walker cracked his knuckles.

Bob looked downward. His golden glow flickered - dim, uneasy.

Alexei finally broke the quiet. “So we break things?”

Val smiled, wolf-like.

“Precisely. But try not to break each other this time.”

Mission Infil - 03:22 AM - Black Forest, Germany

A mist clung to the pine trees. The entrance to the facility was buried beneath an abandoned lumber mill. A reinforced elevator shaft led down nearly twenty stories.

They descend in silence.

No quips. No distractions.

Bucky led, rifle drawn.

Ava ghosted through walls ahead, scouting.

Yelena covered the rear security, eyes sharp.

Bob hovered just above the floor, barely touching the ground.

Alexei and Walker were the muscle.

A professional formation.

Until the doors opened.

Facility Level: Sub-Basement

The lab was empty.

Too empty.

Blood, not fresh, painted the tiles. Medical beds were overturned. Monitors still flashed with biometric readouts - but no patients.

Walker swore under his breath. “Where the hell are the bodies?”

Ava turned, her voice low. “Something’s wrong. The frequencies in here… feel warped.”

Bob said nothing, but his head tilted. He looked… alert. Distant. Like a radio trying to tune itself to something that wasn’t there.

Yelena picked up a cracked tablet. Scrolled through data. Her breath caught.

“They weren’t building weapons.”

She turned the screen around.

“They were trying to become them”

Genetic splice data. Enhancer protocols. Stability tests. Failures. Lots of failures.

Project: MIRROR HOST

Status: Activated. Incomplete. Escaped.

Suddenly - BANG!

A blast door slammed shut behind them.

Bucky pivoted. “Trap.”

From the far corridor, a figure stepped out.

Human outline.

Wrong in every other way.

Too tall. Skin like mercury, constantly shifting. No eyes. Just a stretched, faceless mask of shimmering silver.

It opened its mouth.

And screamed.

The lights went out.

Blackout - 03:38 AM

Red emergency lights flickered on, one by one.

Somewhere deeper in the facility, a metallic scream echoed like a sonar pulse. It shook the walls. The team scattered - separated by slamming doors and shifting corridors that should not have moved.

Protocol Shift: The facility was alive.

SECTOR A - Bucky & Yelena

They pressed against opposite sides of the hallway, backs to metal.

Footsteps - wrong ones - echoed ahead. Fast. Staggered. And then… crawling.

“This thing isn’t just some lab rat,” Yelena whispered. “I think it’s trying to mimic us.”

“Not all of us,” Bucky said. “Just the most dangerous.”

A gurgled voice slithered through the corridor. Not quite spoken - more like regurgitated:

“Soldier… Widow… Let me try on your rage.”

Suddenly, the walls in front of them shimmered.

The Mirror Host emerged - not walking, but unfolding.

Its arms elongated, mimicking Bucky’s vibranium left and Yelena’s widow gauntlet in horrifying symmetry.

“Run?” Yelena offered.

“Run.”

They did.

SECTOR B - Ava & Bob

Ava phased through the warped hallway ahead - immediately collapsing to her knees.

“The walls… they’re laced with dark-matter tech. It’s pulling at my quantum state.”

Bob hovered near her, hands pulsing golden but dimmed - like something was resisting his light.

“This place is trying to override me,” he murmured. “Like it knows I don’t belong in the dimension."

“Do you?” Ava asked quietly, panting.

Bob didn’t answer.

Suddenly, from the ceiling, the Mirror Host dropped between them - its face now eerily mimicking Ava’s own, flickering and broken like a corrupted hologram.

“Ghost… Light… Half-things,” it whispered. “Let’s see who blinks first."

Before it could strike, Bob tackled it-not with strength, but with energy, wrapping it in a blinding cage of light that burned shadows into the walls.

“RUN!” He shouted, his voice like thunder.

Ava hesitated. Then phased through the floor.

Bob smiled faintly.

And then let go of the cage.

SECTOR C - Alexei & Walker

This part of the facility resembled a deconstructed simulation chamber - mirrors, obstacle scaffolding, and machine guns mounted at odd angles.

Alexei muttered, “This place looks like American Ninja Warrior, but haunted.”

Walker cracked his neck. “At least you can’t say it's boring.”

Then the lights warped - and four Mirror Hosts emerged, each a distorted version of themselves. One mimicked Alexei’s shield stance, another bore Walker’s swagger and weaponry.

“They’re using our combat data,” Walker growled.

Alexei grinned. “Then let’s feed them bad data.”

What followed was chaos - improvised manoeuvres, shield throws into reflective walls, Walker using his grappling line to clothesline a host mid-air.

Alexei used one of the mirrors to feint his reflections movements, then crushed it with a leaping elbow.

Still, two hosts remained.

And they were learning.

Facility Core - 03:58 AM

Somehow, one by one, the Thunderbolts reconvened in the main vault - a massive, circular room lined with containment pods. Most were empty.

Only one remained locked.

Inside: a girl, early 20s. Buzzcut. Emaciated. Hooked to wires. Eyes wide open - but not blinking.

Yelena knelt to inspect the control panel. “That’s our asset.”

Ava looked at the readouts. “Her name’s Selene Korrin. They were using her to copy our abilities onto themselves.”

“We were never on the mission,” Bucky said, jaw tightening. “We were the test subjects.”

Bob walked slowly to the centre. His body pulsed with quiet fury. The Mirror Host slithered in behind them, now grown into something bigger - formed from fragmented data of all of them.

It towered above.

It smiled.

“Now I know what it means to be Thunderbolt.”

It launched itself forward.

03:59 AM - The Vault is Breached

The Mirror Host launched first - too fast, too fluid. One arm morphed into a jagged version of Bucky’s vibranium one, the other crackled with Widow-sting energy. Its movements were erratic - but precise. Like it was guessing how they’d fight before they did.

Bucky was the first to intercept, blocking the blow with his left arm, while planting a mine on the creature’s leg.

Boom.

It stumbled. Regenerated in seconds.

“Of course it heals,” he muttered.

Walker shoulder-checked it back, using his shield to force it off-balance. “This thing’s like fighting a violent mirror.”

“Then smash the damn mirrors,” Yelena snapped.

She slid beneath its swings, stabbing it with electric rods - sparks burst from the creature’s midsection. For a moment, it split in two. Then recoiled, merging again.

“It’s adapting mid-fight. We’ve got a time limit.” Ava warned. “Every second, it learns us better."

04:02 AM - Bob’s Light Falters

Bob stood back, arms extended, trying to contain the creature in a field of force - but his glow flickered.

“It’s… mimicking me,” he said slowly. “Feeding on my energy signature. If I go full power - it’ll evolve.”

“Then don’t, Ava said. “Yet.”

She blinked out of sight - phased - and reappeared behind the Host, phasing halfway into its shoulder. It spasmed violently.

“You can’t copy what you don’t understand,” she whispered.

The Host reeled - but countered faster than expected, tossing Ava back across the vault.

Alexei caught her before she hit the ground, absorbing the brunt of her momentum.

“I like you better when you are invisible,” he groaned.

“Same.”

04:04 AM - The Asset Awakens

Selene, still locked in the pod, began to scream - not out of fear, but like a frequency rising.

The Host flinched.

Bob’s eyes widened. “She’s connected. She’s… disrupting its programming.”

“She’s not just an asset,” Yelena said, stepping toward the pod. “She’s the fail-safe.”

The Host roared, sensing the shift. It dashed toward Selene, ignoring the team completely.

Walker and Alexei leapt in its path.

“Oh no, Frankenstein. Pick on someone full-sized.”

Walker launched his shield.

Alexei lifted part of the floor plating and used it as a battering ram.

The Host crashed into them, throwing them both.

04:06 AM - The Kill Shot

Bucky, bloodied and silent, locked eyes with Bob. “Can you overload it without feeding it?”

Bob nodded slowly. “Only if it's stunned. Only if it’s… focused on me.”

“You sure?” Bucky asked.

“No. But I’ve been scared of myself long enough."

Bob walked forward.

The Host turned - recognising the challenge - and lunged.

Just before impact, Bob unleashed a blinding burst of energy that fractured the air like glass.

“NOW!” He screamed.

Bucky threw one of Yelena’s mines. Ava phased it into the creature’s chest.

Selene screamed again - and the energy in the room cracked.

BOOM

The Mirror Host exploded in a supernova of silver and gold.

Silence followed.

Smoke. Sparks. Breathing.

No more movement from the wreckage.

Just one phrase from Bob, gasping.

“It saw too much of us. That’s what broke it.”

04:10 AM - Aftermath

Selena collapsed inside the pod. Her vitals stable. The programming severed.

Val’s voice came through on the comms, somehow already aware.

“Extraction en route. Burn the site.”

Alexei looked at the ruined chamber, blinking ash from his lashes.

“That… was almost cool.”

Yelena sat down hard, wiping blood off her lip.

“Let’s not do that again.”

Walker groaned. “Speak for yourself.”

Ava chuckled once, then held her side, clearly hurting.

Bob hovered above the ground again. Quiet. Distant.

Bucky met his gaze.

“You held back.”

“Barely,” Bob said. “Because I saw what I could become. If I didn’t.”

“Let’s make sure you never do.”

DAY 2 - Safehouse Bravo, Romania

The storm outside hadn’t stopped since they arrived.

Wind lashed against old windows. Leaks dripped into buckets placed strategically across the floor. The place reeked of wet socks, iodine, and instant coffee.

John sat in the corner sharpening a knife that didn’t need sharpening.

Alexei had been pacing for an hour, muttering about how “real Russians don’t need debriefs, only vodka.”

Yelena sat on the counter, swinging her feet, chewing on a protein bar like it had personally wronged her.

Ava was curled under a blanket on the couch, headphones on but not playing anything.

Bob hadn’t spoken since they left Germany. He floated between rooms like a thought you didn’t want to have.

Bucky sat in front of the fire, gloves off. Hands shaking slightly. Watching them all.

Waiting.

Until the door creaked open.

And Val walked in.

“You survived. Good. I was starting to worry I’d have to replace half of you.”

Silence.

She tossed a tablet onto the table. It flickered to life with Selena’s face.

Still. Unblinking. Her vitals were stable, but her expression remained hollow.

“Your little rescue? It wasn’t part of the plan.”

“She’s alive,” Bucky said flatly.

“Barely,” Val snapped. “That girl was an AI-human interface prototype. She was the hub for Mirror Host. Designed to be absorbed. Sacrificed.

Yelena’s feet stopped swinging. “You knew that?”

“Of course, I knew that. That’s why we sent you.”

A beat.

“Not to rescue. To witness. To see what happened when something made from your patterns, your instincts, was released into the wild. A copy of your rage. Your trauma. Your loyalty.”

Walker stood. “You set us up.”

“I studied you."

Val shrugged off their reactions like dust from a jacket.

“And what did I learn? That even when cornered, even when mimicked, you fought for each other. That was… surprising.”

She looked at Bob, lingering too long.

“Even you, Sentry. For all your instability, you didn’t burn down the world. Not this time.”

Val walked out the door.

“Selene’s being moved to an off-books recovery facility. You won’t see her again.”

“She was conscious in there,” Ava whispered, “Screaming. You kept her awake while you let that thing rip her apart.”

“She’s useful, Ava. And she volunteered. A long time ago.”

Yelena looked at her like she might kill her.

Alexei actually growled.

Bucky stood slowly. Voice low. Dangerous.

“If we ever find out you’ve got another one of those -”

“You won’t,” Val said. “Because you’ll be too busy keeping yourselves from falling apart.”

She turned.

“Congratulations, Thunderbolts. You passed the test. Rest up. You’ll be back in the field soon.”

The door slammed behind her.

Silence.

Just fire and breathing.

John rubbed his face. “She’s lying about Selene. Right?”

No one answered.

Bob finally sat.

“I saw myself in that thing. Not just what I could become - but what someone wants me to become. Weaponised trauma. Manufactured monsters.”

“That’s all of us,” Bucky said.

“Except we didn’t break,” Ava whispered.

“No,” Yelena said. “We broke it instead.”

Alexei sat down hard. “I need ice cream.”

Later That Night

Bucky stared out the window. Yelena joined him. No words. Just the shared silence of survivors.

In another room, Bob hovered near the ceiling like he couldn’t trust gravity anymore.

Walker snored on the couch. Ava had fallen asleep beside him, head on his shoulder - barely touching, but there.

Alexei had eaten four frozen waffles and passed out in a recliner.

Battered, bruised, and stitched together.

But a team.

Somehow.

[mystictf]

Beneath the Bones of the Land (1)

Pairing: Vampire!Bucky x Reader (Farmer Au)

Summary: Inheriting the old farmhouse of your grandmother, you move to a town that watches you from the fields and makes the pines lean too close, and it isn’t long before you begin to fear you’ll lose your mind the way she did.

Word Count: 6.4k

Warnings: mild violence (supernatural); blood and injury description; town lore; implied death; non-consensual mind influence/compulsion (vampiric); gothic vibes; feelings of isolation, grief, depression (reader’s backstory, though nothing graphic); stalking; minor gore; implied cannibalism themes; emotional manipulation under supernatural influence; Reader is lonely

Author’s Note: Uh, I honestly have no idea what to even say here. This fic is so unlike anything I’ve ever created, but truthfully, it motivated me so intensely that I even intended to write so much more for it. However, I felt a little anxious about how people will even react to this, and I finally wanted to share something again, so I thought I’d provide this for now and see if y’all are interested in more. Anyway, this is written for @artficlly ’s Spin the Trope Event! My prompts were Vampire and Farmer Au, and I sure hope I succeeded in merging them in an intriguing way.

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

Maybe your grandmother wasn’t so crazy after all.

You used to think she was. Everyone did.

Her nails looked rusted and she always used to stir her tea with a chipped spoon at the very same kitchen table you are looking at right now with her pale-eyed stares and ink-blot dreams, her words dripping from her cracked lips down the sides of your childhood.

She’d sit on the porch with her knitted shawls and feral cats, whispering about dead things that breathed and soil that listened, and something - always something - watching from the cornfields with shining eyes.

Your parents would hush her, sharp and sudden with heated glares and tight smiles that left lines in their cheeks. “Stop scaring her, mother.” “Enough with the stories.”

They would tell you not to listen. Would tell you she was old, tired, her mind gone thin and fuzzy.

But standing here, in the kitchen space of her rotting farmhouse, you think maybe you should have listened. That maybe those stories weren’t stories at all.

Because Gallows Fen is not at all the town you had expected to move into.

It’s a town that exhales mist into the dawn, sighs when the wind rakes through the fields. The corn grows too tall, too fast, as though it cannot bear the stillness. The dirt is too dark, too soft, engulfing your boots whole when you step off the path. You have seen the crows lined along the telephone wires, and they all but stare down with glassy back eyes when you walk past. Sometimes you think they are whispering to each other, sometimes you think they’re laughing.

You moved here three weeks ago, grief clutched in your ribs like something refusing to die, and everything else in your life crumbling too quickly for you to mourn it properly. You packed up your small life with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking, you signed papers you don’t remember reading, and now you are here, in this farmhouse you’ve inherited that smells of your grandmother’s citrus soap and something even older, like iron and earth. It leans to the side ever so slightly, a little crooked, so imperfect, enough to worry you - but not enough to fall.

It has two chimneys, one working and one sealed shut with brick and rust. A front porch sagging. Windowpanes that blink in the night if you stare too long.

Inside, the walls talk to you when it rains. The attic door opens by itself on Tuesdays. And every morning at 5:47 am, the grandfather clock chimes once, even though it hasn’t worked in decades.

You’ve told yourself it’s the wind. Or mice. Or that your mind, feral with exhaustion, is inventing things.

You unpacked your sweaters into her creaking dresser and found salt sprinkled in the corners of every drawer. Found tiny jars of herbs hanging from the rafters. Found a lock of hair, tied with twine, in a small box under her bed, and you put it back without looking at it too long.

You thought small towns would be warm, curious, breezy, kind. But the people here stare too long. Their smiles are too wide, their teeth too pointed and white. They ask you how you’re settling in, how the house feels at night, how your grandma is doing although she died months ago. They ask if you’ve heard the sounds yet. You don’t ask what sounds. You don’t want to know.

Gallows Fen is small. Perhaps a little too small. The kind of place where the post office shares a roof with the barber shop, and the only grocery store sells both tomatoes and tombstones. It smells like burnt leaves and rotted fruit everywhere you go. Everything is quiet, but not peaceful quiet. More like something that’s waiting, something that’s anticipating, something that’s watching. A pressed-flower-under-glass way.

The people are nice, or something like it.

But they are definitely not normal.

There’s the woman who runs the bakery and she’s always wearing a red scarf, even in the heat, her teeth a little too sharp when she smiles. The boy who rides his bike in circles every dusk, not speaking, not stopping. The man who runs the inn but never opens it. He just sweeps the steps. All day. The butcher you saw wiping his hands onto a cloth that was already stained. You saw the florist snipping the heads off roses before they even open, dropping them into a jar of cloudy water. You saw the old woman at the diner stirring honey into her coffee, and when she pulled the spoon out, it dropped red.

And they always seem to hide in some sense. They all stay under awnings, behind curtains, under shadows like it’s a community thing.

Your grandmother’s stories don’t feel so far-fetched now.

And then there’s the farm next door.

Your neighbor.

You’ve never actually seen him. Not in daylight. Only the outline of him, moving behind curtains, moving through the fog that hangs low over his fields, turning the soil at night when the moon is heavy in the sky. Sometimes you see his shadow in the looming glow, standing there, like he’s waiting for something. Once you made out a gloved hand and a long black coat - just a flash - pulling shut a barn door at dawn. And that barn. That barn. Too tall. Too narrow. Always closed. Always breathing.

You feel it watching you.

And sometimes - though you’d never admit it aloud - you feel like someone is standing just beyond the treeline, holding their breath when you hold yours.

The fence between your properties is broken in places - iron posts strung with copper wire - and you thought about fixing it the first day, but ever since, every morning you find it mended with new wood, nails so clean they shine, only to have it broken again at night.

The field next to yours is sprawling, wild in its organization. Rows of wheat that sway even when there’s no wind. Trees with bark the color of dried blood. A scarecrow in the far corner that never seems to be in the same place twice.

You thought about knocking on your neighbor’s door.

But you haven’t dared to cross the fence.

Something holds you back.

Because sometimes, when you walk to the edge of your fields, the air stops its flow, the crows stop their crying, and you feel something pressing against your spine, like a hand that isn’t there. Sometimes, you think you hear your name on the wind, soft and mournful, as though spoken by lips no longer warm.

And other times, at night, you wake up with the taste of honey and iron on your tongue, and you hear footsteps on your porch that never knock, footsteps that wait until dawn before fading away.

You tell yourself it’s just your imagination, that the grief is making you see ghosts.

But you remember your grandmother’s words, soft and cracked, the night before your parents took you away for the last time.

“The land remembers, little doe. The land remembers what it is owed.”

And maybe she wasn’t so crazy after all.

Or maybe you’re just growing crazier.

Because you have been afraid before.

You have known the kind of fear that is patient and cruel. You’ve known the feeling of it tiptoeing around in your bones while you pretended you were fine, while you sipped coffee with trembling hands, while you counted your breaths so you wouldn’t fall apart in public. The kind of fear that leaves fingerprints on your throat and bruises on your mind, that sits on your chest while you try to sleep, whispering the names of the dead you couldn’t save, the ones you couldn’t keep.

You have known fear like an infection, muddy and rotting, turning everything you love into something sour.

You came into this mysterious town that breathes in the dark, to this house that smells of citrus and rust, to these fields that shift under your feet - all with the feeling of knowing fear.

But this isn’t what you know.

This fear tastes like ivy and oil. It wakes you up in the middle of the night, but it doesn’t choke you. It makes your blood move, makes your hand shake, but not with weakness, with something that’s sharp, alive.

You look out the window in the dawn and watch the fog slip across the fields like a hand stroking the earth. You see shapes move in that fog, sinister and lurching, and it frightens you, but it is a fear that feels like a clean wound, bright and stinging, something that might heal if you knew how to tend to it.

You think of all the places you have been afraid before - bathrooms with locked doors, hospital waiting rooms that smelled of bleach and sorrow, car rides that felt as if the air was already breathed into too much and every shift you made was a question.

You think of all the nights you lay awake, afraid of what tomorrow would take from you, afraid of who you were becoming, afraid that nothing would ever change.

And then you stand here on this creaking floor, staring at the fields that move when nothing should be moving, and you realize you are afraid again, but for whole other reasons.

This fear comes with the wind that smells like rain and soil, with the crows that call your name from the wires, with the footsteps on your porch that leave no dents in the wood. This fear comes with the possibility that there are things in this world older and stranger than your grief, that there are things worth being afraid of, things that demand your attention in a different way.

And it surprises you, how your heart beats under your ribs, how it wakes up in your chest as though it remembers what it was made for.

You catch your reflection in the window as it gets darker by the hour, hair falling around your face, eyes bruised with old sadness, and you almost laugh because for the first time in so long, you look almost alive.

Even if it’s in a place where the ground has lungs to breathe with, where the townspeople smile too wide, where the neighbor you have never seen mends your fences in the dark and leaves you with nothing but shadows to glimpse.

Even if you feel watched.

You breathe in the air, and you let the fear sit in your chest, let it warm you from the inside, let it tell you that something is coming, that you are standing on the edge of something you cannot see.

So you sit down on the couch chair your grandmother once ruled like a throne, legs pulled up under you, blanket around your shoulders, wondering just how much of what she said was a metaphor, and how much of it was a warning.

Because there certainly is something wrong here. But it is beautiful in its wrongness. Like a corpse with flowers blooming from the ribcage.

The town is too quiet. The sky is too black. The stars too close.

And somewhere out there, past the fence line, past the thistles and pitted steel, past the moon-glint bones buried beneath the pear tree-

Someone is watching you.

And he hasn’t blinked in a very long time.

****

You bleed so easily.

It’s stupid, really. A careless slip of the knife, a shard of porcelain from the chipped teacup your grandmother used to swear could never break - but now it’s in pieces on the floor and so are you, breathless from surprise, your skin open like a door.

The cut is thin but long, slicing across the pad of your palm, and the blood beads up like it’s proud of itself, dripping down your wrist in a shy line.

Warm. Red. Singing.

You curse softly under your breath - you need something to stop the bleeding. The farmhouse is full of books and dust and silence but nothing useful. No first aid kit. No rags. Just mothballs in drawers, and threadbare towels that smell as if they’ve been left there too long, and the sound of the walls exhaling behind you.

The floorboards creak under your feet as you wrap your bleeding hand in the corner of your sweater, feeling it warm and pulse, the fabric darkening.

So you step outside. On your way to the cabin. That strange little shed by the edge of the woods.

There’s a rose bush growing near the fenceline now. It wasn’t there yesterday. Thorns like bone fragments. Petals the color of dried blood and gold.

You haven’t touched them. But you’re tempted.

That’s the thing about this town - it invites you to reach out, knowing it will hurt when you do.

You’ve learned to keep your hands to yourself.

You’re carrying the old oil lamp from the house, the one with the cracked chimney glass and the moths trapped inside. They keep fluttering, even though the flame is long gone. You don’t know what that means.

Nothing makes sense here.

Not the trees that lean in, listening. Not the rain that falls only on Sundays. Not the mirror in your hallway that shows things behind you that aren’t there when you turn around.

The air is cold around your skin, the sky darker than it should be, the moon is a milk-pale witness and you clutch your hand to your chest as if to hide the blood from the night, as if it’s something shameful, as if it’s something holy.

The cabin crouches there, at the end of the field, in front of the woods, as if it’s waiting for you, wood swollen with rain from last Sunday, door creaking when you push it open. It smells like the breath of something that’s been sleeping too long.

The lantern casts its honey-colored glow across the old wood walls, lighting up dust motes that float with nowhere to go. You step inside, breathing too loud, heart too fast. You don’t even notice how the air thickens. How it tightens around you like a noose.

A breeze shivers through the small space, like a sigh that had lost its body and was looking for a throat to borrow.

Shapes form in the dark that weren’t there before.

You are not alone.

You know it. Not by sound. Not by sight.

But something presses.

Not footsteps. Not a whisper.

Just presence.

Like a second shadow peeling itself from your spine.

Like eyes you can’t see, blinking in the dark behind your bones.

It touches you first through scent.

Smoke. Winter. Iron.

Something burning, but long after the fire has died.

“You're bleeding.”

The low voice comes from nowhere. And everywhere.

You freeze and then stumble out of the cabin. The flashlight trembles in your grip, skates wildly over the trees. Empty.

“Who's there?” you call, heart thudding too fast. Too loud.

No reply. Not right away.

Then, behind you. Close. Too close.

“You shouldn't be out here.”

You spin with a panicked gasp, and he’s there.

Leaning against the frame of the cabin like he stepped out of the shadows, born from them. Not a sound. Not a warning. Just here, and your breath leaves you so fast you feel lightheaded.

Shadows hunch over his boots, the outline of him drawn in darkness, just outside the glow of your lantern.

His silhouette is tall and unspeakably still. His face carved from the kind of sorrow that leaves bruises, all sharp cheekbones and dusk-shadowed stubble. His eyes catch the light and hold it - gray and silver, depthless. Hungry.

He doesn’t move, and yet the air around him feels like it’s rushing toward you, collapsing into the hollow of your chest.

You blink, and his face is clearer - but not clearer. Pale skin. Eyes like ice, or mirrors, or graves. You’ve seen his shadow at a distance before. In the corner of your eye. Behind trees. Watching. Waiting.

And now he is here.

Your neighbor.

“You’re hurt,” he says again. His voice is syrupy-slow, smooth, and you think you hear hunger in it, something feral pressed behind the consonants, the vowels slipping around your throat like cold hands.

You press your palm to your arm. “It’s fine. Just a cut.” Your voice is small, and the lantern trembles in your other hand, throwing him in and out of light.

But his gaze is locked there. On your hand. You glimpse his eyes, dark and too bright, burning a cold blue that should not be named a color.

The wind moves, and so does he.

He is closer now, without a sound, without a footstep, the scent of pine and something older mixing around you, the lantern light glinting off the edge of his jaw, his lips parted just enough for you to see the sharp white of his teeth.

“You need to stop it,” he remarks lowly, voice turning rougher. His voice is pouring over you, dark and sweet nectar, like something you’d drink before realizing it was poison. “The bleeding.”

“I was trying,” you reply, your fear changing the tone of your voice. “There's nothing in the house.”

His eyes are still on your hand, and his nostrils flare. He swallows, throat working, and you can almost see him fighting with himself, the way his fingers flex, the way he tilts his head as if listening to something.

You take a step back.

He steps forward.

“You should be more careful,” he notes, but it doesn’t sound genuine. His eyes snap to your lips, your throat, your hand, back to your eyes. His pupils are wide, swallowing blue, swallowing reason.

You gulp down a harsh breath.

Your lantern flickers, dies, plunging you both into darkness so thick it tastes like earth on your tongue. Your breath hitches audibly.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispers, sinful and decadent, sounding closer once more, and you feel it, the words sinking into your mind, sodden with gloom, soft and shadow-draped. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”

And you don’t.

Your fear falls through the floor of your own body, drawing tight into silence, and your mind follows, quieting like a pond gone still. Your heart still beats too fast, but the fear is gone, replaced by a soft, strange trust that feels like it’s dead but still knows how to brush your hands.

He steps forward again and you’re too slow, your body lagging behind. His hand comes up, gloved fingers brushing your wrist

His other hand lifts, almost tender, to the crook of your elbow. He draws you forward an inch.

And another.

You’re not sure you gave permission.

You pull in a sharp breath.

You open your mouth to speak, but the words don’t come. His eyes catch you, and your tongue goes still, your limbs go quiet, your thoughts begin to dissolve at the edges like paper set on fire. It’s not fear. Not exactly.

It’s awe. And heat. And something blooming in your bones that you don’t have a name for.

His gaze falls back to your hand.

You forgot about the blood.

But he didn’t.

His breath catches, and you feel it in your spine like a chord being plucked. Something in his face shifts - falls apart. Like he’s fighting something inside himself and losing.

He leans in.

Too close. Too near. His face sharp in the moonlight, jaw locked, lips parted. You see it now, fully - the edge of a fang, just barely pressing into his bottom lip.

You can’t explain it - you don’t even think to try - but there is something pressing on your mind. Not a shove, but a caress with purpose. Like something smooth soaked in shadow, slipping across your thoughts. Like fingers dipped in fog, tightening gently around your mind until even your silence isn't yours anymore.

“Shh,“ he whispers coaxingly, voice sticky and laced with something sweet. “Be still.”

Your body does exactly that.

Not out of fear. Your muscles ease. Your fingers uncurl from the fabric of your shirt. Your lungs move but you don’t remember telling them to. A calm seeps into your bones that isn’t yours.

Your thoughts slow. Gentle. Muted.

And your heart - the part of you screaming to run - fades into a hush, like a song turned down in another room.

He leans in further, his lips almost at your throat now. His breath ghosts across your skin. You shiver. But your feet don’t move.

Because he told you not to.

And your body listens.

“God,” he whispers, voice so quiet. He presses his nose to the curve of your neck, inhales deeply, and you feel it in your knees, feel something inside you coming undone.

He parts his lips. Pulls back ever so slightly.

Your skin tingles.

You watch, dazed, as he lifts your hand to his lips, his fingers cold. His eyes flutter shut. You feel the warmth of his breath on his skin, the cold press of his mouth over the cut.

Your mind is an echoing cathedral of soft, drifting thoughts. You know you should be afraid. You should scream. You should run. Why aren’t you running? Why does this feel like a blessing, why does this feel like a sin?

You feel the sharp scrape of his fangs against your skin, just a kiss, just a threat, just a promise. His mouth opens, and you feel the tip of his tongue, cold, lapping at the blood.

A sound escapes him, low and broken, something escaping in a breathless exhale, and his grip on your hand tightens, his other arm sliding around your waist to pull you into him.

Your breath stutters and you find yourself arching forward, something like heat, like lightning, like terror tearing through your veins.

You are not afraid.

You should be.

Then he freezes.

You see it, but you don’t understand it - the sudden panic that blooms across his face, the way his eyes widen, blue and blazing and terrified of themselves, of you, of this moment.

He tears his mouth away from your skin so fast it makes you gasp. He is breathing hard, eyes locked on yours, and you see the blood on his lips, your blood, glinting in the moonlight.

He backs away instantly, as if scorched.

His eyes fall down to your hand again, then back up to you, and something deep and haunting grips his expression. He stares at you as though he doesn’t quite know what you are, as though he doesn’t know what he is.

“I’m sorry.” It's not quite human, the way he says it. There's too much ache in it. Too much weight.

You are still floating in the hush of it, blinking slowly back at him, your fear still absent, replaced by something soft, something aching. You want his mouth back on you.

Your neighbor curses to himself, jaw tightening, eyes closing for a breath, two.

He turns from you. Runs a hand over his face like he could scrub the want out of his bones.

He has already put distance between you and you don’t like that. So you take a step toward him again, and his eyes immediately snap open. His eyes are still storm-tossed, a warning within them. With fumbling hands, he retrieves something from his pocket. A cloth so it seems. He holds it out to you.

“For your hand.” His voice is hoarse.

You take it.

Your fingers touch his.

He shudders and jerks away.

The fabric is warm. You don’t ask questions, you just press it to your hand.

The man in front of you lets out a rough exhale that shakes just a little. His eyes flash back to you. Hook into your mind. They are cold now, resolved. A hand of his lifts up to your face, brushing a strand of hair from your face with an intimacy that breaks something in you.

His gaze is searing. You cannot look away.

Slowly, your voice seeps back into your throat. “Who are you?” Your voice is soft, slightly slurring.

He hesitates. The wind dances around his shoulders. His voice is quieter this time. A confession.

“James Barnes,” he says. “Most call me Bucky.”

You stare. “You’re my neighbor.”

A nod. Slow. He doesn’t blink. Just keeps staring into your eyes with a gaze so intense, your body trembles from it.

His eyes tighten again. “Go back inside,” he commands, voice rough, darkened by something.

You don’t want to. The thought of leaving him feels like pulling your heart out of your chest. You want to ask him why you’re not afraid, why your pulse is singing, why your knees are weak not from fear but from something like wanting. You want to ask him what he is.

But the words don’t come up. They don’t even fully gather in your mind. They get suppressed by the remaining soft warmth that still glows in your head.

Your body turns on its own, your feet carrying you back toward the farmhouse as the shadows take him, hiding him from you.

But he watches you go.

You feel his stare even after you’ve turned.

Like the woods are watching.

Like he is still inside your veins.

But you still don’t feel afraid.

You don’t feel anything at all except the soft echo of his voice, telling you not to be afraid, telling you not to move, telling you to go back inside.

And you obey.

Because you cannot do anything else.

Because something in you wants to listen.

Because something in you wants him to come back.

But all you do is walk.

Across the field.

Back to the porch, up the steps, one at a time.

The door creaks open.

You step inside.

Close it.

Lock it.

You don’t blink.

You don’t cry.

You don’t think.

You go upstairs.

You sit on the edge of the bed.

Your arm is still bleeding, a little, but you don’t notice. You just stare at the wall and feel strange.

Like waking from a dream someone else wrote for you.

Like you’d been dancing with something that didn’t have a shadow.

And deep down, beneath your skin, under your ribs and wrapped tight around your spine lingers the haunted trace of his words.

****

You wake to voices.

Muffled, cracking through the dawn the same way they crack through your mind.

For a moment you think it is a dream, the ones that leave you gasping into your pillow, but the voices keep biting at your sleep, dragging you into the cold air of your room, into the sound of cicadas looming near the windows.

You blink, slow, your eyes dry and your body heavy, the imprint of sleep leaving you in layers. Your grandmother’s quilt is tangled around your ankles, the shape of your nightmare still caught in the folds.

The voices grow sharper, closer, arguing beneath your window.

And you know one of them.

It rattles you how you know it, how it settles in your bones.

His voice is different when he is not talking to you. Deeper. Rougher. Like pebbles dreaming beneath glassy depths, like thunder rolling in the well of your chest.

You have not seen him properly since that night, since he took your wrist in his hand and gave you a cloth to stop the bleeding, since the lantern light caught on his too-bright eyes, and how terrifying he looked.

You don’t know why you didn’t turn around the second you saw him. You don’t know why you weren’t put off by the fact that he seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and in the middle of the night, and on your ground.

He is strange. And mysterious. Perhaps crazy. But you think you might be going crazy as well. Just like your grandmother.

You’ve only seen him in glimpses since then. A shadow moving across your porch when you forget to close the curtains. The sound of footsteps behind you when you walk into town for milk. The shape of him leaning against a fence post as you hang your laundry, his eyes hidden beneath a shadow that shouldn’t be there, watching, not watching, maybe both.

Since then, you’ve watched your step.

You’ve noticed things.

Small things.

Shadows in windows that shouldn’t be there. The postman leaving letters without making a sound. Children playing the same game, every day, always in a perfect circle, always silent. People never walking through the middle of town square.

And Bucky’s barn light - glowing red, only once, the night after your encounter.

But no one talks.

No one knocks on your door.

You feel the world breathing down your neck, like the old walls are leaning closer to listen to your thoughts. You feel eyes on you in the grocery store, in the post office, on the cracked sidewalk. You hear the creak of footsteps around your house at midnight, but when you look, there is nothing, only the dark, only the pines gossiping with each other in a language older than your bones.

Sometimes you think you see shapes in the tree line.

Sometimes you think the ground itself is more alive than it lets on.

You are tired. You are scared. You are pretending you are neither.

Languidly, you slip out of bed, floorboards cold under your feet, the night air brushing against your skin like a damp hand. You do not turn on the light, letting the moon guide you, the silver glow falling across the floor in soft lines, the shadows watching you between them.

The voices are clearer now, just outside.

“What, you already claimed her as your own personal blood bag?”

A voice you do not know, smooth and oily, words twisting through the wood.

“Rumlow.” It’s a single word. But it’s a dangerous purr. “You don’t want to do this.”

You press closer to the window, trembling fingers sliding the curtain just a breath aside, and you peer out, down.

Two men on your porch, shadows on shadows, the moon carving out their outlines in silver. Your neighbor stands between the door and the other man, his body tense, braced, like he’s about to rip someone in half. It’s the first time you’ve seen him in nearly a week. And even now, you don’t really see him. His face is turned away from you, the moonlight only brushing the edge of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone.

“I heard she’s sweet,” the other man goes on, his eyes black holes that refuse to let in the moonlight. His movements are snake-like, too smooth, too hungry. There’s something in the way his head tilts as he looks at the front door. Your door. As though he’s listening for your heartbeat. “You can’t keep her for yourself, Sarge.”

“Back off.”

“Oh, come on. It’s just a taste-”

“I said, back off.”

But the other man laughs, low and rotten, like the creak of your old farmhouse.

And he steps forward. Toward your house. Toward you.

Bucky moves.

“Don’t,” he snarls, and you freeze because it is not a human sound, not a sound you have ever heard before, not something that should live in a voice.

He shoves the other man back, hard, his face twisting into something monstrous, something beautiful, something that makes the air snap around them.

You see it before you understand it.

The way Bucky’s mouth pulls back, lips curling, and there are fangs - sharp and white and glinting, illuminated by the moonlight as he hisses, and the sound rattles your windowpane, freezes your blood in your veins.

Your gasp is loud, horrified, a bird’s scream in the dark.

And Bucky’s head snaps up, to the window, to you, eyes wide, bright blue, blazing, finding yours across the dark, locking onto you. His face shifts. Just slightly. The fury melts for a second - something flashes through his expression. You don’t know what it is.

You yank the curtain shut so fast the rod clatters. You stumble back, your pulse crashing against your ribs, your breath coming too fast, too erratic, the room spinning around you as you trip over the edge of the rug and catch yourself on the old dresser, the mirror shaking, the glass shivering with your fear.

And then it is silent.

Too silent.

You don’t know how long you stand there, pressing your hand to your mouth, eyes blown.

Suddenly, there is a tremor running through the stillness, through the pounding of your heart.

And then he is there.

Inside.

James Barnes stands in your bedroom, moonlight draped across him, shadows winding around his boots. He lifts his hands, as if to calm you, as if to tell you he is not what you saw.

With a startled shriek, you fall back a step, crashing into the side table, your knee knocking into wood, your hands trembling. You shake your head, mouth open, your body screaming with the need to move, to escape, to breathe.

“How- how did you-” you choke, voice wobbly.

His palms are open. He looks softer now. Not harmless, but less edged. Like he put the monster back into its cage.

“It’s okay,” he says gently. “You’re okay.”

Your head moves side to side rapidly. “What- no, I-” Your voice is a cracked whisper. “How did you get in-”

“Shhh.” His voice is a soothing cadence. Not a sound. It’s a command. And you obey. Your mouth stills. His voice is thick and slow and deep as midnight. “Don’t worry about that, doll.”

Your mind slows, the panic draining away, your breath evening out against your will, your muscles softening even as your eyes stay wide, watching him, unable to look away.

“Don’t be scared,” he eases, and the warmth drips through you, relieving, honey-thick, comforting. A lullaby of rot, impossible to resist, and sweet with ruin.

Your fear dissolves like sugar in hot coffee.

Your mind quiets.

Your shoulders drop.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, so soft, you almost don’t hear it.

His boots are silent on the old wood when he takes a step closer, the shadows around him listening to his body. He studies you with a gaze that is too piercing, too knowing, as though he is reading the very essence of your soul from your skin.

“You shouldn’t have seen that,” he states softly, almost to himself, and his eyes move over your face, down to your neck, back to your eyes, and there is something shimmering there, something nearly vulnerable and alight, something that feels like the sun rising in winter.

You don’t move.

You don’t want to move.

His hand lifts, almost touching your cheek, stopping just shy of it, shaking slightly.

You feel the heaviness in your mind, the gentle brush of something against your thoughts, the soft hand ready to close your memories like a book.

But he doesn’t.

He stands there, looking at you, seeing you, and you see him too - see the sharp lines of his jaw, the blue blaze of his eyes, the way his lips twitch, almost a smile, almost a sorrow.

You swallow, your mouth dry. “What are you?”

His eyes darken, but the warmth remains, a strange, impossible comfort.

“Nothing you need to be afraid of.” It is almost a whisper, a little bitter, a little haunted.

“Are you going to hurt me?” The words are small, frail as moth wings.

“No.” He says it too quickly, too fiercely, the word a promise that tastes like blood and ashes in the air between you. “You’re safe. I’m not here to hurt you.”

You nod. Because of course, you do. Your mind is syrup-slow, like the room is full of honey and sleep.

But even through the haze - you know something is wrong.

You feel him in your head.

Like a shadow trailing your thoughts, a breath on the nape of your mind.

And still - you don’t look away.

His gaze dips to your hands, your breath, the corner of your mouth. His hand lifts again, and he brushes a strand of hair from your face, his fingertips faintly running along your cheek with an odd tenderness that makes your breath tingle in your throat.

He steps closer and lifts your head up to keep your eyes on his. His other arms slides over your waist to your back, palm flat against you. He holds you tight.

“Sleep, sweetheart,” he whispers, and the heaviness in your mind grows, warm and soft, like being wrapped in a quilt by a fire.

Each word brushes the inside of your skull - not loud, but inward, elegant, like something you’d dreamed before it was said.

Your eyelids flutter.

Outside, the wind howls.

Inside, you are alive.

“Sleep,” he repeats, even softer, closer, lulling, the scent of cold pine and iron washing over you as his arms hold you tighter, pressed into his chest.

And, as before, you fold, melt, sleep.

Because he wants you to.

Because as the darkness pulls you under, and your limbs give in to him, the last thing you see is his face, watching you with that deep, ignited blue, the awed shimmer in his eyes.

You do not know that he has saved you tonight.

You do not know that the land is hungry for you.

You do not know that your blood calls to them all, calls to the ancient pact made beneath the pines, beneath the soil, beneath the bones of this strange, breathing town.

You only know the softness of his shadows.

The kind of calmness of his presence that feels like sinking.

And the way you do not feel afraid.

Not with him.

“My loneliness is the black canvas on which you paint your tenderness.”

- Franz Kafka

Part Two

[mystictf]

Chapter 5: Full Moon

Word count: 1052

The moon rises too fast.

It pulls at the air, stretches shadows long and trembling. The light that bleeds across the Hollow isn’t silver - it’s bone-white, like milk poured over grave dirt. The trees rustle low warnings. Birds vanish. Even the wind holds its breath.

You shouldn’t be out here. You know that.

But after Wanda’s warning, you couldn’t stay in the manor. The walls pulse now, as if they breathe in sync with something beneath the floorboards. Your reflection in the bathroom mirror blinked once - after you’d looked away. Doors shift position. The attic stairs unfold by themselves.

So you ran.

Not far. Just to the edge of the woods.

Just enough to think.

But the Hollow has never been kind to wanderers.

Behind you, the forest rustles.

At first, you think it’s an animal. A deer maybe.

Then it growls.

Low. Wet. Wrong.

You back away slowly, your boots cracking against dry twigs. You should scream. Move. But something pins your limbs in place - instinct, terror, fascination.

Then he steps into view.

Steve.

Or what used to be Steve.

He’s shirtless, barefoot, breath ragged and visible in the moonlight. His body trembles like a taut wire. Sweat clings to his skin. His hands fisted at his sides.

You take a step toward him - because Steve is safe.

But his head snaps toward you with a sound like a whip crack.

His eyes are no longer blue.

The glow - gold, bright and ancient.

And then he shifts.

It happens all at once, like flesh rebelling against its own rules. Bones snap and reform, limbs stretch and tear, teeth lengthen into fangs. The scream he lets out is not human. Not animal.

Something in between.

You stumble back.

His clothes fall into rags. Fur blooms across his chest, shoulders, and spine. His fingers curl into claws, long and black. The transformation is brutal and wet, bone cracking again and again until he’s hunched forward on all fours, growling through a snarl of teeth.

He’s taller now. Broader. Too large for the human world. Too monstrous for mercy.

And he’s looking right at you.

“Steve?” You whisper.

For a moment, the golden eyes blink. Recognition flickers.

Then it’s gone.

He snarls and lunges.

You run.

Your heart slams against your ribs as you sprint through the trees. The forest is darker now, the moon lost behind clouds. Branches rake your arms. Roots catch your feet. You fall - hard - but scramble up again, ignoring the sting of scraped palms.

Behind you, something massive tears through the undergrowth.

You make it to a clearing, spin around, and hold out your hands like you’re going to stop him with your willpower alone.

He doesn’t slow down.

You’re going to die here. In the woods. Torn apart by someone who once warned you to leave.

Then -

He stops.

Inches from you.

Breath streaming between rows of jagged teeth.

You don’t move. Don’t breathe.

The glow in his eyes flickers.

You whisper his name. “Steve.”

His muscles twitch. His jaw opens, slack, confused. The claws lower half an inch.

“I’m not afraid of you,” you lie.

He makes a sound - somewhere between a growl and a whimper. His chest heaves.

And then he stumbles back.

His body convulses, folding inward. Bones snap again. The glow fades.

He falls to his knees, shifting back.

Human again. Bare, bleeding, shivering in the cold.

You drop beside him before you can think.

He flinches when you touch his shoulder. “Don’t.”

You ignore him. Wrap your coat around his back, and press your hands to his arms.

“I almost -” he chokes on the words. “I felt it. I wanted to…”

“But you didn’t,” you whisper.

“I could’ve.”

“You didn’t.”

His hands shake. “I’ve never lost control like that. Never.”

You hesitate, then ask the question quietly: “What are you?”

He lifts his head. His eyes - no longer glowing - are wet.

“I don’t know anymore,” he says.

You sit with him while the wind whispers.

Neither of you speak again until the moon sinks low behind the trees.

Back at the manor, you patch him up in silence.

The house creaks around you but doesn’t interfere. It watches.

Steve sits at your kitchen table, bare-chested under a borrowed blanket, a thin cut across his cheek and a deeper one on his ribs.

“You should’ve run,” he says.

You meet his eyes. “I did.”

He actually laughs. It’s rough and broken but real.

“I’m sorry,” he adds after a beat. “For what I am.”

“You didn’t choose it.”

He shakes his head. “No. But I’ve been choosing every day not to become the thing people fear. Tonight…” He exhaled, “Tonight was close.”

You hand him a mug of tea. His hands brush yours - hot, still trembling.

“What happened to you?” You ask.

He stares into the cup. “A long time ago, I tried to save someone from a curse. I failed. Got marked by the same thing instead. I’ve spent every full moon since trying to keep it buried.”

“You work with Wanda?”

He nods. “She helped me. Bound the wolf to the woods. I stay on its edges. I protect what I can.”

“Like me?”

He doesn’t answer that.

Instead, he looks at you - really looks at you.

“You’re not like your grandmother,” he says.

“I know.”

“You’re stronger.”

You blink. “You barely know me.”

“I saw you in the woods,” he murmurs. “You should’ve frozen. Screamed. But you stood your ground. Looked me in the eye.”

“I was terrified.”

“But you didn’t run.” His voice softens. “There’s something inside you waking up.”

You glance at your palm. The sigil pulses again, faint but alive.

“Wanda said I have to choose,” you whisper. “Seal the Hollow or open it.”

Steve tenses. “Don’t open it.”

“Why?”

“Because what’s inside it doesn’t want to make peace. It wants to finish what it started.”

“And what’s that?”

He doesn’t answer.

You don’t ask again.

You both sit in silence until the sky begins to lighten with dawn.

You don’t sleep. But you stay near him.

And he doesn’t change again.

Later that morning, you walk through the manor and find something new.

A door that wasn’t there before.

Carved into the wood above the frame is your name.

The handle is warm.

And behind it, something breathes.

[mystictf]

Chapter 4: The Witch's Warning

Word count: 1012

The dream returns before dawn.

You’re standing in the manor’s front hall, the rug beneath your feet soaked through with blood. The walls breathe. The air is thick and humid like lungs exhaling just beside your ear. The chandelier above flickers with flame, not light, casting shadows that twitch like spiders. 

A woman stands across from you. Cloaked in crimson. Her face pale and sharp, her hair a curtain of auburn waves caught in a wind that doesn’t touch you.

She lifts a hand. “You’re bleeding,” she says softly.

You look down. 

Your palm is open, and the sigil there glows - pulsing, alive. Threads of red light snake up your arms like veins on fire.

You wake with a gasp, sheets twisted around your legs. It’s still dark out, but you don’t sleep again.

By morning, the sigil on your palm has changed.

It isn’t just a scar now. It’s deeper. Darker. Something like ink and something like ash, burned into your skin in fine, branching lines. You run your thumb over it and feel heat.

It reacts to your touch.

To your thoughts. 

The mirror in your bathroom warps your reflection for just a second - your eyes glowing red, your mouth open in a silent scream.

You throw a towel over it and leave.

You don’t plan where you’re going.

Something leads you - instinct, magic, fate. Maybe all three.

You find yourself near the church, though you barely register it. Its spires rise like broken teeth against the sky. There’s a graveyard behind it, old and moss-bitten, the stones tilting like drunkards in the dirt. The iron fence around it is half-rusted, barely standing.

There's someone there.

A woman in red.

She doesn’t look up as you approach. Her hands are folded neatly in front of her, fingers clad in rings. The wind moves around her like it’s afraid to touch her.

You stop a few paces away.

“Do you always hang around in graveyards?” You ask.

She smiles without turning. “Only when the Hollow stirs.”

There’s something timeless in her voice. Like bells in a ruined chapel. Like thunder beneath a lullaby.

“Who are you?” You ask.

“Wanda,” she replies, and finally looks at you.

Her eyes are a thousand stories deep. Scarlet flickers there - softly, dangerously. You get the feeling she could level mountains with a thought. Or mend them.

“You’ve been watching me,” you say.

She tilts her head. “You’ve been waking the ward.”

“The what?”

“The old blood-ward your grandmother held in place. A lattice of symbols and sacrifices. It has kept this place sealed for generations.”

Your heart thumps, slow and heavy. “And now?”

She steps toward you, skirts whispering over dead leaves. “Now it breaks.”

You glance down at your palm. “This… this is part of it?”

Wanda nods. “It marked you when you stepped into the forest. But you were never separate from it. Blood calls to blood.”

“I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“No one ever does,” she says gently. “Not the ones who matter.”

You feel dizzy. “Why me? Why now?”

Wanda turns her gaze toward the trees beyond the graveyard. “Your grandmother kept the wards in place longer than anyone should’ve. Her power waned years ago. The Hollow has been waiting.”

“For what?”

“For you.”

You shake your head. “This doesn’t make any sense. I didn’t grow up here. I don’t know the rituals or the history - I barely knew her.”

“But you share her blood,” Wanda says softly. “And that’s all I ever needed.”

The graveyard hums.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” You ask. “Seal it again?”

She hesitates.

And you know the answer before she says it.

“You can’t,” she says. “Not like she did.”

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t want to be sealed anymore.”

You go cold.

“There are things beneath this land that remember the first people who walked it,” she continues. “They made promises in blood. Bound themselves to it. Your grandmother held them back with strength and sacrifice.”

“She didn’t tell me anything,” you whisper. “Just a letter. Just… don’t go into the woods after dark. That’s it.”

“She knew you’d come,” Wanda says. “And she knew what would follow.”

A crow lands on the nearest headstone. It watches you with one eye, head cocked.

“You’re not alone,” Wanda says suddenly.

Your breath stills. “What?”

She smiles, a little sad. “There’s someone bound to the Hollow like you are. But differently. He walks the edge. You’ve met him.”

“...Steve?”

She shakes her head. “No. The other.”

Bucky.

You see his face again - bloodstained and beautiful, pain etched into every line. The way he looked at you like he’d seen a ghost.

“What is he?” You ask.

Her expression dims. “A consequence.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re ready for,” she says.

You want to argue. You want to demand the truth. But the earth beneath your feet hums louder now. Like a storm trapped beneath the soil.

You look back at her.

Her eyes flare red for just a moment.

“Do not trust the house,” she says. “It shifts when you’re not looking. It listens. It wants.”

“I thought the house was trying to protect me.”

“Maybe it is,” she says. “But it's version of protection may not be one you survive.”

The wind picks up. The crow caws and flies off, disappearing into the sky.

Wanda lifts her hand, and scarlet magic coils around her fingers like smoke.

“One last thing,” she says.

You nod, waiting.

“When the veil thins - and it will - you must decide: seal the Hollow or open it fully.”

“And if I open it?” You ask.

She studies you for a long time.

“Then gods and monsters will walk again,” she says. “And you’ll have to choose what kind you want to be.”

The wind dies. The graveyard quiets.

Wanda turns and walks away, her red cloak trailing behind her like spilled ink.

You don’t follow.

Because deep in your bones, something has begun to stir.

And it has your name on its tongue.