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.
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."
The road into Black Hollow is long and winding, slick with moss and memory.
Rain traces lines down your windshield, thin and trembling like the threads of a web. The wipers swipe in slow, metronomic rhythm - left, right, left - like the heartbeat of the land itself. Trees crowd the road on either side, ancient and towering, limbs knotted like arthritic fingers reaching down from the sky. Their leaves blot out most of the light, turning the midday into something closer to dusk. You haven’t seen another car in miles.
It’s quieter than it should be.
You tell yourself it's just the way of small towns, of dying places tucked away in forgotten folds of the world. But in your chest, something curls. Tightens. Like you’ve stepped into the mouth of something still chewing.
The satnav gave up five miles back. The phone signal disappeared before you passed the rusted “Welcome to Black Hollow" sign, half-swallowed by ivy and leaning like it’s too tired to stand. It doesn’t matter. You know the way.
Or maybe, the place knows you.
You weren’t supposed to return. You barely knew your grandmother, and hadn’t seen her since you were nine years old. A brittle woman with clouded eyes and a mouth that never quite smiled. She smelled like cedar and smoke, like dried herbs left too long in a locked drawer. She never called. Never visited. And yet her name was the one the lawyer spoke when he called you: Esther Holloway.
Dead. Just like that.
Now you’re her sole heir, which sounds more like a curse than a blessing.
The manor comes into view just as the rain begins to ease. You almost miss it - half-swallowed by a creeping wall of trees and shadow. The driveway is overgrown, grass rising in tufts between the gravel. The iron gates are permanently open, one hanging off its hinge like it gave up a long time ago.
You stop the car and cut the engine. The silence that follows isn’t peaceful. It’s… waiting.
You step out into the cold, boots crunching on damp gravel, and the wind greets you like an old friend. Or a warning.
The manor stands three stories high, wrapped in black ivy and time. Its windows are tall and arched, framed by chipping stone. Half of them are dark; a few reflect the sky like blind eyes. The paint has peeled in long, curling stripes, and the front porch sags in the middle like a spine with too much weight on it.
The air smells like earth and woodrot. Like something beneath the surface has started to decay.
You swallow.
It’s fine. You’re here to pack things up, settle the estate, and then leave. A week, two at most. You can survive this. It’s just a house. Just a town.
Still, you hesitate on the threshold.
Your hand lingers over the old brass doorknob, greened with age. You expect resistance, but the door swings open easily. Inside, it’s darker than it should be. Not just because the lights are off. The gloom seems deeper. More deliberate.
The scent of old wood, mothballs, and something herbal wraps around you the second you step in. Familiar. Wrong.
The foyer is vast, with a sweeping staircase curling up into the shadow. Cobwebs dance in the corners. A faded rug stretches out across the floor like a lolling tongue, its red dulled by dust. There’s a fireplace to your left, unlit but stacked with wood, and above it, a painting of your grandmother in oils: young, stern, hands clasped. Her eyes follow you as you move.
You don’t unpack right away. Just carry your suitcase upstairs and choose the room with the least mildew on the walls.
You don’t sleep.
---
The morning arrives hesitant and gray, seeping through the curtains in lazy streaks. You wander through the manor with your arms crossed tight, listening to the creak of floorboards beneath your steps. The kitchen still works, miraculously. You find coffee grounds sealed in a tin, and though it tastes like burnt earth, it’s warm.
There’s an envelope on the table you don’t remember placing there. Thick paper. Your name written in a precise, spidery hand.
My dearest girl,
If you’re reading this, then I’ve gone ahead to join the others. The Hollow always takes its tithe.
The house is yours now. You’ll find its secrets, in time. Try not to let it consume you.
And for the love of all that’s holy - do not go into the woods after dark.
- E.H.
You read it twice.
Then a third time.
Then set it down and don’t touch it again.
Outside, the wind picks up, whispering against the windows. You feel watched.
The town sits in a basin of trees, the streets winding like veins. The buildings lean into one another, roofs sagging under years of rain and snow. There’s a main street, a few side alleys, and not much else. A diner, a bookstore, a church that looks more like a mausoleum.
People stare when you walk by.
Not overly. But long enough for you to notice. Long enough to know they know who you are. Or who you were.
You buy a few groceries at the corner store. The man behind the counter - a wiry older man with tired eyes and a too-tight smile - doesn’t ask your name. He doesn’t have to.
“You’re Esther’s girl,” he says instead, tapping your receipt against the counter.
“I guess I am.”
He hands you your change like it weighs too much. “Place’ll be waking up now that you’re back. You mind the woods, y’hear?”
You blink. “What?”
But he only gestures toward the trees beyond the hill, dark and unmoving.
“They remember blood.”
The forest borders the manor like it’s claiming it, thick trunks rising like pillars to hold up the sky. Even in daylight, it hums with something deep and old. It’s beautiful, in a way that makes your teeth ache.
You follow a path half-lost to overgrowth, boots sinking slightly into the moss. The air grows colder with every step. Your breath fogs even though it’s summer. The birds don’t sing here.
The trees are so close you can’t see more than ten feet ahead. Every sound echoes, like you’ve stepped into a throat.
You should turn back. You mean to turn back.
But something draws you forward.
And then you see it.
A clearing - small and circular, ringed by stones. In the centre stands an old, weathered tree. Dead. Its bark is blackened, like it was burned but never fell. Symbols are carved into its trunk, some familiar, most not.
The hair on your arms rises.
And the forest…
The forest looks at you like it remembers your name.
A twig snaps behind you.
You spin - but there’s no one there.
Just the shadows. Just the trees. Just the cold.
You run back to the manor without meaning to. You don’t stop until you slam the door behind you and press your back to it, chest heaving.
It takes hours for the shaking to stop.
That night, you dream of crows. Hundreds of them, all perched on the dead tree, their eyes burning red. One opens its beak and your grandmother’s voice spills out, whispering your name like a summons.
You wake with dirt on your hands and a sigil burned into your palm.
But if it is - enjoy. Please let me know what you think in the comments. Likes and reblogs are also appreciated ❤️.
A/N: So this is a little bit different to what I'd usually write, but I love exploring different AUs. If this isn't your kind of vibe then don't read it.
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.”
