The Chant of the Hollow Man

My name is Elias, and I’m a 24-year-old sound engineer living in a converted warehouse in the industrial district of Manchester. My flat is a sprawling, open-plan space with exposed brick and iron beams, and the bedroom is a mezzanine level accessible by a spiral staircase. The acoustics in the building are incredible, which is why I chose it for my work, but lately, they’ve been working against me.

I first experienced sleep paralysis about a year after I moved in. It started with a feeling of intense pressure on my chest, as if something heavy was sitting on me, and a low, rhythmic hum that seemed to originate from the walls themselves. The first few times, I dismissed it as stress and fatigue, but it kept happening, always in the same way: I’d wake up in the middle of the night, completely unable to move, my eyes darting around the dark room, and that hum would fill my ears, growing louder and more insistent.

Then the figure appeared. It wasn’t a shadowy silhouette like I’d read about online. This was different. It was a tall, thin man, almost impossibly gaunt, wearing a long, dark coat that seemed to absorb the light. He stood at the foot of my bed, his face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, but I could feel his gaze on me, cold and predatory. He would stand there, motionless, and begin to whisper in a language I didn’t recognize. The words were guttural, like grinding stones, and they resonated in my chest, making my heart stutter.

My first instinct, like anyone’s, was to fight it. I tried to scream, to flail my limbs, but my body was a dead weight. My mind raced, and I tried to focus on the sound of my own breathing, anything to ground myself. But the whispers seemed to seep into my thoughts, twisting them. I saw images of a desolate place, a field of black grass under a blood-red sky, and a figure on a distant hill, beckoning to me. I felt an overwhelming sense of dread, and I knew with absolute certainty that if I followed that figure, I would never return.

That’s when I remembered the advice from a friend who also suffered from sleep paralysis: try to focus on a single object, or repeat a phrase to anchor your mind. So I focused on the faint glow of the digital clock on my nightstand, and I started to recite the lyrics of a song I knew by heart, a ridiculous pop song that had been stuck in my head for days. The whispers grew louder, more frantic, as if they were angry at my resistance, but I clung to that silly tune like a lifeline.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, the whispers ceased, and the figure vanished. I was left panting, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding. I checked the clock: 3:07 AM. The room was silent, save for the distant hum of the city outside. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

The episodes became more frequent after that. I started to notice patterns. The figure always appeared when I was most exhausted, when I had been working late on a mixing project. He always stood in the same spot at the foot of my bed, and he always began his chant. But the chant was changing. It was becoming more coherent, forming words I could almost grasp, and the images in my mind grew more vivid. I saw a door, black and ancient, set into a stone wall. The figure was gesturing for me to open it.

I tried everything to stop it. I moved my bed against the wall, so the foot was no longer exposed. I started leaving all the lights on, so the room was never completely dark. I even tried sleeping during the day, in the studio, with my equipment humming around me. But it didn’t matter. The figure would appear, regardless of the time or my surroundings, and the chant would begin.

One night, I woke up in the grip of paralysis, and the figure was closer than ever before. He was leaning over me, his face inches from mine, and I could see, for the first time, that he had no face. It was a void, a smooth, black emptiness. From that void, the chant emerged, and I understood it. It was a name. My name. Over and over, like a curse.

Terror flooded through me. I felt my consciousness being pulled, as if my very soul were being siphoned out of my body. I saw the black field again, but this time I was standing in it, and the figure on the hill was no longer distant. He was approaching, and I could see that his face was a mirror, reflecting my own terrified expression.

I knew I had to do something, anything, to break the hold. With every ounce of willpower, I forced my lips to move, and I whispered a single word: ‘Stop.’

The word hung in the air, and for the first time, the chant faltered. The figure seemed to recoil, his form flickering like a bad signal. The paralysis began to recede, and I felt a rush of sensation returning to my limbs. I sat up, gasping, and the figure was gone.

But I knew it wasn’t over. The next night, I was ready. I had set up my recording equipment, a high-quality microphone and digital recorder, next to my bed. I was determined to capture the chant, to analyze it, to find a way to fight it. When the paralysis hit, and the figure appeared, I felt a surge of defiance. As the chant filled the room, I pressed record.

The session lasted for what felt like hours. When I finally regained control, I checked the recorder. The audio file was there, but when I played it back, all I could hear was a low, guttural humming, like static from a broken radio. I analyzed it on my spectrum analyzer, but there were no discernible frequencies, just a mess of white noise.

Defeated, I decided to seek help. I found a local psychiatrist who specialized in sleep disorders, and I told her everything. She listened patiently, then diagnosed me with chronic sleep paralysis and recommended medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. She gave me a prescription for an SSRI and a referral to a therapist.

The medication helped somewhat. The episodes became less frequent, and when they did occur, they were less intense. The figure would appear, but it seemed more like a faded photograph, less solid, less menacing. The chant was there, but it was muffled, as if coming from a great distance. I began to hope that I was finally free.

But a few nights ago, I had the most vivid episode yet. I was sleeping soundly when I was jolted awake by a crashing sound from the living room below. My heart raced. I tried to move, but I was pinned to the bed, my body stiff and unresponsive. The figure was there, standing in the corner of the room, but he was not alone. Beside him stood a female figure, equally gaunt, equally face-less, and she was holding a small, black object.

They began to chant in unison, their voices creating a dissonant harmony that made my skin crawl. I recognized the name again, but this time, it was accompanied by another word, a word that sent a chill through my very soul: ‘Bound.’

As they chanted, I felt a terrible cold enveloping me, as if I were being dragged into a deep, dark ocean. I fought against it, screaming in my mind, trying to summon that single word of resistance. But this time, ‘Stop’ was not enough. They were stronger now, and they knew my defenses.

In desperation, I turned inward. I focused on the one thing that had always anchored me: the memory of my grandmother’s voice, soft and warm, reciting a lullaby she used to sing to me as a child. I clung to that melody, letting it fill my mind, drowning out their chant.

And slowly, miraculously, the chant weakened. The figures began to flicker, like candles in a wind, and with a final, silent scream, they vanished. I was left in the darkness, my body trembling, but free.

I got up, my legs barely supporting me, and stumbled to the spot where the female figure had stood. On the floor, there was a small, black object. I picked it up. It was a music box, intricately carved with symbols I didn’t recognize. I opened it, and instead of a tinkling tune, I heard a recording of my own voice, whispering ‘Stop’ over and over, but distorted, reversed.

I slammed it shut, my mind reeling. That wasn’t there before. How did it get there? And why did it have my voice on it? I looked around the room, at the shadows that seemed to writhe in the corners, and I realized that the chanting was still there, faintly, in the background, like a frequency just below human hearing.

I grabbed my audio equipment and made a careful recording of the room. When I played it back, I could hear it: the low, guttural hum, the rhythm of the chant, but this time, it was not just in my head. It was in the room, in the air, in the very walls of the building.

I haven’t slept since. I know that the chant is not just a symptom of my mind. It’s a summons, a call from something ancient and malevolent that has found a doorway in me. And I fear that one night, I will answer it, and I will become the one who chants, leading others to that black door.

In the meantime, I keep the music box locked in a steel case, wrapped in iron chains. I’ve started recording the hum at all hours, trying to find a pattern, a weakness. But every night, as I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, I hear it growing louder, a relentless, hypnotic rhythm, and I know that my days of silence are numbered.