The Hollow Frame

I had spent the better part of three years convincing myself that the unsettling things that once clung to my life were just figments of a tired mind. The bruises that appeared overnight without memory of impact, the cold spots in warm rooms, the feeling of being watched from empty corners – I had rationalized them all away. So when I met Elara at a coffee shop downtown, and she invited me to her family’s Sunday service, I agreed without hesitation. She was a beacon of normalcy, a grad student with a gentle laugh and an uncanny ability to make me feel at ease. Her family, she said, ran a small congregation in an old converted movie theater on the edge of the industrial district. It wasn’t a church in the traditional sense, but they made it work.

On Saturday evening, I noticed a new bruise on my forearm, just above the wrist. It was shaped like a perfect crescent, as if someone had pressed their thumb into my skin with deliberate force. I stared at it for a long moment, my old anxieties bubbling up, but I shook it off. It was probably from carrying groceries, I told myself. I had to stop looking for patterns where there were none.

Sunday morning was overcast, the sky a heavy, bruised purple. Elara picked me up in her rusted sedan, and we drove past warehouses and shuttered factories until we reached the old Lyric Theater. The marquee was stripped bare, its bulbs missing, and the facade was covered in peeling paint that once advertised forgotten films. Inside, the lobby had been repurposed as a modest foyer, with folding chairs and a table of pamphlets. The air smelled of dust and old carpet, with a faint, sweet undertone of something I couldn’t place – like overripe fruit left too long in the sun.

The main auditorium was where the congregation gathered. The sloped floor was lined with rows of metal chairs, and the stage had been cleared, replaced by a simple wooden podium. A large, screenless frame hung above the podium, draped in purple cloth. Elara’s father, a tall man with kind eyes and a booming voice, greeted me warmly. Her mother, a quiet woman with a perpetual, serene smile, handed me a program. The service began with hymns, and I was struck by how ordinary it felt. But as the sermon progressed, I noticed something odd. The purple cloth over the frame seemed to sway, though no breeze reached the stage. I blinked, and it was still.

After the service, Elara led me to a small room off the lobby where they served coffee and cookies. ‘So, what did you think?’ she asked, her eyes bright. I told her it was lovely, that everyone was so welcoming. She beamed. ‘You have to come back next week. My father is going to speak about the ‘Hollow Frame’ – it’s a parable he’s been working on.’ The phrase sent a chill down my spine, but I dismissed it as coincidence. I agreed, and she hugged me tighter than I expected, her fingers brushing the bruise on my arm. I winced, and she pulled back, her smile faltering. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘that looks nasty. You should put some ice on it.’ I nodded, but in that moment, I saw something flicker in her eyes – something that wasn’t quite Elara. It was a darkness that vanished as quickly as it came, and she was all warmth again.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The bruise throbbed with a dull ache, and I kept replaying the moment in the theater. I decided to do a little research. Under the ‘Lyric Theater’ and ‘Elara’s father, Pastor Marcus’, I found an old article from five years ago. The theater had been closed after a fire in the projection booth – a fire that had claimed the life of a night janitor. The article mentioned that the janitor was a quiet man named Abel, who had been there for decades. His body was never recovered, but they found his keys and a melted wristwatch. The theater had been deemed a total loss, but the shell remained. It was then that I noticed the date of the article: April 3rd, five years ago. The same date as Elara’s invitation.

I tried to call Elara, but her phone went straight to voicemail. My mind raced. The frame, the cloth, the swaying – it all felt too deliberate. I drove to the theater that night, not sure what I expected to find. The doors were unlocked, and the lobby was dimly lit by a single bulb. The air was colder inside, and that sweet, rotten smell was stronger. I made my way into the auditorium. The purple cloth was gone, and the frame – the Hollow Frame – stood bare, its wood dark and charred in places. In the center of the frame, where a screen should have been, there was only darkness, but it pulsed as if alive. I heard a sound like scraping, and then a voice, low and resonant, came from the darkness. ‘You see it now, don’t you? You see what we are.’

I turned to run, but Elara was standing in the aisle, blocking my way. Her face was pale, and her smile was too wide. ‘You’re part of it now, Sam,’ she said. ‘The bruise was the mark. The frame always needs a new screen.’ Behind her, I saw the congregation – her parents, the other parishioners – filing in silently, their eyes fixed on the frame. They were all marked with the same crescent bruises. The darkness in the frame began to seep out, tendrils of shadow reaching toward me. I stumbled backward, tripping over a chair, and fell. The last thing I saw before the darkness consumed me was the shadowed form of a man standing in the frame, wearing a melted wristwatch.

I woke up in my own bed the next morning. The bruise was gone. My arm was smooth and unblemished, but I could feel something different – a cold, hollow sensation in my chest, like a missing piece. I tried to call Elara, but her number was disconnected. I went to the theater, but it was boarded up, and a sign declared it condemned. No one at the nearby convenience store had ever heard of a church meeting there. But when I looked in my reflection, I saw it – just for a second – the shadow of a tall man behind me, and a crescent-shaped mark on the back of my neck. I haven’t missed a Sunday service since. Not once. The frame is hungry, and it has found its new screen.