The Hollow Ones

My name is Erik, and I grew up in a small, fog-shrouded town on the Swedish coast, where the sea never quite warmed and the forests pressed close like curious onlookers. I was the only surviving triplet; my two siblings, a brother and a sister, perished in the womb before I took my first breath. That was eighteen years ago. But the story I’m about to tell you began when I was twelve, before my little brother, Jonas, was born.

I never felt truly alone. Even as a child, I knew there were presences, soft whispers at the edge of my hearing, a cold spot in my room at night. I told my mother, but she dismissed it as an overactive imagination, a child’s way of coping with loss. But I knew better. They were with me, my unborn siblings, their voices like the rustle of dry leaves in my mind. They called themselves ‘The Hollow Ones,’ for they were empty vessels, souls that never got to fill a body.

One day, I was biking to school along the gravel path that hugged the cliff’s edge, the grey sea churning below. The wind carried a sharp, biting salt, and the sky was a heavy, bruised purple. That’s when I heard them, clearer than ever before. ‘Erik,’ they whispered, their voices layered, one high, one low. ‘The tide is rising. The tide is rising.’ I braked, my tires skidding on the loose stones. The water below was calm, far below. But the voice was insistent. ‘Run. Run now. Don’t look back.’

I obeyed, pedaling furiously, my heart hammering against my ribs. I didn’t understand, but I knew that voice was not one to be ignored. Just as I reached the main road, a thunderous roar filled the air behind me. A massive wave, a rogue wave, crashed over the cliff, sending a wall of water and debris across the path I had been on moments before. If I had stayed, I would have been swept into the sea. My brothers were saving my life.

After that, I started to listen more carefully. They would speak to me during my loneliest moments, offering comfort, guidance. They warned me about a bully who planned to beat me up after school, so I took a different route. They told me to skip a day of school because a gas leak would cause an evacuation. They were my silent guardians.

But as I grew older, their whispers grew more insistent, more demanding. They wanted more than just my attention. They wanted a physical presence. I began to find strange things in my room: a drawer that was always slightly open, the mirror slightly crooked, a faint smell of damp earth. They were trying to manifest.

When my mother announced she was pregnant with Jonas, the whispers stopped. For weeks, there was only silence, and I felt a terrible emptiness. I knew they were jealous. I pleaded with them, asked them to understand, to not hurt the new baby. But their silence was worse than any scream.

The night Jonas was born, I woke to a freezing cold in my room. The air was thick, heavy. And I heard their voices, not as whispers, but as a low, guttural chorus. ‘Brother, we have waited. We have waited for a new vessel. But we will not be denied.’ I rushed to the nursery, my parents were away at the hospital for a check-up, but Jonas was sleeping in his crib. Except, his face was pale, his lips blue, and he wasn’t breathing.

I grabbed him, shook him, called his name. Then the voices came back, softer this time. ‘He is ours now. He will be our voice. And you will be our arms.’ I looked into Jonas’s eyes as they fluttered open. They were not the innocent eyes of a newborn. They were ancient, knowing, and filled with a cold emptiness. I had to save him, but how do you save someone from something that shouldn’t exist.

I remember the old woman in the village, the one they called a witch. She gave me a charm, a small pouch of dried herbs and a lock of hair, telling me to place it on the baby’s chest and say a prayer. I did it, and there was a shriek, a sound that seemed to come from inside my own skull. Jonas’s body convulsed, and then he sighed, and his eyes cleared. He was just a baby again.

The Hollow Ones, however, were not gone. They were silent for a while, but I felt their presence, waiting, patient. I knew they wouldn’t give up. My brother, Jonas, is now six years old. He often talks to ‘his friends’ in the corner of his room, friends I cannot see. He tells me they play games, and they tell him secrets about the future. And sometimes, when he looks at me, I see that ancient glint in his eyes, and I wonder if we are still fighting, or if we are just delaying the inevitable.

The sea still whispers, the trees rustle with unseen voices, and I know, one day, they will find a way to be born. Until then, I watch over my brother, and I listen. I always listen.