The Hollow Seat

It was the third week of October, and the sky outside the library windows was the color of old bruises. My friend Dana and I had claimed a table in the back corner, surrounded by stacks of encyclopedias and the musty smell of old paper. We were supposed to be finishing our science project, but the words on the page kept blurring into nonsense. Dana was beside me, her head bent over a diagram, when she suddenly gasped and shot upright, her chair scraping the floor.

‘What is it?’ I asked, startled.

She was pale, her hand clutching the back of her chair. ‘Something touched me,’ she whispered. ‘Under the chair. Like a finger, poking me.’

I looked under the table. The chairs were wooden, with a solid seat and a single central support column. There were no holes. No way for anyone to reach up from below. ‘Maybe you’re imagining things,’ I said, but Dana shook her head.

‘I felt it. Right there.’ She pointed to her thigh.

We both looked around the library. The only other person was the librarian, Ms. Alvarez, who was shelving books a few aisles over. No one else was near us. I laughed nervously. ‘Probably a loose spring or something.’ I tapped the underside of her chair, and it produced a dull thud.

Dana settled back down, but she kept glancing at the floor. We tried to focus on our work, but the tension hung in the air like a spider web. Ten minutes later, she flinched again, a small, sharp cry. ‘There it is again! Something pinched me!’ She stood up, turning the chair over. There was nothing there. Just the smooth wooden seat and the metal support.

I started to feel uneasy. We moved to another table, but the feeling followed us. I began to notice a faint, cold draft coming from under the table, even though the library was warm. And I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a shape shifting in the shadows beneath the chairs—like a long, thin hand, reaching out from the darkness, then disappearing when I looked directly.

We decided to leave, packing up our papers with trembling hands. As we walked out, I glanced back at the table we had vacated. For a split second, I saw a shadowy figure crouched beneath it, its head tilted, watching us. Then it was gone.

That night, Dana called me, her voice shaking. ‘I felt it again,’ she said. ‘In my room. Under my bed.’ I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t told her about the figure I saw. I still haven’t. Because I’m afraid that if I say it out loud, it will remember me too.

Now, whenever I sit in a chair, I check underneath. And sometimes, when I’m alone, I feel a faint tickle on the back of my legs. And I wonder if the hollow seat is waiting for me to sit down again.