The Hollow Throne

I was 26, living alone in a cramped studio apartment above a closed-down laundromat. The building was old, with creaking pipes and a persistent smell of bleach that never quite faded. It was late, around 2 a.m., and I was lying on my stomach in bed, scrolling through a vintage furniture auction site, looking for a reading chair. My phone was propped against a pile of books, and the glow of the screen cast weird shadows on the peeling ceiling.

I clicked on an antique armchair. The upholstery was a deep burgundy, and the wood was dark, almost black. The photo showed the chair from the front, but I wanted to see more. As I moved the cursor to click on the next image, I felt a cold presence wrap around my wrist. It was like someone had placed a hand over mine, guiding my finger to a tiny thumbnail in the corner. The thumbnail showed the chair from behind, and there was a small, almost imperceptible carving on the backrest. My eyes zoomed in on it, and I felt a strange pull, as if the chair was looking back at me.

Then my head turned, as if yanked, toward my small TV. It was off, but the screen flickered to life, showing a static-filled image of a woman in a corset, her cleavage straining against the fabric. She was seated on a similar chair, but her face was obscured by a veil. The image was old, like a daguerreotype. I felt a male voice in my skull, not threatening but pleading, ‘Please, sit with me.’ I had no desire to comply, yet my body moved on its own. I got up, walked to the corner where I had stacked empty cardboard boxes, and pulled out a dusty box that had been left by the previous tenant. Inside, wrapped in moth-eaten cloth, was a small, ornate wooden seat—a chair’s footstool, with the same dark wood and the same tiny carving.

I took the footstool and placed it in front of my bed. The voice returned, ‘Sit, and I will show you.’ My mind screamed no, but my body obeyed. I sat on the stool, my back straight, hands on my knees. The room grew colder, and the air thickened with a scent of old dust and something metallic. The TV static turned into a full image: a young man in a threadbare suit, sitting on a throne, his head bowed. He looked up, and his eyes were hollow pits. I felt him climb into my body, not like a ghost, but like a second skin. He moved my limbs, making me lean back on the bed, my legs spread.

I was no longer myself. I felt a weight on my chest, as if he was straddling me, but I could see nothing. There was a rhythmic pressure, a sensation of being used, of being a vessel. My own voice, but gravelly, whispered, ‘She left me. They all leave.’ I tried to scream, but my mouth formed a smile. The pressure increased, and I felt him shift, his hands inside mine, making me claw at the sheets. It went on for what felt like hours, until I heard a faint creak, like a door opening in my mind. And then he was gone, leaving me exhausted, my body aching as if I had run a marathon.

After that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about the chair. I searched online, found a similar one in an estate sale across town. The voice, which had been silent, spoke again, ‘Find the rest.’ I found the chair, a heavy wingback, in a dusty shop. The owner, an old woman with rheumy eyes, said, ‘Ah, the chair finds its keeper.’ She refused to sell, but she let me sit in it. As soon as I touched the armrests, I felt him again. He was in me, forcing my hands to grip the carved armrests, showing me a vision: a grand hall, a man sitting on a throne, but it was not a throne of gold—it was a chair, and people were bowing. Then the man’s features shifted, becoming hollow, and he looked at me with those empty eyes. He spoke, but his voice was a chorus, ‘You will take my place.’

I snapped back, my heart racing. The old woman was watching me, a knowing look. ‘He was a king,’ she said, ‘in a land that no longer exists. He craves an heir to his loneliness.’ I ran out, but I couldn’t escape. Over the next weeks, I felt him more and more. He would take over at night, making me pace, mutter in a language I didn’t know. My body grew thin, dark circles under my eyes. I tried to exorcise him—burning sage, praying, even moving to a new apartment, but he followed, a cold presence in every room.

One night, I woke to find myself seated in that very armchair from the shop, which I had somehow brought home without memory. I was wearing an old-fashioned suit, and my hands were resting on the armrests, which had carvings of faces—each one frozen in a silent scream. The voice filled me, not as an intruder, but as a merging. ‘You are me now,’ it said. ‘You will find others, and you will keep them company in the boundless night.’ I looked at my reflection in the TV screen, and my eyes were hollow pits. I knew then that I was no longer a person; I was the new occupant of the Hollow Throne, destined to wait for a seeker who would find the chair, who would sit, and who would become the next keeper. The cycle would continue, and I would be the one to whisper, ‘Please, sit with me.’