The Last Candle in the Hollow

Maya had always been the quiet one in our group. We called ourselves the Five, but after what happened, we became the Four, and then the Three, and then just me. It started in eighth grade, when we found an old board game in the attic of our school’s theater. It wasn’t like the cheap ones you buy at the mall; it was handmade, with faded letters and a planchette that felt heavier than it should. We laughed, thinking it was a joke, and decided to try it after school in the prop room, where the dusty velvet curtains and cracked mirrors made everything feel like a staged horror movie.

Our first session was uneventful. We asked silly questions, and the planchette moved, but we assumed someone was pushing it. But then it started spelling out our names, one by one, and none of us were touching it. We stopped, blaming the draft, but we were hooked. We went back every Thursday, and soon the board began answering before we even asked. It told us about a girl named Alice who died in the theater in the 1970s, and it seemed to know things about us that we never told anyone.

Then, near the end of the year, our friend Jason, the loudest and most skeptical, changed. He started talking to himself in a voice that wasn’t his, and one day he shoved Chloe into the lockers so hard she needed stitches. He swore he didn’t do it, and I believed him because his eyes were terrified, not angry. Our theater teacher, Ms. Reyes, who was big on local folklore, pulled Jason aside the next day. She locked the door and told us to wait outside. When they came out, Jason was pale, and Ms. Reyes looked drained. She said, ‘What was in him has moved on, but it hasn’t left the building. You need to stop using that board.’

But we didn’t stop. Chloe, though, refused to come back, so it was just me, Jason, and our friend Ben. We tried to do one final session to make sure it was gone, but that night, the planchette began to move on its own. It spelled ‘TOO LATE’ and then ‘YOU OPENED THE DOOR.’ We heard footsteps in the hallway, and the lights flickered. Jason screamed, and I saw something dark crawl out from under the stage. Ben tried to run but slipped, and the thing, a black shape with too many limbs, covered him. Jason and I fled, but the theater doors wouldn’t open. We were trapped.

The next morning, the janitor found us huddled in the corner, but Ben was gone. The police searched but found nothing. Jason never spoke again, and I moved away with my family. But last week, I received a package with no return address. Inside was a single, unlit candle and a note in Ben’s handwriting: ‘The last candle in the Hollow will burn for you. Come back.’ I don’t want to go, but I can’t sleep. The candle is on my desk, and every night it seems to flicker on its own, even though the wick is dry. I know the Hollow is not the theater; it’s a place deeper than that, a place I only saw in my nightmares. And I know that if I don’t go, it will come for me. So I’m writing this before I leave. If you find this, tell whoever reads it to burn the board, and never, ever play the game.