The Long Night of the Hollow Pines

The rules were simple: you had until dawn to avoid the others. But the night we played, the forest of Hollow Pines seemed to stretch its bones, and we were the marrow inside.

I remember the cold seeping through my sneakers as we, the ‘runners,’ stumbled past the treeline. There were seven of us, but two had lagged behind before we even started—the twins, Etta and Eli, who claimed they saw lights flickering between the birches. The rest of us shrugged it off, hearts already thumping from the Monster energy drinks and the nervous laughter that comes with pretending to be prey.

My name is Sam, and I was the oldest, though not by much. The others called me ‘the map’ because I’d spent summers at my uncle’s cabin near here, but now the forest looked nothing like the safe, familiar trails. The pines were taller, their needles black, and the moon was a pale coin that didn’t quite light the ground. We had a thirty-minute head start, but I already knew the game was skewed: the ‘hunters’ had flashlights and a week’s worth of survival gear, while we had nothing but our wits and the hope that they’d get bored.

We split up after an hour. It was a stupid risk, but being together made too much noise, and the whispers I kept hearing—they weren’t from my group. They were soft, like a mother hushing a child, but they came from the shadows between the trunks, and they knew my name. ‘Sam… Sam… come closer…’ I ignored it, told myself it was the wind or the rustle of an owl. But when I looked back, the twins were gone, and the others were scattering like startled deer.

I ran. I ran until my lungs burned, and then I found a hollow tree, big enough to crawl into. I curled there, listening to the forest’s heartbeat. I heard the hunters’ distant calls—mockingly cheerful, like they were narrating a documentary. ‘We see you, little rabbit.’ But they never came near my hiding spot. After what felt like hours, a low growl started, not from a wolf, but from the earth itself. The roots of the pines began to shift, and I swear the tree I was in groaned, as if it were alive and hungry.

Then the screaming started. It was the twins’ voices, but they were sounding from everywhere, as if the forest had swallowed them and was echoing them. I crawled out, desperate, and saw the others—Mira and Jade—huddled at the base of a boulder. They were pointing at the sky, where the stars were going out one by one, as if something was erasing them. ‘It’s the hunters,’ Mira whispered. ‘They’re using some kind of drone.’ But Jade shook her head, her face as white as the moon. ‘They’re not hunters. They’re something else.’

We heard footsteps behind us, and we turned, ready to run again. It was the hunters, but they were wrong. They walked with a stiff, unnatural gait, their flashlights held low, their faces hidden. They didn’t speak, but they each held a single pine cone that seemed to pulse with a faint light. ‘The prizes,’ Eli’s voice said from the trees, and then we saw him—tied to a tree with vines, his mouth stuffed with needles. He was still alive, but his eyes were glazed, as if he had seen something that broke him.

‘They’re not playing with us,’ I said, and the moment I spoke, the hunters dropped their flashlights and ran at us on all fours. Mira and Jade screamed, but I pulled them away, into a thicket that tore at our clothes. We ran until we found a clearing, and in the center was a fire pit, long abandoned. Around it, there were carved figures—crude dolls made of sticks and moss, each one bearing a name. Ours were there: Sam, Mira, Jade, Etta, Eli, and the others. And beside them, a small, flat stone that read, ‘The Hollow Pines Remember.’

I looked up, and the trees were closing in. The clearing was no longer a clearing; it was a mouth, and we were the tongue. The fire pit began to glow with a cold blue flame, and from the flame, a voice—not human, but not entirely inhuman—said, ‘You sought a game. We offer a different one. The Hunters are now the Hunted. Run until dawn, and you may leave. But you must shed your names, for names are anchors, and we do not want you anchored here.’

Mira begged, but the voice was insistent. We had to drop our names, or the forest would take them. So we did, one by one. I felt a sudden loss, as if a part of my identity had been carved out. And then the game began again, but this time, the hunters were gone, and only the forest remained, watching, waiting.

We ran for what felt like days, though the moon never moved. We saw things that could not be—our own bodies hanging from branches, scenes of our deaths acted out by moss and stone. We lost Jade to a swamp that swallowed her without a bubble. We lost Mira to a pit that opened beneath her, and I heard her call my name, but I had no name to answer. I was alone, and the forest was a labyrinth of twisting paths that led nowhere.

Eventually, I found the cabin—my uncle’s cabin. But it was wrong. The windows were boarded, and the door was covered in handprints, as if something had been trapped inside. I pushed it open, and inside, the walls were covered in the same carvings, and in the center of the floor, there was a trapdoor. I opened it, and I saw my uncle, sitting at a table, playing cards with a skeleton. He looked up and said, ‘You should have stayed hidden, boy. The game never ends here.’

Then he pointed, and I saw the twins, Etta and Eli, sitting at the table too, but they were rotting, and they were smiling. ‘Join us,’ Eli said, his voice like rustling leaves. ‘We are the Hollow Pines now, and you are part of us.’

I slammed the trapdoor shut and ran, but everywhere I turned, the forest was there, and the game was still on. I’m still running, even now. The sun hasn’t risen in what feels like a year, but I hear their voices calling my new name—the one the forest gave me. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s not mine. And somewhere, deep in this endless night, I hear the others, still running, just like me, and I pray for dawn that never comes.