The Lullaby of the Hollow

The night before my final examinations in organic chemistry, I chose to study in the attic of our old Victorian house, a place I had converted into a makeshift study. The room was cluttered with dusty relics from previous generations, but the high ceiling and large dormer window offered a strange sense of isolation. As the clock struck midnight, I was deep in the mechanisms of complex molecules when a sound weaved through the air—a woman’s voice, humming a melody that felt both ancient and unfamiliar, like a lullaby from a forgotten language.

I froze, my pen hovering over the paper. The voice was soft at first, barely a whisper, but it grew in volume, filling the attic with a resonance that seemed to come from everywhere at once. I tried to rationalize it: perhaps a neighbor’s television, or a car radio drifting through the open window. But the melody was too distinct, too personal, as if it were meant for me alone. The hum became words, though I could not understand them, and a chill ran down my spine. I glanced at the window, the curtains billowing slightly in the night breeze, but I could not bring myself to look outside.

Determined to ignore it, I buried my head in my notes, but the sound burrowed into my consciousness, making it impossible to concentrate. The voice seemed to move closer, circling the house, now from the east, now from the west. My heart pounded in my ears, and I decided that sleep was the only escape. I turned off the desk lamp, plunging the attic into near darkness, and made my way to my bedroom on the second floor, leaving the eerie song behind.

In my room, I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, willing my mind to go blank. The silence was a reprieve, and I felt a wave of relief. I closed my eyes, but as I did, the singing returned, but this time it was not outside—it was inside the room, as if the walls themselves were resonating with the melody. I opened my eyes sharply, and to my horror, the ceiling above my bed was no longer plaster. It had become a mirror, reflecting not my room but an endless dark corridor, and at the end of that corridor stood a woman in a white sari, her face obscured by long black hair, her arms reaching toward me.

I tried to scream, but my voice was trapped. The woman began to hum the same lullaby, and as she did, the mirror ceiling began to ripple like water. A hand emerged from the glass—not a ghostly claw, but a slender, normal-looking hand, which pressed against the surface from the other side, leaving a faint mark. Then, slowly, the hand withdrew, and the mirror reverted to a ceiling. I lay there, trembling, not daring to move. I blinked, and the ceiling was just a ceiling again, but I knew what I had seen.

I spent the rest of the night curled under my blankets, reciting chemical equations to drown out the residual hum in my ears. I did not sleep, and when dawn finally broke, I felt a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature. I did not return to the attic. I studied in the kitchen after that, in the bright light of day. But for weeks, whenever I was alone, I would catch myself humming that same melody, and I would quickly stop, horrified.

One day, a week after the exam, I decided to confront the mystery. I searched the attic for any old recordings, any clue to the song’s origin. Amidst a box of old letters, I found a diary belonging to a great-aunt I never knew. On the last page, she had written in faded ink: ‘She sings for the unborn, the one whose name we do not speak.’ The date was exactly a hundred years ago, on the night before a big examination in her own life. The next page was blank, except for a single word: ‘Hollow.’ It was then I realized the song was not for me—it was a warning, a family curse passed down through generations. I had heard the lullaby of the Hollow, and I would carry it forever, a haunting reminder of the thin line between the living and the dead.