Whispers Beneath the Stone

The villagers of Durn Hollow never stayed near the graveyard after dusk. It wasn't superstition—it was survival. Even children, curious and fearless by nature, learned young not to follow the path beyond the crooked iron gate. Everyone knew: the dead in Durn Hollow did not rest quietly.

Ezra Myles, however, was not from Durn Hollow.

He arrived just before the last leaves of autumn fell, a quiet man with dusty shoes and a notebook full of strange drawings. “Research,” he told the innkeeper. “Historical architecture.” He didn’t say why his sketches seemed more like diagrams than art, nor why he asked so many questions about the graveyard.

The innkeeper warned him, like everyone did. “You don’t go there after dark. If you must look, do it before the fog rolls in. After that, the stones speak.”

Ezra smiled politely, nodded—and ignored every word.

His first visit to the graveyard was unremarkable. Weathered headstones leaned like drunks in the mist. A few names were still legible: Carrow, Bellamy, Yates. Some stones were ancient, crumbling to dust, while others looked newly placed. But it was the mausoleum at the far edge of the cemetery that caught his attention.

It was small and square, nearly swallowed by the roots of a massive yew tree. Unlike the rest of the graveyard, the mausoleum had no name, no dates, no inscription—only a single stone door, sealed with iron bands etched in what looked like Latin. He traced his fingers along the carvings. Old magic. Ezra had seen it before in other places—hidden places.

That night, he returned with tools.

The fog was thicker than he expected, curling around his legs like tendrils. Crickets had gone silent. The moon was little more than a smear behind clouds. But Ezra’s hands were steady as he broke the ancient seal. With a low groan, the stone door shifted inward.

The air that escaped smelled not of decay, but of dust, and something older. Something hungry.

Inside, a narrow staircase spiraled down. Ezra lit his lantern, casting gold light across the walls. Symbols lined the descent—warding sigils, containment glyphs, all drawn in haste. Whatever lay beneath hadn’t been meant to be visited again.

But Ezra wasn’t just a researcher. He was a Seeker. Trained to find what others feared. And the legends spoke of Durn Hollow’s hidden vault, a tomb older than the village, containing relics buried when the world was still dark with gods no man dared name.

He reached the bottom. A chamber opened before him, circular, lined with ancient script and bones. At the center stood a stone altar, and atop it: a mask.

It was carved from black obsidian, shaped like no human face. Its eyes were hollow voids, its mouth twisted in an eternal scream.

Ezra stepped closer. His heart thudded. His breath caught.

The mask called to him—not in words, but in feelings: power, eternity, understanding beyond flesh and time.

His hand moved on its own. Fingers touched the obsidian.

And the graveyard above exhaled.

In Durn Hollow, the bells rang on their own. Dogs howled. Every mirror cracked.

Ezra screamed as something entered him—voices, images, pain from countless lives folded into one endless moment. He saw the world as it once was: wild, god-haunted, ruled by things that fed on memory and soul. He saw the villagers centuries ago, sealing the mask beneath the earth with blood and fire. And he saw himself, not by fate, but by design. The mask had waited. It had whispered across time.

He dropped to the floor. The mask rolled beside him.

And laughed.

The next morning, the innkeeper noticed Ezra never returned to his room. A search party found the cemetery gate open. Fog still clung to the ground, unnaturally thick for daylight.

The mausoleum door stood ajar.

Inside, no one found Ezra. Only his notebook remained, pages filled with drawings of the mask—and scrawled beneath every sketch, the same phrase repeated over and over:

"It knows my name."

By sundown, the first villager vanished. Then another.

The fog never left Durn Hollow again.

And the graveyard stones still whisper—only now, they speak Ezra’s name.