Hello dear ones and welcome to today's bedtime story.
A story I wrote called The Other Side.
So just taking a few moments dear ones just to arrive here in the space.
Getting yourselves nice and comfortable,
Nice and relaxed,
So that you can just lie back and listen to the story.
Hollow Creek had its fair share of ghost stories.
The kind parents used to keep their kids from wandering too far into the woods or poking around in abandoned places.
But Lucy Thompson had never believed in those tales.
Not until Sam Carter vanished.
One moment he was peddling his bike home after school and the next he was gone.
No footprints,
No tracks,
No answers.
The police barely searched.
Probably ran away,
They said.
Like it was easy to believe a 14 year old would just disappear without a trace.
Lucy didn't buy it.
Sam wouldn't leave her behind.
Not like that.
Then a week later,
Her old walkie-talkie crackled to life in the middle of the night.
Lucy.
Lucy.
Her stomach twisted.
Sam.
More static and then.
Not safe,
Lucy.
They're coming,
Lucy.
They're coming.
And just like that,
She knew.
Sam hadn't run away.
He had been taken.
The first thing Sam felt was the cold.
When he opened his eyes,
He wasn't in Hollow Creek anymore.
A sickly red sky stretched above him,
Churning like a living thing.
Around him,
Skeletal trees twisted at impossible angles,
Their bark black and peeling.
The air was thick,
Heavy,
Carrying a scent of metal and rot.
And then came the whispers.
They slithered through the air,
Curling in his ears.
Not voices.
Not words.
But something ancient.
Something hungry.
He stumbled forward,
His breath ragged.
His last memory was riding home.
The streetlights flickering.
And then,
Pull.
Like his body had been yanked inside out.
Now he was here.
Wherever here was.
And something was watching him.
The first night,
Sam learned he wasn't alone.
The shadows moved here.
Crawling like living things.
And within them,
It lurked.
He never got a good look at it.
Not at first.
He'd hear the clicking sound first.
Like teeth grinding over bone.
Then the whispers would start.
The air would grow thick.
And the trees would bend,
Reaching toward him as if they,
Too,
Were alive.
And then,
It would come.
Torn,
Hollow.
A shape that shouldn't exist.
Shifting between forms.
A gaping mouth filled with jagged teeth.
It didn't chase like a wild animal.
It stalked him.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Hungrily.
He learned to stay quiet.
To move when the whispers were the faintest.
To never stop running.
For weeks,
He survived like this.
There were others here.
He could hear them.
Faint voices carried by the wind.
They spoke in fragments.
Help us.
Lost.
So hungry.
At first,
He thought they were ghosts.
Then he found the bodies.
Scattered through the blackened forest.
Half buried beneath rotting leaves.
Some were old.
Nothing but skeletons wrapped in decayed clothes.
Others were newer.
One still clutched a walkie-talkie.
And that's when he knew.
He wasn't the first to be taken.
And he wouldn't be the last.
For a long time,
Sam thought he would die here.
Then,
One day,
Something changed.
The air shimmered.
Warped.
He felt a flicker of something.
Of home.
It seemed a tear had opened in the sky.
For just a second.
And through it,
He had heard a familiar sound.
A voice.
Lucy.
Hope flared in his chest.
He wasn't alone.
If she had heard him,
Then maybe he could get out.
Lucy and the others followed the signal.
Deep into the abandoned power plant.
The walkie-talkie crackled louder with every step.
And the air itself seemed to vibrate.
And then,
Suddenly,
A portal appeared.
Not a doorway in the traditional sense.
More like a tear in reality itself.
As if someone had sliced a hole into the world.
And beyond it,
Lucy could see another place.
A place that shouldn't exist.
The others gasped.
What the hell is that?
Jake whispered.
It's him.
Lucy breathed.
It's Sam.
Sam is in there.
And before anyone could stop her,
She stepped through.
The other side was worse than she imagined.
The air was suffocating.
Filled with an unnatural pulsing heat.
The sky above flickered.
Shifting between deep crimson and total darkness.
And something in the shadows moved.
Jake,
Oliver,
And Mia landed behind her with a thud.
Where the hell?
Jake started.
But Lucy wasn't listening.
She had heard something.
Someone running toward them.
And then he appeared.
Sam.
He was thinner.
His face gaunt.
His clothes torn.
His eyes were wide.
Filled with exhaustion and terror.
He looked at Lucy like he wasn't sure if she was real.
Lucy.
Tears stung her eyes.
Sam.
A clicking noise filled the air.
And Sam's face paled.
Run,
He shouted.
The forest erupted.
From the darkness,
It came.
The hunter.
It was worse up close.
Too torn.
Its limbs jagged and wrong.
Shifting between solid and shadow.
Its mouth stretched.
Opening impossibly wide.
And it moved.
Not running.
But gliding.
A blur of darkness.
Closing the distance between them in seconds.
They ran.
Through the trees.
Past the bodies.
Over the rotting ground.
The whispers chased them.
The world itself warping around them.
Trying to pull them deeper.
The portal,
Sam gasped.
It flickers.
It's flickering.
We have to get there before it closes.
Lucy's legs burned.
But she pushed forward.
And then,
There it was.
A flickering tear in the air.
Their only way home.
Jake and the others leapt through first.
Lucy turned.
Just in time to see the creature's claws sink into Sam's shoulder.
His screen tore through the air.
No.
Lucy grabbed him.
Pulling with everything she had.
Sam locked eyes with her.
Lucy,
You have to be brave.
I'm not letting go,
Sam.
The hunter snarled.
Pulling him back.
Lucy screamed.
And then,
A burst of light.
And the portal collapsed.
Sam fell through.
And they crashed back into the real world.
They lay on the cold floor of the power plant building.
Gasping for air.
Jake coughed.
Are we alive?
Oliver groaned.
I think so.
Lucy turned to Sam.
He was shaking.
Breath ragged.
But he was alive.
The others helped him up.
And then,
The walkie-talkie crackled.
It is not over.
Not over.
And Lucy's blood ran cold.
Beyond the trees,
Something watched.
Waiting.
It seems the other side was not done with them.
Quite yet.
