It’s a song for the dead

The Last Song of the Hollow

I don't know how long I've been... like this. I don't know how long it’s been since the skies turned red and the wind stopped smelling like rain. Time feels thick, a syrup that sticks to my claws and gums and won't wash away. But I remember the music. My kind loved music. We used to fill the forests with howls and whispers, weaving songs into the branches, and into the air. We sang because we had to. Because without it, we would’ve disappeared a long time ago.

Now I’m the only one singing.

At least, I think I am.

Daylight

The ground under my feet is cracked, broken into pieces like old skin left in the sun for too long. Every step I take echoes. I feel the weight of my body—not like it used to feel, with strength and rhythm, but heavy, like a stone dragged through tar. My legs still work, mostly. They bend a little weird now, and there’s this thing growing out of my side that I can’t quite figure out. A spine? A bone? A mistake? It throbs every time I move.

I try not to think about it. It’s easier if I just keep going.

The air smells like metal and rot, sharp and sour like it’s trying to chew me back. I walk because I have nowhere else to go, my claws scraping the asphalt as I climb over the rubble of what used to be a road. Human road. I think they called this... a highway? I remember watching humans from the trees, their strange little boxes that moved too fast and smelled too loud. I used to laugh at them.

Now there’s no laughter left. No trees, either. Just the bones of their buildings, sticking out of the ground like broken teeth.

And me.

I pause, my chest heaving. The ache in my side grows sharper, and I press a hand—claw? paw?—against it. It doesn’t help. Nothing does. But I can’t stop. Not yet.

I think I heard something last night. A song. Quiet, faint, but real. It wasn’t mine, and it wasn’t the wind. I’d almost forgotten what hope feels like until I heard it. Now it’s dragging me forward, step after step, breath after ragged breath.

I’m not the last one. I can’t be. I won’t be.

Nightfall

I make a camp under what’s left of a bridge. The concrete arches are crumbling, moss and rust eating their insides, but it’s enough to keep the rain off. I can’t feel the rain anymore, but it soaks into the bandages wrapped around my side, making the infection worse. At least, that’s what the voices tell me.

Yes. There are voices now.

I try not to listen to them. They’re not me. They’re the sickness. The Hollow, that’s what we called it. We didn’t understand it back then. We thought it was something we could fight, something that could be fixed.

We were wrong.

“Go back,” one of them whispers, a dry rasp curling in the back of my skull. “There’s nothing left. You’re nothing.”

I growl and slam my claws into the concrete. The sound echoes, sharp and hollow. The voice doesn’t come back, but I can feel it grinning in the dark corners of my mind.

I curl up under the bridge, my tail—or what’s left of it—wrapped around me. I clutch the little trinket I keep tied around my neck: a small, broken piece of wood carved into the shape of a bird. My sister made it for me, back before...

No. Don’t think about that.

Instead, I hum. It’s a small sound, soft and cracked, but it fills the space around me. It drowns out the whispers, at least for a little while.

Somewhere, out there in the dark, I swear I hear someone hum back.

The Stranger

I find them the next day. Or maybe they find me.

I’m following the sound again, that faint thread of music in the air, when I hear something else: footsteps. Light, careful, but unmistakable. My body tenses, instinct roaring to the surface. Fight? Flee? My claws itch. The thing growing out of my side twists and pulses.

“Hello?” a voice calls. It’s... small. Quirky. A little cracked around the edges, like a mirror that’s been glued back together. “Is someone there? I’m not here to hurt you, I promise!”

I freeze. The voice is coming from behind an overturned car. Human car. The metal is rusted and twisted, but I can see a shape crouched behind it: small, hunched, wrapped in layers of cloth and leather. Human. Definitely human.

I snarl before I can stop myself, a low, guttural sound that makes the figure flinch. But they don’t run.

“Whoa, hey, easy there!” they say, holding up their hands. Their fingers are covered in gloves, but I can see their skin—pale, thin, alive. Alive. “I’m not gonna hurt you, okay? I just... I heard you singing.”

I blink. Singing? No. That’s not right. They couldn’t have—

“Was it you?” they ask, tilting their head. “The humming? I heard it last night. Thought I was going crazy for a second, but I figured, hey, if it’s crazy, at least it’s the good kind, right?”

They laugh, a short, nervous sound. I don’t laugh back. My body is rigid, every muscle taut and trembling. I should run. I should fight. I should do something.

But I don’t.

Instead, I rasp, “You... heard?”

The human’s eyes widen. “Oh, wow. You can talk?” They sound more curious than scared. “That’s... that’s amazing. I mean, kinda creepy, sure, but mostly amazing. Are you, like, one of the creatures? From before?”

“Creatures,” I repeat, my voice a low growl. “You mean... my kind?”

They nod. “Yeah. I thought you were all gone. Everyone did.”

I stare at them. Their face is mostly hidden under a hood and scarf, but I can see their eyes: bright, tired, human. My claws flex against the ground.

“I am the last,” I say. The words taste like ash.

The human’s expression softens. “I’m sorry,” they say, and for some reason, I believe them.

The Hunt

Their name is Felix. At least, that’s what they tell me. They’re not much to look at—skinny, ragged, with a limp that makes them shuffle like a wounded bird—but there’s something... strange about them. Something alive.

They stick close to me, even though I warn them not to.

“It’s not safe,” I tell them, my voice rough and uneven. “I’m not safe.”

They shrug. “Neither’s the world. Besides, you’re the first person I’ve met in, like, a year who doesn’t want to eat my face. That’s gotta count for something.”

I don’t tell them that I’ve thought about it. The hunger is always there, gnawing at the edges of my mind. But there’s something about Felix that quiets it, just a little. Maybe it’s the way they talk, filling the silence with jokes and stories. Maybe it’s the way they look at me, not with fear, but with... something else.

Hope, maybe.

We travel together for a while, following the song. It’s stronger now, pulling us east, toward the horizon. Felix hums sometimes, their voice light and off-key, and I can’t help but hum along. It feels... good. Right. Like maybe I’m not as hollow as I thought.

But then the nightmares start.

The Monster

It happens one night, under the shadow of an old factory. The air is thick with ash, and the song is louder than ever, vibrating through my bones. I can feel it pulling me forward, stronger and stronger, but something’s wrong. My side aches more than usual, the infection twisting and burning under my skin. The voices are louder, too, hissing and laughing and snarling in my ears.

“Felix,” I rasp, clutching the wooden bird around my neck. “We shouldn’t... be here.”

Felix looks at me, their brow furrowed. “What do you mean? This is where the song’s coming from, right? We’re close.”

“Too close,” I growl. “It’s... wrong.”

Before they can respond, the ground shakes. A low, rumbling growl echoes through the factory, and my blood turns to ice. I know that sound. I’ve heard it before, in the dark places of the world.

“No,” I whisper, my claws digging into the dirt. “It’s not possible. They’re all dead.”

“What is it?” Felix asks, their voice trembling.

I don’t answer. I can’t. Because stepping out of the shadows is something I thought I’d never see again.

It’s one of my kind.

Or at least, it used to be.

Its body is twisted, and broken, the Hollow infection consuming it from the inside out. Its eyes are black pits, its claws jagged and dripping. It moves like a puppet, its

limbs jerking and snapping as it lurches toward us.

“Run,” I snarl, shoving Felix behind me. “Go. Now.”

“But—”

“Go!”

Felix hesitates, then turns and runs. The creature lunges toward them, but I intercept it, slamming my body into its side. We crash to the ground, claws and teeth tearing into each other. It’s stronger than I remember, its movements wild and frantic. I can feel its claws ripping into my flesh, but I don’t let go. I can’t.

This is my fight. My nightmare.

The End

I don’t remember much after that. Just blood and teeth and fire. It’s all a blur—raw violence tearing through my muscles, the creature’s claws shredding what’s left of my skin. My own howl splinters the air as I sink my fangs into its throat, ripping, choking, drowning in the black ichor that spills from its veins.

But it won’t stop. No matter how hard I fight, no matter how deep my claws go, it keeps coming. Its eyes—black, bottomless, dead—are locked on me, unblinking. I realize it doesn’t even care about the pain. It doesn’t feel anything anymore. The Hollow has hollowed it completely.

I’m losing.

Felix screams somewhere behind me, but I can’t turn. The weight of the creature is unbearable now, its jagged claws plunging into my side. The thing growing out of me—the infection I’ve carried all this time—responds, pulsing violently, wrapping my ribs in a sharp, parasitic agony. My body seizes, my vision flashes white, and I finally collapse under the weight of it all.

I think this is it.

The last one. The last of us. Dead in the dirt, just like all the others.

But then, something shifts.

The creature suddenly freezes, its claws half-buried in my chest. Its head jerks up, snapping toward the factory like a dog catching a scent. A low, guttural sound escapes its throat—not quite a growl, not quite a scream. It’s fear. It’s afraid.

I don’t know why until I hear it: the song.

But it’s not the song I’ve been following. This one is... wrong. It doesn’t hum or soothe; it claws. It writhes. It rises from the earth like a swarm of locusts, shrieking in broken, dissonant notes that scrape at the walls of my mind. It doesn’t belong to my kind, or to the humans, or to anything that should exist.

It’s a song for the dead.

The creature throws itself off me and begins to crawl. Its broken body twists unnaturally, bones snapping as it scrambles away, not toward the darkness, but away from it.

Away from the song.

I try to stand, but my body is shattered. My claws dig into the dirt, pulling myself forward inch by inch, my breaths wet and ragged. “Felix,” I rasp, spitting blood onto the ground. “Felix, where are you?”

There’s no answer. Just the song, louder now, spilling out of the factory like oil, thick and suffocating. The shadows around me shift and stretch, moving in ways they shouldn’t. I drag myself up against a rusted pipe, my vision swimming, and that’s when I see it.

Felix is standing in the factory’s open doorway, their silhouette bathed in the red light spilling from within. They’re not moving.

“Felix!” I call again, louder this time, but it feels like my voice is swallowed whole by the song. I try to get up, try to move toward them, but the infection flares again, pinning me to the ground with its searing tendrils.

Felix turns.

And I freeze.

Their face... it’s not theirs anymore. The warmth is gone, replaced by something cold, something hollow. Their mouth is open, singing the song, their voice twisted and distorted, like a thousand voices layered on top of each other. And their eyes—oh, their eyes. They’re black now, endless voids that stare straight through me.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “No, no, no...”

But Felix doesn’t stop. They take a step forward, their movements jerky, unnatural, like a marionette dragged along by invisible strings. Behind them, shapes begin to emerge from the factory—others, dozens of them, their bodies warped and broken, their faces melting into masks of agony. They all sing the same terrible song, their mouths stretched too wide, their eyes as black and empty as Felix’s.

It’s the Hollow. But it’s something worse. Something new.

The infection in my side writhes, almost as if it recognizes what’s coming. I try to fight it down, but I can feel it spreading, crawling up my ribs, sinking into my skull. My claws scrape at the ground as I try to back away, but there’s nowhere to go. They’re all around me now, the song consuming everything, louder and louder until it’s all I can hear, all I can feel.

“Felix,” I whisper, tears streaming down my face, my voice breaking. “Please... come back.”

For just a moment, the song falters. Felix stops. Their head tilts, their black eyes flickering, and I swear—I swear—I see a glimmer of something human. Something alive.

But then the shadows twist again, and it’s gone. They’re gone.

The last thing I see before the darkness swallows me is Felix’s outstretched hand, reaching for me, their broken voice whispering one final word:

“Run.”

I wake up hours later. Or maybe days. The world is silent now. The infection in my side is quiet, but it hasn’t left. I don’t think it ever will.

Felix is gone. The factory is gone. Even the song is gone.

But I’m still here.

And I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse.