The Hollow Masquerade

Ash fell like snow in the ruined ballroom.

Jacob stood amidst the skeletons of dancers, their jeweled masks fused to fleshless faces. The chandelier lay in shattered pieces, its crystals now grinding underfoot as he approached the final door, the nursery, its wood scorched but still standing.

The key in his hand pulsed like a living thing.

Behind him, the Hollow Priest stirred, his wooden mask split clean down the middle. "You can't," he rasped, crawling forward on shattered limbs. "The house needs"

Jacob kicked the door open.

The nursery was exactly as he'd seen it in the memory floral wallpaper peeling, cradle rocking gently despite the decay. But the infant inside wasn't monstrous. Just a baby girl, her cheeks flushed pink, her tiny fingers clutching at empty air.

Until she saw him.

Her eyes Emily's eyes locked onto his. Not with hatred. With recognition.

"Danny."

The name came not from the infant, but from the shadows. Eleanor stepped forward, her own mask gone, her face whole and unmarked. No void. No crow's eye. Just his childhood friend, weary beyond measure.

"She doesn't remember," Eleanor whispered. "Not unless you make her."

Jacob's breath hitched. The key grew heavier.

The Priest's skeletal hand clamped his ankle. "The house hungers," he hissed. "Break the cycle, and everything burns, including her."

Jacob looked down at the infant. At the first sin he'd ever committed. The one that had spawned centuries of suffering.

The baby cooed, reaching for him.

Something inside Jacob shattered.

He fell to his knees, the key clattering to the floorboards. "I'm sorry," he choked out. "Gods, Emily, I'm so"

Warmth enveloped him. Not fire. Not smoke. Eleanor's arms wrapped around his shoulders as she knelt beside him, her tears hot against his neck.

"Now you remember," she murmured. "Now you choose."

The nursery walls trembled. Plaster rained down as the house the thing they'd fed for generations woke fully. The floorboards splintered, revealing yawning darkness beneath. The infant began to cry.

Jacob snatched up the key.

Not to carve. Not to sacrifice.

To end.

He drove the key into the cradle's headboard—into the original sigil, carved there centuries ago by his own childish hand. The wood screamed as it split. The infant's wails rose to a deafening pitch, then cut off abruptly as light erupted from the crack.

Not the green of cursed fire. Not the black of the void.

Golden. Warm. Alive.

The darkness beneath the floorboards recoiled. The house shrieked, its timbers buckling as the light spread. The Priest's mask shattered, revealing

Daniel's face.

Older. Weathered. Eyes hollow with centuries of guilt.

"You were the best of us," the Priest the first Daniel, whispered. "You remembered."

Then the light took him.

Jacob barely had time to grab the infant before the floor gave way. Eleanor's hand found his as they fell not into darkness, but into a sunlit meadow. The infant in Jacob's arms giggled, her tiny fingers clutching his thumb. Eleanor gasped beside him, her face turned toward the sky.

No masks. No smoke. Just birdsong and the whisper of wind through grass.

And a single crow, watching from a nearby oak.

Its eyes were no longer hungry.

Just sad.

Jacob exhaled for what felt like the first time in centuries. The key, now cold and inert, slipped from his fingers to vanish in the tall grass.

Somewhere beyond the meadow, a door creaked open.

Waiting.