Blackridge hadn't changed much on the surface. But as Caleb walked through its rain-slick streets the next morning, he realized that the rot was no longer hidden beneath. It was bleeding through — in the cracked sidewalks, in the boarded windows of once-thriving shops, in the silence of a town that used to hum with life.
The people noticed him. Their eyes followed him from behind curtains, from car windows, from half-closed doors. Some whispered. Others just stared.
To them, he was a ghost. A memory of a time that ended in blood and howls.
Caleb Thorn. The Alpha who vanished the night the moon turned black.
He made his way to the Pack House, an old Victorian manor at the edge of the forest, once regal, now fraying at the edges. Ivy crawled up its sides like veins on dying skin. A storm was rolling in — not from the sky, but from the woods behind it.
The door opened before he knocked.
Elias Kane, the pack's historian and seer, stood there, his pale eyes glassy with knowing. He was old, far older than he looked, and he walked with the help of a carved cane tipped with a silver wolf's head.
"You're late," Elias rasped, stepping aside.
"You saw me coming," Caleb replied, stepping inside.
"I saw a storm wearing your face. I hoped I was wrong."
The Pack House still smelled of cedar and incense. But there was something new beneath it now — mildew and fear. Caleb felt the pulse of the house shift the moment he crossed the threshold. The bond between Alpha and Pack was not yet dead.
Just buried.
Elias led him into the war room — a circular chamber lined with shelves of old texts, maps, and weapons. A table stood in the center, carved from the trunk of a blackwood tree older than any living wolf.
"They're watching you," Elias said. "From the woods. From the Hollow. You feel it, don't you?"
Caleb nodded slowly. "I fought one of its beasts last night. It bled shadow."
Elias closed his eyes. "Then the breach is real."
He reached behind a shelf and pulled out a worn leather journal, laying it gently on the table.
"It started centuries ago," Elias whispered. "When the First Pack was formed, there were those among them who wanted more than balance. They wanted dominion. So they opened the Hollow — a well of power buried beneath the spirit world. But they didn't understand it. Couldn't control it. It twisted them. Devoured them."
Caleb opened the journal. Drawings covered its yellowed pages — glyphs, creatures with no faces, wolves with eyes like stars and mouths full of black fire.
"They sealed it," Elias continued. "With blood. With death. And they wrote a warning: If the Hollow stirs, so too must the Alpha return."
Caleb's breath caught.
"That prophecy—"
"Isn't just about you," Elias said. "It's about her."
Caleb stiffened. "Who?"
Elias tapped the page.
A sketch. A girl, no older than ten. Hair like midnight. Eyes glowing like moons.
Lena.
Somewhere, in the forest, the girl wandered barefoot across moss and bone. Her hands were clean, but the ground died beneath her touch. Trees curled away from her. Creatures stilled.
She stopped in front of a stream. The water refused to ripple.
"You shouldn't be here," a voice whispered.
She turned.
A boy stood across from her, lanky, wild-eyed. One of the town kids, a troublemaker named Miles. He'd followed her out of curiosity. Out of boredom.
Lena smiled softly. "You see me."
Miles blinked. "Well, yeah. You're standing there."
"No," she said. "You see me."
And then the forest screamed.
Back in town, Caleb felt it.
The earth shuddered beneath his boots, a low pulse of fear thrumming through the bond he had long buried. Wolves in the pack clutched their chests. Children cried in their sleep.
Something had happened.
He bolted out of the Pack House, Elias shouting after him.
The scream hadn't come from a monster. It had come from the land itself.
He found the boy first.
Miles was lying in the grass at the edge of the forest, unconscious, eyes wide open, lips murmuring nonsense in a voice that didn't sound human. Caleb knelt beside him.
The boy's skin was cold.
And burned into his arm was a symbol — a crescent moon wrapped in chains.
Caleb's blood went cold.
Elias arrived moments later. He knelt, inspecting the mark with shaking fingers.
"It's begun," the old man whispered. "The Hollow is marking its heralds."
Caleb rose. "The girl?"
"Not a girl," Elias muttered. "Not anymore."
Night fell fast.
In the woods, the pack's scouts lit their signal fires.
Inside the Pack House, Caleb stood before the council — or what remained of it. Ronan. Elias. Marla Dane, the healer. Bex, a young and sharp tracker. And Lucien, a fierce young wolf who didn't hide his dislike for Caleb.
"This is madness," Lucien snapped. "One rogue creature and a possessed kid, and suddenly we're back to bedtime stories?"
Caleb didn't rise. He didn't need to.
He simply said, "You're not ready for what's coming."
Lucien scoffed.
Elias stepped forward. "We've seen signs. More than you know. Crop fields dead overnight. Entire flocks gone without a sound. Dreams filled with static. And now, a child branded by the Hollow."
"We need to find the girl," Marla said gently. "And fast."
"We will," Caleb said. "But we also need to find out who let it out. The Hollow doesn't open on its own."
There was silence.
Then Ronan growled, "You're saying someone in the pack did this?"
"I'm saying someone knew it could be done," Caleb said, eyes scanning the room. "And we're going to find them. Because if we don't…"
He turned toward the window.
"…this town won't survive the next full moon."