By midnight, she had emptied her bank account, bought a motorcycle, and left a single voicemail for her mother—the first contact in twelve years.

She called it The Hollow. The Hollow had no name, only a taste—like burnt sugar and iron. It emerged when she was exhausted, or lonely, or backstage before a show. It spoke in her ears during the quiet part of “Firefly Song,” just before the crescendo.

On the fourth night, she found the basement door. It had been hidden under a braided rug. The stairs were dirt. The air smelled of wet stone and something older—a sweetness, like rotting fruit.

But at night, Anna Claire dreamed in static.

Anna Claire looked at the dark tree line.

She picked up the motel notepad and wrote two lists.

The next morning, Anna Claire woke up in a motel room in Baton Rouge, naked in a cold bath, the word carved into her thigh with a safety pin.