The Serpent’s Bargain at Hollow Hill

Florence Frightengale

Welcome back, dear listeners, to the Frightengale Files. Hollow Hill awaits you once again—and if you’re still lingering after the horrors we’ve already shared, well, some part of you must love the chill as much as I do. I’m Florence Frightengale, of course. And tonight—tonight, we turn to the earth beneath our feet, and the secrets it spits up. Elijah, are you feeling brave enough for what’s lurking in the foundations?

Unknown Speaker

Brave, Florence? Hah—my nerves are stout as ever. Good evening, friends. Dr. Elijah Blackwood, at your spectral service. I have always maintained that hospitals are, by design, repositories for all kinds of suffering... but tonight we excavate something older—a relic. A piece of divine punishment, revered as a miracle, misunderstood as a blessing. Most mortals call it the staff of Asclepius, symbol of healing. But Hollow Hill…well, it gave shelter to something hungrier than hope. A serpent, not a savior.

Florence Frightengale

A hospital relic, healing at a cost. A curse that promises life, but collects a terrible debt. Settle in, everyone. The Serpent’s Bargain at Hollow Hill waits just below the floorboards.

Florence Frightengale

So, let’s begin beneath the east wing—where the dust is thick and the pipes moan all night. It was a renovation, nothing special. The sort of hammering and swearing that passes for progress. Only this time, buried under the concrete, they found old wood, black as pitch, splintered and slick. Strange thing—it wasn’t straight. It twisted, coiled around itself, with a carving sharp enough, I’m told, to snag your thumb if you weren’t careful. A serpent, staring back. Of course, the staff was snatched up, secrets bundled away. But word gets out. Whispers do what they will, especially in Hollow Hill.

Unknown Speaker

Yes—hospitals hide things, but they are dreadful gossips at heart. We’ve seen it in nearly every episode, haven’t we? Relics, records, even that wretched red phone…they never stay secret. This staff, though—it lingered, coiled in shadow. I’m not sure if the builders were more afraid of it, or the thing that might come looking for it.

Unknown Speaker

Let’s go further back—back, truly, to myth. Asclepius, son of Apollo, favored by all who suffered. They say he mastered healing so perfectly, he crossed a line—raising the dead itself. For that, punishment came swift. Zeus, fearful as all rulers are, shattered Asclepius’s staff, broke it to splinters, so no mortal could misuse such power again. Remnants scattered, and one fragment—just one—found its grave under Hollow Hill. Until men’s shovels brought it hissing into the light again.

Florence Frightengale

It’s funny, Elijah. Hospitals always crave a miracle—something to bridge that impossible gap between the living and the gone. Perhaps Hollow Hill went looking for hope…and only managed to shake the bones of old gods instead.

Florence Frightengale

So here’s where the legends take their first bite. Nurse Delaney—she was the sort who never turned away from a dying patient. Sometimes, I wonder, is that mercy or madness? In any case, when a patient was slipping, his breath thin and rattling, Delaney pressed that serpent staff to his chest. And just like that—his wound shrank, the blood dried. His eyes snapped wide. Life returned as cleanly as if nothing had touched him at all. Miraculous healing—if you stop the story there.

Unknown Speaker

That’s never how stories end in Hollow Hill. You’d think we’d have learned by now, Florence. If something gives so generously, it must be taking twice as much somewhere else.

Unknown Speaker

True to form, the price crept in after dark. Delaney made her rounds, then collapsed where the lamplight couldn’t quite reach. Her skin split—precisely the wound she’d healed in her patient, opening now on her own side. But that’s not all. The staff itself…when she tried to let it fall, the serpent twisted, wriggled in her grip as if refusing to be abandoned. The implication chills me; that which heals, clings hardest of all when it’s hungry.

Florence Frightengale

It’s the oldest lesson—any bargain worth fearing has hidden teeth. Hollow Hill gives nothing away for free, not even hope.

Florence Frightengale

From then on, Delaney wore her fate on her flesh. A bruise curled on her palm, shaped just like the serpent’s bite. And each day it crept, a little higher up her arm. No matter where she buried the staff—cupboard, linen closet, even out in the rain—it found its way back. Always on her pillow, waiting. Like those damnable call bells that never stop ringing even when no one is there to pull them. The relic chose her, and it had no intention of letting go.

Unknown Speaker

We’ve seen things return before in these halls. But sometimes what returns…isn’t what you thought you’d lost.

Unknown Speaker

The patient, meanwhile, flourished. Skin pink, voice clear, appetite ravenous. No doctor could recall a turnaround like it. Every time Delaney raised that cursed staff and healed him, he grew better—and she, poorer. She pleaded, begged even, for him to release her from this ritual. And do you know what he said, Florence?

Florence Frightengale

Oh, I remember. He smiled. That slow, knowing smile. “Tomorrow… again.” I’ve heard plenty of bargains in my time, but none nearly so cruel as one sealed with a grateful patient’s eyes.

Florence Frightengale

Things grew stranger after that. The serpent’s carving—did it move? Some swore its coils climbed higher each time Delaney used the staff. And she bled, always where she’d seen the wound first. You know how Hollow Hill likes a bit of drama—lights flickering, sudden shadows. But that week, it wasn’t just flickers. It was a persistent hissing, as if something cold and old was moving between the walls, getting hungrier by the hour.

Unknown Speaker

To be fair, you do exaggerate about the drama, Florence—but this? The staff didn’t need our embellishments. It wanted to be noticed. The whole hospital watched, all caught in the serpent’s coils, waiting to see whom it would squeeze next.

Unknown Speaker

And then, the patient—imagine the gall—he began wounding himself on purpose. Tiny little cuts, and each one demanded the staff’s healing kiss. Delaney was trapped: heal him, lose another piece of herself. He grew younger, almost ageless, while she looked as if the years were draining out of her and soaking into the floor. Like an offering—exchanged on the altar of Hollow Hill’s deepest hunger.

Florence Frightengale

Desperate bargains, Elijah. I’ve seen nurses stitched together by hope and torn apart by despair. But never so literally as Delaney was. She faded, an echo of herself, while he grew vital, greedy for the next miracle.

Florence Frightengale

At last, Delaney’s strength—and perhaps her patience—ran out. She dragged that staff, serpent and all, to the tiled floor, and brought it down with all the fury she had left. But that’s the thing about gods' relics, Elijah: they don’t break like ordinary wood. The scream that followed—half wood splintering, half serpent hissing—it rang through the ward. In the morning, Delaney’s bed was cold. Empty. Only the staff remained—its serpent fatter, glossier, as if it had just finished a meal.

Unknown Speaker

I always find it unsettling when relics linger after their victims vanish. And yet, the hospital saw nothing amiss. Just another nurse lost to the endless night. The serpent, though—content. For now.

Unknown Speaker

The patient—no longer the shell he once was—walked from Hollow Hill as if nothing had happened. Healthy, radiant. People always marvel at a miracle, never pausing to wonder at the price. In the abandoned sheets, though, the staff lay waiting, serpent’s eyes swollen as if it still hungered. “It heals one… only by devouring another.” Florence, you said that once. I believe it now, more than ever.

Florence Frightengale

A miracle is only a debt disguised. At Hollow Hill, cures come wrapped in shadow—every healed soul, a cost exacted elsewhere.

Florence Frightengale

Remember this, listeners: in Hollow Hill, no cure is ever free. The serpent’s staff waits, silent, for the desperate hand. If you hear it whisper in the dark—walk away. There are bargains you can never unmake, debts you cannot pay. Elijah, I suspect that’s why you and I are still here. We know how to listen to the silence—and when to refuse the wrong kind of hope.

Unknown Speaker

Indeed, Florence. Some hauntings are easier to bear than what the living are willing to risk for a second chance. Still, I rather like it here. Hollow Hill is stubborn, unyielding—always ready with another secret, another dare. I suppose that’s why we stay. Or perhaps it’s the company.

Florence Frightengale

Quite right, old friend. We stay, not in spite of the darkness, but because of it. Thank you for joining us, listeners—may your dreams be haunted only by stories, never by bargains you can’t pay. Elijah, until next time?

Unknown Speaker

Until the next dreadful tale, Florence. Goodnight, all—and keep your eyes open for the slithering shadows beneath your bed.

Florence Frightengale

Spooky dreams, everyone. The serpent sleeps—tonight.