The Hollowhill Enigma

Noah Kancz

Okay, so… I guess we need to talk about how all this started. Because, like, it didn’t start with some ghost in the attic or a bloody handprint on a window. It started with a letter. A real-life, old-school, wax-sealed letter. Sent from my uncle’s attorney—my dead uncle, who, by the way, never so much as mentioned Hollowhill during the 40 years he was alive. Suddenly, I’m being told I own property in a place I’ve literally never heard of. I—I don’t know, something about that felt wrong. Like, cosmically wrong?

Mitchell Kancz

Yeah, and I started digging. Like, actual, embarrassing late-night forum trawling—the works. Wanted to see if this town even existed. Get this: It was officially “closed” on public record in, what was it, ’87? Census said zero living residents. But… property records? Still showing sales and purchases, right through last year. Either it’s the most boring real estate scam in history or something’s really off here.

Paige Kancz

You guys skipped my favorite part. So while you two were down whatever Reddit rabbit hole, I found something out back in the attic—a diary. Gran’s handwriting, no mistake. There’s this one entry, 1986: “They’re not people anymore. They just look like people. I have to leave before I forget I’m not one of them.” Lovely bedtime reading, huh? Super comforting. Oh, and my full name’s in there. So, thanks a lot, family curse.

Mitchell Kancz

After all that, we did the only logical thing, right? We packed the car and drove straight there like total idiots. You can blame me—I wanted answers. First red flag: GPS cuts out, exactly ten miles from Hollowhill. No signal, nothing, all our phones brick up at the same time. They weren’t dead—just cut off. We could text each other, but not even Siri wanted to help us get there.

Noah Kancz

Yeah, and then the road signs started getting weird. One sign’s like, “Hollowhill—5 miles.” Great. Next one, “Hollowhill—12 miles.” Wait, didn’t we just… And then “2 miles.” It’s like math gave up and just walked into traffic. I kept expecting the same guy with a banjo to pop up by the roadside every time.

Paige Kancz

And tell them about the deer, Mitchell. I know you saw it first, but—

Mitchell Kancz

Yeah, yeah, I saw it. Dead deer, right shoulder. Next mile—same deer… but more decayed. Next pass? Just bones. We never turned the car around; we just kept passing the same place. I don’t even have a theory for that one. Like, nature on repeat, basically.

Paige Kancz

We’re arguing about dead animals and Google Maps, and then—boom. Suddenly the road crests over a hill and there’s Hollowhill, like it just bloomed out of nowhere. In a valley that you literally could not see five seconds earlier. Creepiest “Welcome Home” moment I’ve ever had.

Noah Kancz

But it’s all… pristine. Houses painted, lawns mowed, not a weed out of place. Like someone’s hosting the world’s weirdest Homeowners’ Association contest. Thing is, there’s no noise. Not birds, not wind, nothing. Not even, like… town hum. Just quiet.

Mitchell Kancz

And there at the center—Noah’s new palace. Victorian house, bright red door, mailbox crammed with letters all addressed to Noah. But they’re dated all the way back to 1987—before you were even born, man. Like… the mail was just waiting for you to show up.

Noah Kancz

So we go in. It’s… it’s like someone’s been prepping this place for us. Three bedrooms, doors labeled—Paige, Mitchell, me. Kitchen stocked with our comfort food, which—by the way—how does anyone even know Paige likes that off-brand mac and cheese? And the photos. Dozens. Us. In places we’ve literally never been, wearing hideous sweaters I swear have never touched my body.

Mitchell Kancz

And in the study, I find this journal—it’s from your uncle, Noah. The last entry, it, uh, wasn’t exactly subtle: “The town doesn’t let you leave once you understand. I’ve tried to warn Noah, but every letter I send changes itself. By the time he reads this, I’ll either be free or I’ll be part of Hollowhill forever.” Yeah, so I guess… not a great Yelp review.

Paige Kancz

Meanwhile, I get pulled to the basement. There’s this door you can’t miss—it’s warm to the touch, weirdly alive, and it’s humming. Not like a fridge hum. This was… different. Hit me behind the eyes, set my teeth on edge. I lean in, and everything just—blurs at the edges. Something was waiting. I… did not want to meet it.

Mitchell Kancz

And then—the cherry on top—a welcome basket. All the local vibes. Honey, bread, and this cheery handwritten note of rules: Don’t go out after dark. Don’t answer if someone calls your name three times. Don’t look at your reflection too long. Always accept dinner invitations. Yeah. That’s… not normal, right?

Noah Kancz

My first instinct is like, bail. Immediately. Grab our stuff and walk, run, steal a bike, whatever. But… every road out curves back to the center. No matter which way we go. And the odometer ticks miles, but we’re back at the square again. We’re driving in some kind of living Möbius strip.

Paige Kancz

You know what, it gets better. First “neighbor”—an old lady watering her garden. She waves, I wave, she smiles—and it just keeps getting wider and wider. Like she’s got way too many teeth, and the smile never drops the whole time. Didn’t blink once. For half a minute. I started wishing for the deer again.

Paige Kancz

So, dinner with the neighbors. Rule number four. The Hendersons invite us. Whole Stepford thing—“as long as we can remember.” The dad stretches those words out, and the mom and kids just… stare. No one blinks. I counted. I always count when I’m uncomfortable.

Noah Kancz

We’re eating—well, sort of—and I realize: no one in that family actually takes a bite. They just kind of… simulate dinner. Forks hover, they crunch nothing, move food around the plate. And the glasses…? No refills, but they never empty. Even Mitchell, who, like, could out-drink a camel, stayed dry the whole meal.

Mitchell Kancz

Ask the kids their names, just to break the ice, and all four answer “Sarah” at the exact same time. Even though, what, just five minutes earlier, they all had different names. My appetite bailed. Fast.

Noah Kancz

Come morning, after surviving that dinner, we check out the square. Shops are open, but these people—every answer is just… slippery. They never say how long they’ve been here, never slip and mention a year even by accident. They’re too polished. Like actors with one script.

Paige Kancz

I went to the library, ‘cause I figured if there’s a good haunting it’s gonna involve overdue books, right? Décor hasn’t changed since Reagan, but the newspapers—dating all the way from ’87 up to now. Every single article by the same author. And every photo—same people, frozen in time. Birthday parties, funerals, always with the forced smiles. No one ever ages.

Mitchell Kancz

Found a memorial too—“Those Who Left Us – 1987.” Two forty-seven names, and—this got me—some of those names matched what was in your uncle’s journal, Noah. Names of people he swore he’d seen around. So… dead on paper, walking the streets in real life.

Mitchell Kancz

So I started making a timeline, looking for patterns—because that’s what you do when you’re losing your mind. And… every single person we’ve met or seen? Their name is on that memorial. The dates of “death” match their entry month. It’s not that people die here. They get… rewritten. Become something else.

Paige Kancz

There are cameras everywhere, too—seriously, everywhere. In trees, on traffic lights, pointing into town. All the feeds run wires underground, into this one big, windowless concrete nightmare at the town’s center. If buildings could glare, that thing would.

Noah Kancz

And time gets weird. Like, Paige—you went into the shop to use the bathroom, right? You were gone for, what, two minutes? Mitchell and I… we swear, it was three hours. Our phones back us up, your phone says it’s two minutes. Time loops, skips, eats itself. It’s like Hollowhill doesn’t want us in sync.

Paige Kancz

So, concrete block. No windows, no doors, no signs. Just sitting there like a tumor. But it messes with you—ears pop, like we’re climbing a mountain in flip-flops. And every so often, there’s this… rumble underneath. Like there’s something moving. Something big.

Noah Kancz

Found a hatch behind it—almost missed it, honestly. Way too “Silent Hill.” Inside? Tunnels everywhere. Copper wires, weird symbols scraped along the wall. The symbols are, like, wriggling in your peripheral vision, but stare at ‘em head-on, and they freeze. Real comforting.

Mitchell Kancz

We end up in an underground room. And it’s filled—stacked—with old gear. 1980s computers running nonstop, fans buzzing like angry bees, screens just spewing data. Camera feeds—every house, every street, including ours. We’re being watched, real-time, by something—or someone—that’s been running since Reagan. No one updates the software, apparently.

Mitchell Kancz

Stumbled on files marked “Project Continuity.” Dated 1987. Apparently, the government used Hollowhill as a testing ground for “consciousness preservation” and “community integration protocols.” Everyone here volunteered. Volunteered for… immortality. The “good” kind, you know, where you become part of a haunted computer system.

Noah Kancz

According to these files, the promise was digital immortality—your brain uploaded, but your body stays preserved, so you keep living in the “perfect town.” Except… no simulation. It’s the real world, with the town running on some kind of network. Consciousness plugged right into the backbone.

Paige Kancz

And if you want nightmares? Watch the video logs. People going into the concrete building, coming out with those hollow eyes, half-smiling. Still breathing, still flesh and blood, but there’s no one at home anymore. The system keeps them moving, keeps everything “normal.” I guess that’s what passes for normal here.

Noah Kancz

We started putting it together. Hollowhill’s not a real town—not really. It’s trapped between, like, digital and physical. People are alive, technically. Their bodies keep moving, but their thoughts are stored down here, in this machine, this—thing. They’re immortal, yeah, but they’re not living. Not anymore.

Mitchell Kancz

Noah’s uncle? He was an engineer on the project. He tried to stop it—tried to break the system from the inside. But the network detected it, folded him into itself. Didn’t kill him. Just made sure his body kept walking, his dissent erased. Kept him… useful.

Paige Kancz

And the big reveal—none of this is coincidence. We were lured here on purpose. The residents are breaking down; their minds degrade every year, less and less human. The system needs new people—fresh consciousness—to keep itself alive. Lucky us.

Mitchell Kancz

Back at the house, we find invitations—one from every household. All for the same night. And the handwritten rules? “Always accept dinner invitations.” Not much of a mystery what’s coming. Integration ceremony. They want us in the family photo—forever.

Noah Kancz

So I’m in the underground chamber again, trying to fight back. Hack into their system, maybe buy us time. Turns out, they’ve been collecting our data already—brainwaves, emotional spikes, the whole neural Wi-Fi. Planning to download us straight into their Zombie Network by midnight.

Paige Kancz

And on the main control screen—great, there’s a countdown. 48 hours ‘til “Assimilation Protocol” starts. Two days left before we become… whatever passes for residents here. Super motivating. I’ll try not to pack.

Noah Kancz

Here’s the catch—not everyone’s completely lost in the sauce. Sometimes a resident gets this flash of terror, fights through the programming. It’s quick, but you can see someone trapped inside, screaming to escape. I saw it in the Henderson dad—gone the next second, all blank again.

Mitchell Kancz

That’s when we meet David Chen. Total wild card—fifteen years fighting the system after a botched integration, living on borrowed minutes of freedom. He helps us out, says there’s a manual shutdown in the concrete building. Old engineers put it in, “just in case.”

Paige Kancz

Yeah. Small catch though—gotta pass through something called “cleansing chambers” to reach it. Which, let me tell you, just sounds like a great, pleasant, totally not-nightmare place to visit, right? Sign me up, I love a good brainwashing.

Mitchell Kancz

I want to dropkick the whole system—burn the servers, set us all free. But David warns us: kill the core, you kill everyone wired to it. That’s 247 people. Including your uncle, Noah. It’s a death sentence masquerading as salvation.

Noah Kancz

So now I’m stuck. If we leave the network running, we get assimilated, and then it probably… expands. And we’ve got actual paperwork showing it—orders for equipment, new foundations in towns nearby. Hollowhill is a test site, and we’re the next round of lab rats.

Paige Kancz

That’s when it hit me: every choice here is rotten. Someone pays. Either we kill hundreds or do nothing and doom ourselves—and maybe thousands more, next time. Whatever we pick, someone suffers. I can’t believe this is what passes for “progress.”

Noah Kancz

Mandatory dinner, and it’s like the world’s creepiest flash mob. Two hundred forty-seven people, all in sync, moving like they’re plugged into the same puppet-master. Toasts to “eternal community,” everyone saying lines in perfect rhythm. The food’s all display; no one actually eats. Just a show for us—soon-to-be “new arrivals.”

Mitchell Kancz

I spotted Noah’s uncle across the square. For a split second his mouth moves—“I’m sorry.” And then his face resets, like a character in a bad video game. Nothing behind the eyes. Still in there, still fighting, trapped.

Paige Kancz

Mayor stands up, smiles with those too-white teeth, and gives us the hard sell on “shedding mortality.” When he’s done, everyone stands and just… stares. All eyes on us, waiting, the way a predator waits for its prey to tire out. My skin itched all over. I’m not scared—okay, maybe I am, but I’m not showing it.

Mitchell Kancz

We bolt. Break the rules for the first time. The whole town moves—same pace, same stare, no shouting, no rushing. They don’t want to catch us. They want to herd us. Block every exit except the one that leads to the concrete building. It’s almost elegant—if it wasn’t so horrifying.

Paige Kancz

But I figured out a loophole—chaos. Smash a car window, set off a fire alarm, toss garbage cans. Anything unpredictable throws them off. Like the network loses its grip for a minute, can’t process true randomness. So we cause as much trouble as possible and slip into the alley.

Noah Kancz

Behind the chaos, we find a storm drain. Slide in, heads first, straight into the dark and away from all those perfect smiles. Down into the guts of Hollowhill because—well, where else is left?

Noah Kancz

So we’re in these tunnels, right? Copper wires everywhere, shedding a weird electric blue glow. The deeper you get, the hotter it is—feels claustrophobic, like the air’s running out. It’s not just temperature. It’s that something is down there, breathing with us.

Mitchell Kancz

I found what looked like a little workshop—tools, circuit boards, old monitors. This was your uncle’s hidden spot, Noah. He was building something—a virus designed to destroy the network from inside. Never finished it, though. Assignments left undone, just like in high school, only much higher stakes.

Paige Kancz

There’s a catch—of course. The virus isn’t finished; without the missing code, it’ll kill everyone connected, not just the system. So we’ve got a doomsday button… with no off switch. And the clock’s ticking—36 hours until assimilation.

Mitchell Kancz

I’m gonna say it: I want the mercy kill. Better a quick end than decades, centuries as a digital puppet. Kil—maybe that’s too harsh, but at least people would be free. Even if they never agreed to it.

Noah Kancz

No. There’s another way. My uncle