The Hollow Children
The school had been closed since 1978.
Everyone in the town knew why.
At least, they thought they did.
A gas leak had supposedly killed three students and injured dozens more.
The school was evacuated.
Then abandoned.
Then forgotten.
Except for the laughter.
People living nearby claimed that every evening at approximately 6:40 p.m., they could hear children playing on the old playground.
Nobody ever investigated.
The town had an explanation.
Old pipes.
Wind.
Animals.
Anything was better than admitting that children were laughing inside an abandoned school.
Then Marcus Bell decided to go inside.
Marcus ran a small channel documenting abandoned buildings.
He had explored hospitals.
Prisons.
Factories.
Old hotels.
The school seemed harmless.
He arrived shortly before sunset.
At 6:32 p.m., he entered through a broken side door.
The interior smelled of dust and mildew.
The walls were covered with faded artwork.
A row of tiny lockers lined the hallway.
Marcus filmed everything.
At 6:40 p.m., he heard laughter.
He stopped.
The laughter came from the playground.
Children.
Dozens of them.
Marcus walked toward the windows.
The playground was empty.
But the laughter continued.
He stepped closer.
A swing moved by itself.
Then another.
Then all of them.
Marcus whispered:
"Okay."
He backed away.
Something scratched across the blackboard behind him.
He turned.
Three words appeared in the dust.
DON'T GO HOME.
Marcus stopped recording.
He should have left.
Instead, he kept exploring.
He entered a classroom.
Every desk was covered in dust except one.
The desk at the front.
It was perfectly clean.
On top was a piece of paper.
Marcus picked it up.
It was a class roster.
The names were handwritten.
Most were old.
Some belonged to children who had died decades ago.
Then Marcus noticed a name he recognized.
His own.
Marcus Bell.
Age 34.
He dropped the paper.
Another sheet slid from beneath it.
Tomorrow's date was written across the top.
Underneath were twelve names.
Marcus recognized one.
A local girl named Emma.
She lived three streets from the school.
Marcus left immediately.
He drove to Emma's house.
Her mother answered.
When Marcus told her what he'd found, she became furious.
She demanded that he leave.
The next morning, Emma disappeared.
Police searched for her.
No one found her.
Marcus returned to the school.
He had to know what was happening.
At 6:40 p.m., the laughter began again.
This time, it was closer.
Marcus walked down the hallway.
The classroom doors were open.
Every room was filled with children.
Dozens of them.
Sitting at desks.
Perfectly still.
They looked approximately ten years old.
None of them blinked.
Marcus recognized several faces from missing-person posters.
Children who had disappeared over decades.
Emma was sitting among them.
Marcus whispered her name.
She looked up.
Her mouth moved.
No sound came out.
Then every child turned toward him.
All at once.
A little boy stepped forward.
He looked directly at Marcus.
"You have to stay until the bell."
"What bell?"
The boy smiled.
"The last one."
A school bell rang somewhere upstairs.
The children disappeared.
The doors unlocked.
Marcus ran outside.
He never returned.
But he kept the footage.
He uploaded one final video.
It lasted seventeen minutes.
For most of it, Marcus simply walked through the school.
Near the end, the camera pointed toward the classroom.
A child was standing in the doorway.
Then another.
Then dozens.
The footage cut to black.
The video's final audio contained a school bell.
Then a child's voice.
"Marcus isn't on the list anymore."
The video disappeared twelve minutes later.
Marcus disappeared three days after that.
Police found his car parked outside the school.
His camera was sitting on the driver's seat.
The memory card contained one final photograph.
A classroom.
Twenty-four children sitting at desks.
Twenty-three were old photographs from the school's past.
One was Marcus.
He was sitting in the back row.
His eyes were open.
His hands were folded on the desk.
And written across the blackboard behind him were three words.
CLASS BEGINS TOMORROW.
The school was demolished the following year.
The playground was removed.
The foundations were excavated.
Nothing unusual was discovered.
The town finally stopped hearing children's laughter.
For about six months.
Then parents began reporting something strange.
Children in the area had started drawing the same building.
An old school.
Always the same.
When asked where they had seen it, the children gave the same answer.
"We go there after school."
Some ghosts haunt the places where they died.
Others seem to be waiting for someone new to join them.
