MidnightScreams

The Void Within: The Legend of Blackthorn Moor

A skeptical investigator visits a cursed moor where villagers whisper of an ancient witch. As his journal entries progress, his words distort, unraveling into madness.

Full Story:

Journal Entry #1 – October 3rd, 1892

I have arrived at Blackthorn Moor just before dusk. The village of Dunmere, where I am lodging, is silent, its inhabitants eyeing me with the superstitious dread I have come to expect from such remote places. They whisper of the Hollow Woman—an old legend of a witch who lingers in the moor, waiting for those foolish enough to trespass on her land.

Ridiculous.

Tomorrow, I venture into the moor to disprove their fears.

Journal Entry #2 – October 4th, 1892

The moor is worse than I expected. It is not merely desolate; it is wrong. The air is thick, as though pushing against my very breath. The fog curls in unnatural ways, forming shapes at the edge of my vision.

My guide, Elias, refused to enter past the old stone boundary, muttering prayers under his breath. I paid him to stay, but he fled at the first distant sound—a whispering that I suspect was merely the wind through the reeds.


I have set up camp for the night. The silence here is absolute, save for the occasional wet plop of something moving in the bog.

Journal Entry #4 – October 5th, 1892 (Evening)

I awoke to find my supplies scattered. I must have been careless. But the footprints in the mud—long, thin prints, almost like fingers—are harder to explain.

Something is watching me.

The fog does not move with the wind. It shifts on its own, closing in as if breathing. My head pounds, and I feel lightheaded, as if the very ground beneath me is shifting.

There was a voice last night. A woman’s voice. Calling my name.

Journal Entry #7 – October 7th, 1892

I lost time. I awoke standing in the marsh, the water lapping at my knees. My lantern lay broken at my feet.

I remember nothing between nightfall and waking. But the mud on my hands… God, it was thick and warm. Like blood.

The whispers are closer now. They do not come from the wind. They come from inside me.


Journal Entry #10 – October 9th, 1892

She is here. Not a legend. Not a folktale. She is real.

The Hollow Woman. She moves in the fog, twisting and stretching like shadow made flesh. I glimpsed her today—her face was a void, a yawning hole where features should be.

She whispered inside my skull, soft and patient. “You will be hollow too.”

Final Entry

To whomever finds this journal—leave this place. Burn it. Do not let the Hollow Woman take root in your mind as she has in mine.

I can feel myself thinning, unraveling. My fingers stretch like mist. My reflection fades. My voice is not my own.

I am becoming hollow.

The journal was discovered near the center of Blackthorn Moor. No trace of the investigator was ever found. But the villagers whisper that, on fog-heavy nights, a new voice can be heard joining the whispers of the Hollow Woman.

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