An original story in the style of Stephen King
Part I: Derry’s Cousin
When the town of Garrison Falls lost power on the night of August 16th, 2025, no one thought much of it. Small towns lose power all the time. Lightning hits a tree, a squirrel gets fried on a transformer, or the old wires running under the town—laid down in the 1940s and barely touched since—finally give out.
But the blackouts didn’t stop.
They came at dusk. Every night. Like clockwork. And they lasted longer each time.
By the end of the first week, the whole town would go dark by 7:43 PM sharp. The kind of darkness that didn’t just blot out light, but seemed to soak into your skin. Flashlights dimmed. Batteries died too fast. Phones stopped holding charge. Even candles guttered out as if some unseen mouth had sucked the flame straight off the wick.
Sheriff Clay Anders didn’t believe in ghosts. Or demons. Or any of the crap the teenagers in this town liked to put in their TikToks. But even he started to feel it — the wrongness.
The Hollowing had begun.
