Chapter 2: A Hole in the World

Chapter 2: A Hole in the World

A groan tore from Adam’s throat as consciousness seeped back in, slow and thick like mud. He was in his bed. Sunlight, hazy and soft, filtered through his blinds, striping the opposite wall in familiar patterns. The air was still, smelling of stale coffee and dust motes dancing in the morning light. It was just another Tuesday.

His body ached, a deep, resonant soreness in his bones as if he’d been struck by lightning. He rolled onto his side, his head throbbing in time with his pulse. A dream. It had to have been a dream. A vivid, terrifyingly detailed nightmare born from stress and too little sleep. The mine’s jagged mouth, the bone-chilling cold, the rusted cart…

The sound.

Even now, awake in the safety of his room, the memory of it made the fillings in his teeth ache. It wasn't a memory of hearing, but of feeling. A vibration that had bypassed his ears and slammed directly into his soul. And through that psychic shriek, a single, agonizing whisper, a phantom echo in his skull: I want her back.

Hope’s voice.

“Hope,” he mumbled, the name a dry rasp on his tongue. He sat up, the room spinning for a moment before settling. He had to call her. He had to hear her voice, bright and real, and laugh about the stupid, scary dream he’d had.

He fumbled for his phone on the nightstand. His fingers felt clumsy, disconnected. He swiped it open, his thumb hovering over the group chat icon. He needed to see her message from yesterday, the one that had started it all. Team meeting, my place. It would be the anchor to prove this was all just a figment of his exhausted mind.

He found the chat. There it was. Liam’s dumb jokes from the afternoon. Sarah’s sarcastic replies. And then… nothing. The thread just stopped. Hope’s summons, the one that had pulled him from his work-from-home stupor, was gone. A cold dread, far more real than the phantom aches in his body, began to bloom in his chest.

No. No, he was just confused. Sleep-addled. He needed something solid. Something real.

The photograph.

He scrambled out of bed, his bare feet cold on the floorboards, and lurched toward his desk. It was always there, propped against his monitor, his daily sacrament of longing. The picture from last summer. His anchor in a sea of monotony. He snatched it up, his breath catching in his throat. He needed to see her wild smile.

He stared.

The world tilted on its axis.

Three people grinned back at him. Liam, pulling his stupid face. Sarah, head thrown back in a joyous laugh. And himself, looking slightly out of place, as always. Beside Sarah, where Hope should have been, there was only the sun-drenched green of the park behind them. The composition was perfect. The spacing was natural. There was no rip, no smudge, no sign of digital alteration.

There was just a hole. A hole in the world, shaped exactly like Hope.

A strangled noise escaped his throat. He dropped the photo as if it had burned him, the plastic frame clattering against the desk. This wasn't a dream. This was worse. He stumbled out of his room, his mind a screaming void.

He found Sarah in the kitchen, humming as she poured herself a coffee. She was wearing her university sweatshirt, the picture of perfect, unbothered normalcy.

“Sarah!” His voice was a raw croak.

She turned, a mild, sisterly annoyance on her face that melted into concern as she saw him. “Adam? Whoa, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you sick?”

“The mine,” he gasped, leaning against the doorframe, his knuckles white. “Last night. With Hope. You ran with Liam… she went inside!” He was babbling, the words tumbling out in a frantic, desperate rush. “I tried to stop her, and there was this… this sound, and…”

Sarah’s brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “Adam, what are you talking about? We didn’t go to any mine. We all hung out at Liam’s, remember? We watched that terrible superhero movie.” She took a step closer, her expression softening with worry. “And… who’s Hope?”

The question hit him like a physical blow. It was worse than the vibration. It was a clean, silent, surgical removal of his reality.

“Who’s—?” he stammered, his voice cracking. “Sarah, don’t do this. It’s not funny. Hope! Our friend. Your best friend.”

“My best friend is Chloe,” she said slowly, as if speaking to a child. “From my psych program. Adam, I don’t know anyone named Hope. Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been really withdrawn lately.”

Her concern was the cruelest part. It wasn’t a lie; it was her truth. He saw it in her clear, worried eyes. In her world, Hope had never been.

Frantic, he ran back to his room, snatched the photograph, and thrust it at her. “Look! Right here! She’s supposed to be right here!”

Sarah took the frame from his trembling hands and glanced at it. She looked from the photo back to his face, her expression now laced with real fear for his sanity. “Adam… it’s a picture of us and Liam. It’s always been just us and Liam. Since we were kids.”

“No! She was there! She was always there!” he shouted, pointing at the empty space, the impossible void in the picture. “She loved you!”

The words hung in the air between them, raw and terrible. Sarah flinched, her face paling. “That’s a horrible thing to say. Why would you say that?” she whispered, hurt and bewildered. She placed the photo on the counter as if it were contaminated and took a step back from him. “I think you need to get some sleep. Maybe call a doctor.”

He backed away, a dizzying wave of nausea washing over him. She thought he was crazy. The world thought he was crazy. He fumbled for his phone again, his fingers shaking so badly he could barely dial. Liam. Liam had to remember. He was terrified. He would remember the sound.

The phone rang twice before Liam picked up. “Yo.”

“Liam! The mine. Last night. You have to tell me you remember,” Adam pleaded, his voice thin and reedy.

There was a pause on the other end. “Dude, are you okay? You sound weird. What mine? We crashed on my couch watching Galactic Justice 4. You fell asleep before the big CGI space battle.”

“No, that’s not what happened! We were with Hope! We went to Bondwick Mine, you heard the noise, you ran with Sarah!”

Another pause, longer this time. When Liam spoke again, his voice was cautious. “Dude… I’m gonna be real with you, I have no idea who ‘Hope’ is. Is this part of a game or something? Sarah just texted me. She’s worried about you.”

Adam’s hand fell, the phone slipping from his grasp and clattering to the floor. The line went dead.

He was alone.

Utterly and completely alone.

He was a castaway on an island of one, staring out at a sea that had swallowed the entire continent he came from. They didn’t remember. The universe had patched the hole, smoothed over the edges, and left him as the only frayed thread, the only evidence that the previous tapestry had ever existed.

He slowly bent down and picked up the photograph. He stared into the empty green space beside his sister, a space that screamed with its own non-existence. His fight wasn't about a haunted mine anymore. It wasn't about a missing person.

It was about the integrity of his own mind. He was the sole historian of a forgotten soul, the only person left to prove that Hope had ever smiled, ever laughed, ever wept at the mouth of a hungry darkness.

His fear began to curdle, hardening into a cold, grim determination. They were all wrong. The photo was wrong. The world was wrong. He was not insane.

He had to go back. Back to the place where reality had been torn apart. Back to the jagged maw in the hillside. He had to find proof, or he would be erased, too.