The Hollowback

I could barely see past the fog of my own breath. The wind howled through the snowy peaks as I trudged through the drifts. The villagers below had warned me of "the Hollowback," but I laughed it off—until I saw the enormous footprints, impossibly deep, with no beginning or end in the snow. My lantern flickered as the mountain fell silent, and then I saw it: a hulking figure crouched low, its spine arched grotesquely upward, hollowed out like a frozen cave. Its head turned slowly, revealing empty sockets that dripped black, frozen tears, and its mouth split wide in a silent scream. As it moved closer, I realized the hollow in its back wasn’t empty—it was filled with the half digested, frozen bodies of others who had ignored the warnings. My last thought, before it reached for me, was that no one would ever find my footprints in the snow.