The Echoes Beneath Glass Hill
No one ever left Glass Hill unchanged.
Perched in the northern reaches of Oregon, the town had always stood in isolation, like a forgotten punctuation mark among the thick pines. The residents called it a haven, a relic. Outsiders called it eerie, with its stunted growth, its absence on most maps, and its single, crumbling road that led nowhere else. But the town wasn’t the story. Not really.
It was what lay beneath it.
1. The Return
Jordan Vance hadn’t been back to Glass Hill in fifteen years.
The air still smelled the same — of wet bark, rusted metal, and some ancient, animal memory he couldn’t name. His boots crunched over gravel as he stepped out of his rental Jeep and stared at the town sign: Welcome to Glass Hill – Elevation 6,420. Population 947.
Still 947.
He frowned. That number hadn’t changed since he was a teenager.
A buzz echoed in his skull — the migraine again. He blinked it away, reaching into his coat for a bottle of water. Behind him, the wind whispered through the trees like a voice he almost recognized.
He tried not to think about the past. About the mine. About what they found down there.
2. The Girl Who Never Left
Jordan’s sister, Alice, had vanished when he was seventeen.
She’d gone hiking with two friends on the outskirts of town, near the old Blackroot Mine — a place cordoned off and posted with rusted DO NOT ENTER signs. Only Jordan returned. Bloodied. In shock. His memory wiped clean.
The town called it a tragedy. A “spontaneous landslide,” they said. But no bodies were ever found. Not even hers.
And for years, he’d been tormented by dreams — of shadows with too many arms, voices behind walls, and Alice calling out to him from beneath the earth.
Now, he was back. And not because he wanted to be.
Because someone had sent him a photo.
It was of Alice. Standing in front of the Blackroot entrance. Alive. Smiling. Unaged.
The message had been unsigned.
3. The Welcome Committee
Sheriff Mae Delaney looked exactly the same. She wore her badge like armor and her suspicion like perfume.
“You shouldn’t be here, Jordan.”
“That’s not up to you,” he said, showing her the photo. “Recognize this?”
She barely glanced at it. “Looks like a fake.”
“It’s not.”
The sheriff’s eyes hardened. “You’re not opening that mine. You hear me? It’s closed for a reason.”
Jordan held his ground. “You think I’d be here if I didn’t have to be?”
Her jaw twitched. “Be out by sundown.”
4. The Descent
The mine entrance was colder than he remembered. Chains hung limp over the mouth of the tunnel, half-buried in moss. Jordan ducked under them with a flashlight, a backpack, and a GoPro strapped to his chest.
The air changed almost immediately — thick, electric. Every step deeper brought the migraine back in force.
And then he heard it.
A whisper, not in the air but in his bones.
Jordan…
He froze. Swung the light.
Nothing.
Until he turned back to the path — and there she was.
Alice.
Barefoot. Pale. Wearing the same hoodie she’d disappeared in.
“Come,” she whispered.
5. The Hollow City
She led him down paths he hadn’t known existed. The mine opened into caverns, then into chambers lined with glass-like crystal. Within each one, a flickering image — memories. Of townsfolk. Of people long dead.
“What is this place?” he asked.
Alice looked at him, eyes hollow. “A library. Of souls.”
“They’re… alive?”
“In a way.”
He followed her deeper until they reached the Hollow City — a vast, underground world of obsidian towers and mirrored floors. The air vibrated with memory. Or madness.
Alice turned to him. “They need you. That’s why they sent the photo.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
She didn’t answer. Just placed her hand on a wall. It shimmered.
Jordan saw himself as a boy, sobbing at the mine entrance. A shadow hovered over him. A presence.
“I brought something back,” he whispered.
“You never left,” she corrected.
6. The Echo
The deeper truths unraveled quickly.
Fifteen years ago, when the mine collapsed, something ancient had stirred beneath Glass Hill — a consciousness trapped in the quartz veins. It fed on memory, grief, time.
Jordan hadn’t escaped.
He’d been fractured — a piece left above, the rest kept below.
Alice had been taken, not lost. Preserved.
“The town made a pact,” she said. “To forget. To bury.”
“But why bring me back now?”
“Because it’s waking again. And only you can carry it.”
He recoiled. “No.”
She pressed her hand to his chest. “You already are.”
He fell to his knees as the memories flooded him — lives not his own, voices screaming through time.
The mine shook. Cracks formed in the walls. The Hollow City screamed.
Alice began to fade.
7. The Surface Lies
Jordan woke in the woods.
The mine had collapsed behind him, now a smoking crater. His phone was shattered. His gear gone.
He stumbled back into town.
Everyone looked at him — no one surprised.
Sheriff Delaney approached. “You went down there?”
He nodded.
“You remember now?”
“All of it.”
She exhaled. “Then you know the price.”
He looked past her, to the town. Still 947. Always 947.
“I’m not staying.”
“You never left.”
8. The Keeper
Weeks passed. He tried to leave.
But the road always looped back. His GPS spun endlessly. He aged days for every hour.
And in the glass of every window, he saw her. Alice. Smiling. Waiting.
He began hearing them — the others — the echoes.
One night, he stood before the mine again.
He wasn’t afraid.
Because he finally understood: he was the lock now. The memory-keeper. The ward against what slept below.
And the price of remembering was never being allowed to forget.
