In the town of Hollowbell, something was wrong — not just wrong, but
backwards. It had been that way for as long as anyone could remember. Children ruled, and adults obeyed.
Every night at dusk, the bells of Hollowbell rang out — high-pitched and sweet, like a lullaby. But to the adults, the sound wasn't comforting. It was a warning. A reminder.
The Pact had been made generations ago, though no one knew by whom. Some said it was a curse from an ancient child-king. Others whispered it was the result of a ritual gone horribly wrong. Whatever the origin, it was binding: on the eve of their twelfth birthday, every child in Hollowbell changed. Their eyes turned just a shade too black. Their voices lost the faltering warmth of youth and took on a command that couldn’t be disobeyed.
The children became Them — rulers of the town.
They made the rules now. No adult could eat before a child. No adult could speak unless spoken to. If a child pointed at you and whispered “Forget,” your memories unravelled like yarn. If they said “Sleep,” you’d collapse wherever you stood.
Most chilling of all was the command “Hide.” If an adult was told to hide, they would crawl into cupboards, ovens, drains — sometimes folding themselves into impossible shapes, breaking bones just to comply. And they'd stay there. Sometimes forever.
In this twisted society, schools became parliaments, and playgrounds were courtrooms. The jungle gym was the throne. The eldest children — those just shy of twelve — were the most feared. Before their next birthday, they'd pass into something else entirely… No one knew what, because no child ever turned thirteen. They simply vanished the night before, their clothes left folded neatly beside their beds. Some said they went to the forest. Others claimed they "ascended."
But then came Nora.
Nora was eleven and smart — too smart. Unlike the others, she didn't like the rules. She asked questions. "Why do we vanish?" "Why do we rule?" "Where do the grown-ups go when we say 'Hide'?"
Her curiosity made the others nervous.
One night, when the Hollowbell bells tolled, Nora didn't go home. Instead, she followed the sound — not into her house, but into the woods beyond the town. That was forbidden. But Nora was no longer afraid.
She walked until the trees swallowed the town’s glow. There, beneath a dead oak with bark like burned skin, she found a circle of thirteen stones — each the size of a child. She placed her hands on the centre stone and whispered:
“I break the Pact.”
The ground screamed.
Back in Hollowbell, the adults stopped mid-step. They blinked — really blinked — as if waking from a long sleep. The children dropped their toys, their books, their crowns made of paper and bones. Their eyes turned white.
And then... they started to age.
In minutes, eleven-year-olds became thirty-year-olds. Toddlers grew grey. The cycle reversed too quickly. Time attacked them. One by one, they crumbled to dust, crying out in fear as they lost the power they never asked for. Except Nora.
Nora didn’t change.
She returned to Hollowbell, her black eyes gleaming. The Pact was broken — but not gone.
Now, she was the only child left.
And the adults? They bowed.
Because the truth was never that all children ruled.
Only one ever did.
And her reign had just begun.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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