Characters — The Hollow

Sam Reyes

THE ONE WHO CAME LOOKING · PLAYED BY YOU

Sam drove up with a half tank and a bad feeling, because that is what you do when your brother's voicemail is ninety seconds of static and one clear sentence. Sam is not a believer. Sam is not a fighter. The Hollow does not care what you are when you arrive; it cares what you are willing to become by the one lamp that never goes out.

“And you pick now to die on me. Great.” — Sam, to a car

Everything Sam says in the game is spoken aloud — the narrator voice is Sam's running commentary, dry until it has no right to be.

The cabin at night — Sam's view on arrival, car dead by the fire

Eli Reyes

THE ONE WHO PRESSED RECORD

Seasonal fire-ranger, keeper of a tidy woodshed and an untidy curiosity. Eli spent a season listening to Marta Voss say her words at the tree line — same eleven syllables, over and over, like stitching something shut — and decided the best way to prove they were nothing was to record them and play them back.

His journal is on the bookshelf. His toolbox is in the woodshed. His voice is on the tape. That is everything the Hollow left of him to find, and one of those three things is lying.

“Marta says the words only work in one direction. I think she's just old. Tomorrow I'll play it back and prove it's nothing.” — the journal's last line

Marta Voss

THE ONE WHO WROTE THEM DOWN

The old ranger. She stands at the graves behind the cabin, arms down, hat dripping, and she does not come to you — you go to her, or you die not having gone. Marta transcribed the eleven syllables a long time ago, which is why she is the only one who can say them in the direction that closes what they open.

She will answer three questions. She has heard every joke you could make and did not laugh the first time either.

SPOILERS — THE READING, AND AFTER

In the finale Marta stands at the circle of returned stones and reads all eight stanzas while you keep the deadites off her. Pressure makes her lose the line — the stanza starts again. When the reading lands, everything the Hollow lent stops mid-step, and Marta walks to the open grave like it's a made bed. The Hollow keeps her. Gently. It is the only gentle thing it does all night.

Marta Voss at the graves, arms down, white-eyed

Quinn

THE HUNTER

A through-hiker who camped by the north stones three nights before you arrived. Cold three days. Pack still full — that detail is in Eli's journal, and it is the detail that does not let go: whatever happened to Quinn happened before breakfast on the first morning.

Quinn walks again the moment the recording plays, and does not stop walking for the rest of the night. The axe puts Quinn down. Nothing you carry keeps Quinn down.

SPOILERS — WHAT QUINN IS NOW

Quinn is the Hollow's newest lending, and the only one fast enough to hunt. The older dead answer the reading; Quinn answers you — wherever you save, wherever you hide, the walk never ends. At the keeping, Quinn stops with all the rest, and the last thing the game does with the body is let you say thanks.

The Watcher

WHAT ANSWERS

Not a body. The Watcher is whatever the eleven syllables are addressed to, and it speaks them back — the cadence, backwards, slowed until the words are a weather front. You never see it. The rain leans away from it. The chase on the bridge road is the closest the game comes to showing it to you, and the game is careful not to.

SPOILERS — THE RUSHES

Twice during the reading the Watcher comes for Marta directly — the objective flips to IT'S COMING — STAND WITH HER. Stand inside the circle and it breaks around you both like water on a stone. Flinch, and it walks through her line, and the stanza starts again from the top.

The Older Dead

THE HOLLOW'S LENDINGS

The graves behind the cabin are not the first graves. When the reading begins, the Hollow answers with what it has held longest: a farmer whose straw hat rotted before your grandparents were born, and a villager in a grave-dirt apron from no village that has a name anymore. They do not hunt. They walk toward Marta's voice, patiently, in straight lines, and patience is the frightening part.

The farmer — rotted straw hat, corpse-gray skin

The villager — white eyes, grave-dirt apron

The Mimics

VOICES IN THE TREES

Things in the woods borrow familiar voices. They are almost right — a plain voice with something detuned underneath, like two radios tuned a hair apart. The game labels them so you are never confused about what is talking. You will be tempted anyway.

ALL EIGHT MIMIC LINES

“Sam. Sam. I twisted my wrist — come off the path, Sam.”
“Sam, the truck won't start. Help me push the truck.”
“It's Eli. I'm at the tent. …Whose tent is this, Sam?”
“Sam, it's Eli. I fixed the car. Come feel — the engine's warm.”
“Your mother is on the radio, Sam. She wants to talk to you.”
“I found your dog, Sam. He's hurt. Bring him water from the well.”
“It's me. I've been in the cabin the whole time. Upstairs.”
“Marta sent me, Sam. She says stop. She says put the stones back.”

The cabin has no upstairs. Sam has no dog. None of them are Eli.

The Scarecrow

WEST TREE LINE

It was not there yesterday.