The Wrong Friend

When six-year-old Nora tells her mother that her imaginary friend has become real, her mother laughs.

When Nora tells her that Mr. Hollow is standing in the hallway, her mother checks.

Nobody is there.

When Nora says Mr. Hollow has started sleeping underneath her bed, her mother searches underneath it.

Nothing.

So when Nora stops talking about him, her parents assume she has simply grown out of her imaginary friend.

Three weeks later, Nora's father dies.

No explanation.

He simply wakes in the middle of the night, walks downstairs, and stands motionless in the kitchen until his heart stops.

Nora insists Mr. Hollow killed him.

Her mother doesn't believe her.

Until she sees him.

Mr. Hollow appears for the first time in the reflection of the microwave.

He's standing behind Nora's mother.

Tall.

Thin.

Dressed in an old-fashioned black suit.

His face is obscured by darkness except for two pale eyes.

She spins around.

Nothing.

She looks back at the microwave.

He's closer.

Then she hears a child's voice behind her.

"Mommy?"

Nora is standing at the kitchen entrance.

Her face is white.

"That's not Mr. Hollow."

Her mother turns.

"Then who is it?"

Nora starts crying.

"Mr. Hollow is my friend."

She points at the reflection.

"That's your friend."

Things become worse after that.

The creature begins following Nora's mother instead of Nora.

It waits outside the bathroom.

It sits at the end of her bed.

It appears in photographs.

It whispers her name through the baby monitor.

And every night, it asks the same question:

"Do you remember me?"

She doesn't.

But Nora does.

And eventually Nora tells her something that makes her blood run cold.

Mr. Hollow isn't imaginary.

He belonged to her mother.

When she was six years old.

She had invented him after her own father died.

She remembers playing with him.

Talking to him.

Hiding him from her parents.

And then, one night, she told him something she had completely forgotten.

She told him:

"When I'm old enough, I'll come back for you."

She never did.

So Mr. Hollow waited.

For decades.

And when Nora began imagining him, he recognized the family.

He used Nora to find his old friend.

But something went wrong.

He couldn't attach himself to Nora.

He attached himself to her mother.

Because Nora didn't create him.

She remembered him.

The mother tries to destroy every trace of him.

She burns Nora's drawings.

Throws away old photographs.

Moves out of the house.

She even takes Nora to another state.

For a while, it works.

Until Nora wakes one morning and finds her mother sitting at the kitchen table.

Smiling.

Perfectly still.

Nora approaches her.

"Mom?"

Her mother turns.

Her eyes are completely black.

Then she smiles wider than a human mouth should allow.

And speaks in the voice of a little girl.

"Nora, sweetheart..."

She tilts her head.

"You shouldn't have taken my friend away from me."

Nora backs away.

Because that isn't her mother talking.

It's Mr. Hollow.

And suddenly she understands the mistake.

He didn't attach himself to her mother because he wanted her.

He attached himself to her because she was the only person who could remember him.

He needed her memories to become real.

And now he has them.

Every single one.

Including memories of Nora.

The thing wearing her mother's face smiles.

"Don't worry."

It opens its arms.

"I remember how much she loved you."

Nora screams.

And from somewhere upstairs, another child's voice answers:

"Nora?"

She looks toward the staircase.

A little boy is standing at the top.

Pale.

Smiling.

Holding a stuffed rabbit.

Nora recognizes him from the drawings.

Mr. Hollow.

Except now there are two of them.

One upstairs.

One sitting inside her mother's body.

The one upstairs whispers:

"She's my friend."

The thing downstairs smiles.

"No."

Its head slowly twists toward Nora.

"She's ours."