### **CRAVEN'S HOLLOW**
**Chapter One: Becoming**
The autumn wind stirred red leaves across the cracked pavement, sweeping them past the iron fence of Craven's Hollow High. The school crouched on the edge of a dense forest, as if it had grown there by accident. Branches leaned in too close. Shadows lingered longer than they should.
Dave adjusted his cracked glasses for the third time that morning, squinting at a loose screw that had worked itself free again. Next to him, Kelly animatedly re-enacted a teacher's meltdown from earlier, arms flailing, voice high-pitched.
"—and then Mr. Graves just yells, *'It's not a cult, it's a club!'* Like, who says that?"
Dave smiled, a small one.
"You okay?" Kelly asked, nudging him. "You've been zoning."
He opened his mouth to reply — but froze. Across the road, beside a rusting telephone booth, stood a woman in a black, vintage coat that clung to her like mourning. She didn't blink. Didn't move. Just watched.
Dave blinked. She was gone.
That evening, Dave sat hunched at his desk, lens-deep in an old film camera he'd bought for parts. Dust clung to the corners of his room like cobwebs too afraid to finish forming.
Kelly, never one to knock, pushed the door open.
"Are you building a time machine or avoiding people again?"
He looked up. "I like machines. They don't lie."
"Well, tonight you're meeting people who definitely do." She dropped a flyer on his bed. *Freshers' Bash: Forestview Drive. BYOB and questionable life choices.*
"I don't do parties."
"You'll do this one. For me. Come on, Hollow Boy."
She always called him that when she wanted him to say yes.
He sighed.
In the kitchen, his mom stirred tea, glancing back as Dave walked in.
"You going out?"
He nodded, shrugging into his hoodie.
"Don't stay too late. The woods get strange this time of year."
"I won't," he said — but didn't believe it.
The streets were empty. Leaves whispered secrets underfoot. Dave and Kelly walked close, their laughter slowly fading as the air grew colder.
Rustle.
They paused.
"Fox?" Kelly offered.
"No wind."
They turned back.
Nothing.
They turned forward again—
She was there.
The woman from earlier. Closer now. Still wrong.
Kelly gasped, grabbed Dave's arm — and ran.
But Dave stood still.
The woman's eyes glowed gold. Her fangs gleamed like moonlit bone.
Then —
Darkness.
Dave awoke gasping.
His room. Bed. Blanket. Light filtering through curtains.
He touched his face. His glasses. Gone.
He could see... perfectly.
The school hallway buzzed with the usual noise — laughter, gossip, lockers slamming shut like threats. Dave walked like a ghost through it all. Kelly caught up.
"You look like someone dug you up and slapped you clean."
He said nothing.
Kyle — short, sharp, and forever skeptical — joined them. "You two look like you saw a ghost. Or just each other's browser history."
Kelly smirked. "Party was boring. Hollow Boy was the highlight."
Dave remembered something else.
High above, on the school's shadowy rooftop, two cloaked figures watched the town.
"He better be the one," the man muttered. "Two centuries since we dared taste blood."
"He will save us," said the woman. "I've seen it."
"You said that last time. And look what we created."
Tony, the school's proudest cliché of a bully, shoved Dave at lunch.
But Dave moved.
Fast.
Unnaturally fast.
Tony's punch landed, but Dave didn't flinch. He shoved him back, and Tony fell, clutching his arm in pain.
Kelly appeared, wide-eyed. Her hand brushed Dave's arm.
"You're... cold."
"I'm fine," Dave said, pulling away.
She stared. "No glasses. Who even *are* you?"
In history class, Mr. Harper droned on.
"In 1624, travelers vanished in the forest where Craven's Hollow now lies. A Bermuda Triangle of its time."
Sally, always eager to debate, scoffed.
"Come on, that's just local myth."
Mr. Harper's eyes twinkled with something older.
"Sometimes, the far-fetched is the truest truth."
He called for the class projects. Dave handed over his notebook — covering a detailed sketch of a woman's face. He didn't know who she was. But she looked familiar.
Kelly leaned over, snorted. "Into cougars now?"
Harper saw the sketch — and froze. A flicker of recognition passed through his face.
He didn't collect Sally's paper. He looked right at her — and kept walking.
Dave noticed.
"Why'd he skip her?" he whispered.
Kelly rolled her eyes. "What, now you like her or something?"
But Dave stayed quiet. That wasn't it.
Later, in Harper's office, Selene stood in the dark.
"He controlled me," Harper muttered, shaken. "That hasn't happened since... You better be right about him. If she notices him—if they end up together—"
Selene's voice was calm. Cold.
"He is not like her. He is our salvation."
That night, Dave dreamt.
A forest. Selene walking, others behind her. Screams. Shadows. Fire.
He jolted awake, breath ragged.
Kelly, again uninvited, stood at his door. "So. Who's Selene?"
He froze. "Who's who now?"
Kelly smirked. "Cougar's got a name now, huh? You should talk to Sally instead. I see the way you look at her."
He chucked a pillow at her. She laughed all the way out.
Far below Craven's Hollow, in a tomb untouched by time, a stone coffin cracked.
A woman rose. Her lips blood red.
Followers in black robes bowed.
"It's been sixty-three years," she whispered. "Now I finish what we started. I do this for you. They killed you — not your vision."
Later that night, Dave walked alone.
He passed a boy scratching his arm, bleeding slightly.
The scent hit him.
Something ancient stirred.
His hunger exploded.
He pounced.
Fangs. Blood. A flash of the boy's memories: A father. A wife. An unborn child.
Dave reeled back, horrified.
Selene appeared, stepping from shadow. She pried him away gently and pressed her wrist to the boy's mouth.
"Go home," she told him softly. "Forget everything."
The boy stumbled away.
Dave looked at her, shaking. "It's you. I've seen you. You... you killed me."
He backed away. "Am I dead now? Is this what death is?"
Selene said nothing.
Only watched.
### POST-CREDIT SCENE
A dark cellar. A man bound to a chair, blood trailing from his mouth.
A hooded figure leaned close.
"The boy has fed," the figure said.
From the blackness, a second voice answered:
"Then it begins."