Diya 
Episode 1: The Stranger at the Edge of the Woods
Ash Hollow was a town that didn’t exist on any maps. Hidden under the cover of a thick, old forest, Ash Hollow’s history was lost to muffled conversations and lukewarm warnings. To locals, straying too far into the woods after dusk was ill-advised. They said the woods remembered those who disrespected it—and so did she.
It started on a brisk October night, right when the sun dropped behind the trees and the sky started to turn purple. Evelyn Marsh, a seventeen-year-old with restless eyes and a fondness for urban legends, leaned against the rusted fence at the edge of her grandmother’s property. Her family had moved back to Ash Hollow that summer after her mother’s divorce, and Evelyn had spent her lonely evenings combing through old books and internet forums about the town’s folklore.
They all mentioned the same name—Selene Rooke.
“She was a midwife, a healer,” Evelyn had read aloud to herself. “Burned for witchcraft in 1749 after a string of disappearances. Said to have cursed the land with her dying breath. People still blame her for strange goings-on.”
Her grandmother, an unsmiling woman of few words, forbade her from speaking the name in the house.
“Don’t stir what’s settled,” she warned, eyes darting toward the forest like something might overhear.
That evening, as the wind picked up and carried the scent of wet leaves and decay, Evelyn spotted movement at the tree line. A figure stood just beyond the last line of oak trees, cloaked in black, with a tall, slouched posture and a head that seemed too still, too fixed.
Thinking it was a hiker or a prankster, Evelyn called out. “Hey! You lost?”
The figure didn’t move. Didn’t respond. Just stood watching.
Unsettled, Evelyn backed away and returned to the house, but sleep didn’t come easily that night. The figure had felt wrong, like something too old to belong to this world.
The next morning, a neighbor’s dog was found gutted near the same spot. The local vet claimed it had been attacked by a wild animal. But Evelyn noticed something no one else seemed to—the dog’s paws were burned black, as if it had stepped into fire.
That afternoon, she returned to the woods with her phone and a flashlight. She didn’t expect to find anything—maybe a raccoon’s den or a hobo’s tent. What she found was far worse.
Twenty feet into the forest, carved into the bark of a gnarled tree, was a symbol. A triangle pierced by a vertical slash, ringed by thorns. Evelyn snapped a photo and felt a sudden chill wash over her. Her flashlight flickered, and something rustled in the underbrush.
She turned to run—but the forest had changed.
The path behind her was gone. The trees looked unfamiliar, darker somehow. She spun in circles, heart pounding, as a whisper curled through the air like smoke.
“Evelyn…”
She bolted, crashing through branches, ignoring the cuts that bloomed on her arms and face. After what felt like hours, she stumbled out onto the road, breathless and shaking. Her phone was dead. Her clothes were torn. And the symbol had been carved into her palm.
Back home, her grandmother took one look at the mark and went pale.
“You’ve called her,” she said, voice trembling. “You’ve brought her back.”
Evelyn demanded answers, but her grandmother refused. That night, Evelyn dreamed of fire and screaming. A woman in rags stood in the flames, smiling with charred lips, whispering her name over and over.
The next morning, a local boy went missing.
And the forest was calling.
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