WHEN THE HOLLOW-EYED COME: They Don’t Hunt. Warn.

The settlers along Buffalo Creek know the rules: avoid the deep trails after dark, ignore the shadows between the pines, and never speak of the figures with the hollow, lightless eyes. They don't hunt. They don't attack. They simply watch-and when they appear, death is never far behind. Jonas Farlow knows the frontier, but he doesn't know why a young man has turned up dead near the water with no wounds, no blood, and an unnatural emptiness where his eyes should be. While the town's leaders look the other way to protect their interests, Jonas senses a rot spreading through the soil. Sera Redwillow, a Seneca woman who remembers the old warnings, knows the truth: the Hollow-Eyed Ones are not the threat. They are the heralds of a primordial consciousness awakening beneath the creek-something older than memory that views the living as nothing more than temporary sediment. As the creek turns oily and the weather defies the seasons, Jonas and Sera must confront a darkness that bridges the gap between folklore and cosmic dread. In a land defined by silence, the loudest screams are the ones that never reach the surface. The first installment of The Hollow-Eyed Trilogy is a grounded, atmospheric journey into the heart of wilderness horror.