Once, a girl named Sarah had moved into a new house with her family.
But this house had a feature so frightening that it was eventually abandoned, no one is quite sure how or why.
It was a door that was a portal to a world of terror and threats of death. The door was a sickly yellow with black veiny patterns, a shadowy keyhole, and a silvery doorknob with a mirror finish. It had called to Sarah during the day, and gave her bad dreams at night.
Now, the house was devoid of activity until the day a newcomer came to check it out.
A certain elf had been told the place was haunted and it had a mysterious door, but this had the effect of making her more bold instead of afraid. She entered the house and climbed the staircase.
She went down the hall to one room and peeked in.
There was nothing but an empty bed, a dresser, a closet, a small nightlight, and an open window. It looked like any other bedroom except for the clock on the nightstand. It was crimson red.
The elf made a face at it, then stalked into the room.
"This clock has got to go." she said to herself, then tossed it in the trash can in one corner.
Next, she shut the window, then left the room.
the elf went to the opposite end of the hall and tried the master bedroom door.
It opened, revealing another empty room.
"As I thought."
Next, she turned her attention to the sickly looking yellow door with the black-veined face and the one beautiful feature, the mirrored silvery knob in the centre, just above the shadowy keyhole..
Peeking through that keyhole revealed nothing but the wall behind the door.
She heard nothing coming from the other side of the door, and nothing happened when she placed her hand on the knob to turn it.
"Well, since this mirrored knob is supposed to be a portal of some kind," she said to herself, "Let's see if this works." Looking at the knob that reflected her image back at her, Elf said, "Mirror Me, I summon you, to do what you are called to do."
The girl on the other side of the door shuddered as the door trembled, but didn't open.
In the hall, two figures now stood, facing each other, one, a shadow/mirror version of the other.
Also noteworthy is neither the elf nor the shadow version of her looked like the typical elves from fantasy or Christmas fame. This one looked like any other person seen on the street, and though she was slightly on the short side, she was certainly not a dwarf.
"It worked." The elf chuckled. "Good.
"Eh? How did I get here? Wait a minute, you're another me?" Mirror Elf stared, perplexed.
"I called you here." came the reply.
"Why?" the shadow figure asked.
"I want you to do something about this door. It should be clear in a moment."
As Mirror Elf got her bearings, she was quietly receiving information as well. Information from the real Elf that would give her the understanding, feelings, and personality she was going to need for this venture. She was finding out about Sarah's terror at the hands of the Hollow Man and Lizzie.
"Which one am I looking for? Mirror Elf wanted to know, "And while we're at it, what do you want my name to be? Too of us with the same name is confusing.
Elf looked at her. "Especially since I didn't even have to say my name when I summoned you. All right then,… It should be something quite different from my own name."
"By different, I hope you don't mean dreadful."
The elf burst out laughing. "No. I wouldn't do that to you. If you don't like it, I'll keep trying to come up with one you do like."
"Thank you." the shadow looked relieved.
How about Caprice Swan?"
The shadow nodded with an approving smile. "And wshould I call you?"
"My name is Hanima. It means 'Of The Waves' and so I just go by 'Ocean' it's easier to remember. Or my good friends and everyone at Mission HQ just call me Ocey or Elf."
"Why do they do that?"
Probably because it's easier to type, and some of them think it's cool to have an elf as a friend." The elf smiled fondly, thinking of her friends.
Swan smiled. "So Ocey, what's next?"
"Lizzie, or the Hollow Man. Whichever of them turns out to be behind this terror, you are to go out for all of them. What happens with Sarah and her parents, should take care of itself then."
Swan nodded again, and stood still to silently receive even more info about what had happened to Sarah. Finally, she said. "Got it.
Ocean Elf nodded, and turned to go back in the bedroom to sit on the bed.
Caprice Swan started trying to get Lizzie's attention. She stood at the door, saying things like, "Sarah was here, but she is gone. Now I'm here, and my name is Swan."
There was no response.
"Lizzie, Come out if you dare…. Come on out. Or are you scared?"
Elf grinned from the bed. "I should've had you do any poetry I was supposed to write as school assignments."
Swan turned back to grin at Elf, then back to the door. "You're taking such a long time, Lizzie, come out and tell me your pretty rhyme."
"wow, keep it coming." Elf muttered in grinning approval.
"Swaaaaaaaaaan!" came a voice like a rasping wind through dried leaves from the other side of the door. A voice only Swan could hear.
"Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Hey Lizzie." she said.
"I'm Sarah."
"What?" Swan shook her head, baffled.
"Are you swan?"
"Yes."
Then the girl recited the same lines to Swan that Lizzie had when it had been Sarah on the right side of the door.
"I know all that." said Swan impatiently. "Are you really Sarah, or are you Lizzie pretending to be Sarah?"
"Please, let me in. Please, open the door." said Sarah desperately.
"You asked for it, Lizzie," Swan said, and opened the door.
But instead of letting Lizzie in, Caprice Swan stepped through the door.
The creature on the other side stared in amazement.
"Well, cat got your tongue again?" Swan said, looking at her.
"You weren't supposed to do that." said the creature.
"Says who? The Hollow Man? Or you, Lizzie?"
"Lizzie's gone, I'm Sarah."
"Oh, Lizzie's - " And that's when Swan remembered the bit about the Hollow Man taking people and replacing them with emptiness or some such thing. "an extension of the Hollow Man now? Like you, right?"
Sarah looked sadly at Swan.
"Where is Lizzie? What did she have to do with you?" Swan was starting to put it together. Maybe Lizzie wasn't really the one behind this whole thing after all.
"Lizzie went through that door into my room, and then I found myself here." said Sarah.
"Okay then, Sarah, let's fix that." said Swan, who reached out to touch Sarah.
Sarah gasped, and disappeared.
An angry, snarling moan sounded from somewhere down below.
Swan grinned.
Sarah found herself back at home with her parents, and Elf was teleported back to her own house.
Elf grinned, pleased that it must have worked.
But Swan wasn't finished yet.
No sooner had Sarah gone, then another creature came into view. This was a girl with tiny claws on the ends of her fingers and toes.
"Saraaaaaaaaah!" She called, scratching at the door.
But Swan wouldn't let her keep that up. "Not this time, Lizzie."
"What? Who are - "
"Leave Sarah be, and go back to your own home." Swan approached and touched Lizzie on the arm.
Lizzie disappeared too.
Then came an even angrier grown from below.
Lizzie found herself back at her own house. She was a girl a little older than Sarah, and had once lived in Sarah's house, but she was now given back the time and life the Hollow Man had tried to rob her of, where she had moved out of Sarah's house before Sarah moved in. There was no freaky door in her new house. She was glad to be away from it.
There were three more previous victims of Hollow Man, all of them had been occupants of Sarah's house before Lizzie and Sarah. All were sent back through time and space to live out their lives to the present, with only a fleeting creepy memory of that house they had once lived in before moving out.
The low, snarling groans intensified with each apparition Swan sent back.
Finally, he appeared. A face in some kind of mask. A hollow sounding snarl.
"So, at last, he's here." Swan taunted, gazing balefully at the Hollow Man.
The Hollow Man stared incredulously at Swan. He was clearly not used to being faced with someone who didn't quake in fear before him.
"This stops here and now, Hollow Man."
He tried to conjure up the same creepy voices that menaced Sarah in her dreams.
Swan didn't flinch, but she expressed irritation. "That's enough of that racket." She said firmly, putting a hand up to silence the voices.
To both hers and the Hollow Man's surprise, it worked.
Next came the rustling leaves sounds.
Swan kicked one foot out, and the leaves went silent.
"I'll eat you for this!" The Hollow Man raged.
"I wouldn't try that if I was you." Swan replied with a mischievous grin.
The Hollow Man lunged toward Swan, and right through her.
He regretted it soon enough.
First, he couldn't get over being unable to grab hold of her.
Next thing he knew, he found himself tumbling headlong into a pile of phantom leaves.
"Nice lip-stand, Hollow Man, what will you do for an encore?"
He roared furiously, and would've gotten up and tried to get Swan again if it wasn't for what was happening to him next.
The Hollow Man seized and convulsed, his mask becoming steamy against his face. The dead leaves seemed to converge on him like an angry swarm. The voices screamed in and around his head. The Hollow Man thrashed about like an animal caught in a trap while his hunger for more human victims was replaced by the feeling of being torn apart and filled up with dysphoria.
While The Hollow Man was paying the price for his parasitic gluttony of terror, Swan turned toward the door and gave it several violent kicks, until it finally came loose and fell out of the frame.
The frame disappeared.
At that time, back in Sarah's house, Sarah awoke to find the door was not there, and must never have been. It had all been a crazy dream.
Back in Hollow Man's land, Swan lugged the door over to where the Hollow Man was still thrashing and screaming. She let it fall on top of him.
When it did, a couple of interesting things happened immediately.
The door exploded, blasting the Hollow Man and his land and portal into nothing, and the knob shattered into little pieces that melted, then vaporized, and disappeared altogether.
Swan teleported back through Elf's mirror to let her know the job was done, and all was clear for the next phase of the mission.
Then, she returned to Mirror Land.
That spelled the end of the Hollow Man and his sickly door. Never again would they darken any household, or menace anyone else.
But Swan did more than just destroy a door.
That door, keyhole, design, and especially the knob, had also been the means Slender Man, a notoriously evil predatory character, had used for his multi-dimensional and time-travelling teleportation. Hollow Man had been one of his other selves.
Now it and the means to make more, plus all other copies of himself in forms of Slender/Hollow/Tall/whatever Men he had already produced, were wiped out too. Gone forever.
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