Fog Beneath The Trees: The Hollow Chronicles

By Captain Perry
Book One of The Hollow Chronicles

"Some things weren't meant to be unearthed... but the fog never forgets."

In the quiet town of Hollow's Edge, the morning mist has always been part of the rhythm of life-thick, silent, and lingering like a memory no one can quite recall. It winds through the streets, curls around the steeple of the old church, and settles like breath upon the ever-whispering pines. To most, it's just weather. Tradition. A harmless quirk of the land.

But that illusion is shattered when the charred, bound, and symbol-marked body of beloved Pastor Micah Burns is discovered deep within the woods, burned at the base of a tree older than the town itself. The fog that once comforted now cloaks something unseen. Something ancient. Something intentional.

Suddenly, the mist isn't just part of the backdrop-
It's the first sign.
A warning.
A veil.

Because what lies beneath it isn't just secrecy-it's ritual.

And what's rising from beneath the trees was never truly gone. It was only waiting...
for the right blood.
for the right hour.
for someone to open the gate.

Called in to consult on the case, Cassian Rowe is no stranger to violent death. A seasoned criminal profiler with a mind built for patterns and a past riddled with personal loss, Cassian arrives in Hollow's Edge expecting the usual-grief, gossip, and a killer hiding in plain sight. What he doesn't expect is the deep unease that lingers in the air like smoke... or the symbols scorched into the victim's flesh-ancient, deliberate, and far too specific to be random.

Haunted by past cases that went unresolved, Cassian's instincts scream that this is more than just a murder. The longer he stays, the more the woods begin to feel like they're watching-and the more he realizes that the trees remember everything, even what the townspeople have tried to forget.

At his side stands Sheriff Aria Wren-tough as flint, calm under fire, and as rooted to Hollow's Edge as the pines themselves. Her presence is commanding, her past locked behind a badge and a gaze that dares anyone to look closer. She's kept this town safe for over a decade, but even she is rattled by the eerie precision of the ritualistic crime scene. Something about this case stirs something buried within her-a memory, a fear, or perhaps a guilt too old to name.

Enter Marlowe Kent, a sharp-minded forensic analyst with a photographic memory and a gift for finding hidden connections-both in evidence and people. Quiet and deliberate, Marlowe carries her burdens, secrets she's buried under data and detail. But when she begins linking the murders' symbols to long-suppressed documents, lost church records, and a forbidden folklore etched into the town's forgotten corners, she uncovers more than she bargained for.

A legend. A name. A warning:

"Beware the Fog Beneath the Pines."

Whispered only in the town's oldest homes and never written aloud, the phrase speaks of Jonah Vale, a heretic preacher who vanished nearly two centuries ago, after leading a group of followers into the woods and opening something that was never meant to be opened.

As Cassian, Aria, and Marlowe dig deeper, the town begins to unravel. Panic spreads. More signs emerge. And from within the swirling mist, unseen figures begin to stir.

Because this isn't just a killing.
This is a reckoning.
And something buried beneath the trees is waking up.

The Fog Beneath the Pines.

Blending psychological thriller, small-town mystery, and slow-burning supernatural horror, The Fog Beneath the Trees is a chilling descent into obsession, hidden history, and the dangerous places where belief and madness intertwine.
Now, the Hollow wants them back....