Some scars don't heal. Some stories don't end. And some secrets—when dug up—don't stay buried. A Southern Gothic of Brotherhood and the Dead

In the heat-choked summer of 1978, four brothers step into the bayou behind their South Houston home and uncover a rusted lockbox with a map, a key, and a single message:
"If you’re reading this, it’s already too late."

What starts as a dare spirals into a descent through haunted cellar doors, drowned ghost towns, and tunnels that whisper with the breath of the dead. As the brothers follow the trail of a journal scrawled by a boy who vanished decades ago, the bayou begins to pull at them—not with hands, but with memory, guilt, and something older than bones.

Some scars don’t heal. Some stories don’t end. And some secrets—when dug up—don’t stay buried.

In the heat-choked summer of 1978, four brothers stumble upon a rusted lockbox deep in the bayou behind their South Houston home. Inside: a map, a key, and a warning scrawled in a decaying notebook.

"If you’re reading this, it’s already too late."

What begins as a dare turns into a descent—through haunted cellars, ghost towns lost to floodwater, and tunnels that breathe with memory and bone. As the brothers dig deeper, they awaken something older than time and more dangerous than death: a legacy.

Because the bayou doesn’t forget. It waits. It watches. And it always comes to collect.

The Hollow That Ate the Sun is a gripping Southern Gothic novel soaked in tension, grit, and the quiet violence of boyhood. Perfect for fans of Where the Crawdads Sing, Stand by Me, and Stephen King’s The Body, this unforgettable tale explores:

✔ The unbreakable bonds of brotherhood
✔ The price of survival
✔ The dark weight of memory
✔ And a bayou that knows all your secrets

You don’t read this story. You carry it.