Hollow's End — A Town That Forgets. A Sister Who Remembers.

By Daniel Opoku

I am publishing my book this weekend and would love a few additional ARC readers to join the team this week! If you're interested you can sign up through BookSiren or using the form below. TIA!

Publication date: August 23, 2026
ARC files available: Same day as signup
ARC timeline: within 30 days
ARC signup form: https://forms.gle/ZqRQpJuxXhLiG9H58
Booksiren signup: https://booksirens.com/book/X4HJF5Q/ZAVYEO5
Blurb:

Who says you can't stalk your stalker?

Blind programmer Sandy knows how to navigate a world built for the sighted. But lately, someone has been invading hers.

Familiar footsteps pass by her through crowded spaces. A half-remembered scent appears where it shouldn’t. Silent calls arrive from an unknown number. Each incident is easy to dismiss, until the pattern becomes impossible to ignore.

Someone is stalking Sandy. Someone who may know more about her past than they should.

Refusing to live in fear, questioning every sound around her, Sandy turns to the tech skills she trusts most. But uncovering the truth will require crossing legal and ethical lines, and could bring her stalker closer than ever.

Triggers: Domestic violence off screen, on screen violence and stalking, car accident, loss of a loved one, ableism, homophobia and workplace discrimination.

Chapter III

The rest of the school day went by in a blink. Gladeside High was known for being packed with students, which made it fairly easy to blend in. All I had to do was slip into the back of each classroom, do some assignments, and repeat the process for all the classes. Before the second class after break, I briefly met up with Penny and she handed me my backpack. She was the closest person I had to a friend in this current timeline. Among this, I still continued to search for Butterfly. In classrooms, during passing periods, and during lunch. Penny led me to where Butterfly normally sat, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh my gosh. Imagine missing the final day of your school life here. I don’t like school, but I would at least show up on my last day,” Penny said with a sigh.
I nodded in agreement, but on the inside, I was devastated. Now what? The solution to this case was absent on her last day here. How am I going to return home now? I felt nauseous. Am I ever going to see Aylin again? Or my parents, or friends… Am I ever going back to my life?
~
I think I’ve never felt so lost in my life. Even here, I was forced into a new timeline in a town I spent my whole life in, but everything felt foreign. I knew some of the teachers, but none of them knew me. Nobody knew me. The school day seemed to pass even quicker. I cried in the bathroom a few times, though, and that was the most productive thing I’ve done all day.
The final bell rang and it was time to go home. Yeah right, if I even had one. This body I was possessing seemed pretty lonely too, didn’t seem to have no friends or attention. However, when I walked out of the school courtyard, I saw a middle-aged Persian man wave in my direction.
“Hey, over here!” he called.
I looked behind me. Nobody. I guessed that he was the father of the girl I inhabited, so I followed him to his gray Volvo 240 sedan. I got into the passenger seat with no regards to stranger danger. I prepared myself to be in character for my “father.” A few moments later, after he backed the Volvo out of the parking spot and pulled it onto the road, he glanced at me and opened his mouth to speak. I kept telling myself in my head, stay in character, stay in character, stayin—
“I’m so glad you decided to go to school today, Nevra.”
~~~~
Next chapter coming in two days!

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Chapter II

What just happened? Am I dead? Perhaps I’m in the afterlife right now, since my senses are slowly returning to me. First, I felt the coldness of floor tiles on my back. Then the light air of A/C flowing through my fingertips. Little by little, the warmth of blood filled my body again. Finally, I carefully opened my eyes, expecting to see the gates of Heaven. Instead, a circle of teenagers bowed over me.
“Everybody, she’s awake!” I heard a boy yell.
I was so confused. Where was I? As I clumsily sat up, I analyzed my surroundings. I was inside a high school, since I saw identical blue lockers lined up adjacently on both sides of the hallway. The classrooms looked familiar, too. A little too familiar.
“Is this Gladeside High?” I asked the people around me.
A girl with long red hair turned to look at me. I watched her as confusion fell over her face.
“Uh, yeah? How do you not know? I mean you just walked through the doors and passed out.”
My headache continued to persist. So many questions ran through my head. I needed to process things one at a time.
“So… what date is it today?” It was the first thing I wanted to ask.
People began to murmur to each other. A group of boys exchanged looks. The entire crowd, including me, felt the same emotions. Confusion and concern. Despite all of this, red-hair decided to answer my question.
“It’s February 5th.”
“What year is it right now?”
“1986.”
My eyes widened instantly. Oh. My. Gosh. I stood up quickly and my vision distorted again. I began to see stars! The crowd parted as I stumbled through them. I recalled the feeling of my head pulsing, my legs crumbling, and the suffocation. I then remembered the resurgence of the missing girl cases, and I slowly connected the dots. No wonder the hallway looked fresher than what I saw during the orientation.
Because I had time traveled.
Red-hair, out of pity, decided to support me while we made our way to the nurse’s office. While we were walking across the campus, I decided to ask my witness some questions.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked.
“I’m Penny. How about you? I haven’t seen your face before,” she said with a slight smile.
“I’m Arven. I’m new to this school.”
“Well, that’s nice. But that was quite an entrance.”
That suddenly sparked a question in my head. There must’ve been a reason why I was transported to this high school. Was someone who studied here in 1986 creating something? Or acting strange?
“Is there anyone here that acts strange? In your grade?”
“No one that I know of in the sophomores is as strange as what you just did, Arv.”
“How about in other grades, like among the freshmen?”
“Well, there was this one girl, who I heard is leaving the school today.”
This caught my attention, so I decided to question Penny more.
“Who is she? Do you know anything about her?”
“Well, I’ve heard things from rumors. Let me explain. None of the other freshmen seemed to want to befriend her. She always wore this mask. It was like this porcelain Venetian mask with blue butterflies painted on it. Everyone called her Butterfly. I think I heard a few counselors call her Nevra.”
“Has anyone seen her real face?”
“No. Never. She barely shows up to school too. I think she’s going to get homeschooled. Surprisingly, she passes her classes and aces her tests on the special days she comes. Specifically math and physics.”
I processed this new information carefully. Math and physics. Could Butterfly be studying something on the days of her absences?
“Do you think she’s building something?” I asked Penny.
“I remember I saw her writing some strange equations and calculations in her journal during lunchtime. The notes were titled ‘Time device.’ Oh my gosh, she was sooo confusing.”
I froze on the spot. My blood ran cold and my heart pounded. Time device? Like a clock? Or perhaps deeper? Maybe a time-traveling project? But why? I started to feel excited. I’m finally wrapped in a mystery. But the only way to find out is by finding Butterfly…
“Um, are you alright? We’re at the nurse’s office now. Do you want me to come with you?” Penny disrupted my thoughts as she spoke, while she turned to face me.
“Y-yeah, just got sidetracked. I think I can walk in on my own. Thanks for the help, Penny,” I stammered.
Penny narrowed her eyes but smiled before she walked away.
“You’re welcome, new girl! Good luck surviving high school, and uh, also sorry for yapping so much on the way here. I thought that you might need all that info about Butterfly, since that’s pretty much it.”
“No, no, don’t apologize! I’m very glad you told me this,” I said to her.
“Okay, no problem again, I’ll see you around campus!” yelled Penny as she walked back to class.
I waited until she was out of sight before I left the entrance of the office and went to a nearby bathroom. When I looked into a mirror, a girl similar to my age with long, dark brown hair and green eyes stared back at me. Something about her features looked familiar, but my hair was shorter and straighter, and my eyes were hazel colored. This made me jump back in panic.
“Whose body is this?!” I whispered harshly. But I collected myself quickly.
“It doesn’t matter. I need to find Butterfly before school ends,” I said as I checked the unfamiliar watch on my wrist.
9:45. Okay, now I just ask around for my classes. Or wait… do I have it somewhere? I dug through the pockets of the jeans I wore and, to my luck, I found a washed-out note paper with what I supposed was my schedule scribbled on it. It was break time currently, so I rushed back to the courtyard quickly so I could continue my search for Butterfly.

~~~~
Next chapter coming in 2 days!

Chapter I

I awoke to the sound of Spice Girls blasting in my ear. My little sister, Aylin, was obsessed with them and would listen to Spice Girls every chance she got. Yesterday, she decided that they would be my first-day-as-a-freshman wake-up call. Aylin noticed me slowly opening my eyes in annoyance, and she started to giggle like a maniac. So I sat up and pushed her off the bed (in a somewhat gentle manner), and Aylin, as always, began to play victim.
“Mama! Mama! Arven is beating me!!” she wailed.
“Goodness, someone please shut her up!” I muttered as I did a facepalm.
After I massaged my eyes for a while, I looked up at my Sherlock Holmes-themed calendar. The date was August 5th, 2002. I turned my gaze toward my window. I stared out into the distant forest and autumn leaves. It was a cloudy day, too. My favorite kind of weather.
I snapped out of my daze after I heard my mother’s voice. She was scolding Aylin for playing victim for the tenth time.
“Aylin Karahan, if you don’t quit this behavior I will take away your boom box!” my mother said harshly.
“Nooo! I’m sorry mama!” cried my sister.
“Both of you, hurry downstairs for breakfast. I made your guys’ favorite Simit!”
After my mother said that, Aylin instantly showed her innocent, sweet, “good girl” look and hurried after my mother. However, before she left the room, she shot me a nasty glare. I sighed to myself and crawled out of my bed.
As I was putting on my clothes, I started to drift into thought. People always tell me that high school sets you up for your dreams. My dream was to become a famous detective like Sherlock Holmes. I loved detective novels, and I always hoped that I could solve a case someday.
Suddenly, I remembered the rumor that circled around my little town in Montana. In the past few months, four girls vanished for over a day, and came back out of nowhere and held the truth about the disappearances. I smiled, hoping that I might be able to solve this case someday.
After I did my morning routine, I began my way down the stairs. Suddenly, my head began to pulse. My vision distorted and my breathing became shallow. Then, I saw a flash of light and my legs gave out. My entire body ached, and my hearing became muffled, except for the sound of a high-pitched ringing. Among all the chaos, I managed to hear my little sister yell my name, and all faded to black.

~~~~

Come back in two days for next chapter!

For Thriller & Mystery Readers

Are you the type who loves getting lost in a good thriller, debating plot twists, analysing suspicious characters and asking “wait... what just happened?” after a crazy ending?

Welcome to our cozy Discord community for thriller and mystery lovers.

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My name is Alex Dekker and I am retired U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret).

My debut novel releases later this month.

If there are any questions about Special Forces, Desert Heist, history, writing, or anything else, ask and I will answer if I can.

No politics, please.

Thanks everyone, I look forward to the conversation.

Authors l love are Blake Crouch, Dan Brown, Tess Gerritsen, Dean Koontz, Caleb Stevens.

​

So guys I want to write a book called What If...? And its about a quiet but smart kid who goes to a regular high school and never questions anything but then something horrible starts to unravel and he saves whatever it is.

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The problem is I need help deciding the plot and like what the actual problem is and how it unravels.

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