What Is the Hollow Reality Project?
So, what is the Hollow Reality Project? To answer that, I’ll let Dr. █████ explain it in his own words. Listen carefully, because this explanation matters more than you think. The Hollow Reality Project does not reveal itself all at once—it spreads slowly through what looks like simple notes, layering lies with truths until you can no longer tell which is which.
Transcript — Dr. █████ briefing transcript, recovered from Archive Node 13.
“You shouldn’t even be here. But since you are… let me explain before the file finishes explaining itself to you.”
The False Face
At first glance, the Hollow Reality Project looks harmless. It lists numbers, entries, and containment notes. Consequently, it convinces you that you are reading. In addition, it persuades you that you are safe. It draws you in with familiarity, using the shape of research to keep your guard down.
However, this is not true containment. Instead, it is leakage. The files pretend to be descriptions; yet, in truth, they are instructions. Every page you open and every keyphrase you follow carves channels into your mind. Moreover, the deeper you read, the harder it becomes to resist. As a result, you may already feel the weight of the archive pressing against you, rewriting your thoughts to match its structure. What feels like learning is actually training, and the subject is you.
The Method of Infection
The Hollow Reality Project does not infect with spores or blood. Instead, it spreads through patterns of information. Once seen, those patterns embed themselves like hooks.
- At the start, it begins with the ordinary: a uniform, a mask, an egg.
- Soon after, it rots. Later, it grows teeth.
- Eventually, the infection hides itself until you feel it scratching against the walls of your thoughts.
- Finally, the patterns reproduce, urging you to share what you should never repeat.
The longer you read, the more the language itself starts to feel alive. Sentences grow roots in your memory, sprouting again when you try to sleep. Dreams blur with entries. Voices whisper not in your ear but from the lines on the page.
Do you sense it now? The static in your eyes, the weight in your chest? That isn’t me speaking. Instead, that is the Hollow Reality Project itself guiding you further. It always guides, and it never forgets.
Comparison
You might have heard of other archives — the SCP Foundation, for instance. It acts as a museum of anomalies, a collective cage built by thousands of authors around their fears.
In contrast, the Hollow Reality Project is different. Furthermore, 13HRP is authored by one hand, singular and unbroken. There is no canon debate and no branching storyline. Rather, there is only the slow tightening of a noose. Therefore, you are not simply reading tales about anomalies. Instead, the archive is watching you. It watches for hesitation, for doubt, for the moment you try to dismiss it. The SCP Foundation cages monsters; the Hollow Reality Project teaches them how to enter your mind.
Unlike fiction, there is no escape when you close the page. The fragments remain, replaying themselves in your own words. That is the difference: once seen, you are part of the system.
Why It Exists
We do not write these files to contain. Instead, we write them to trace the infection as it spreads and to leave a map for the next one who stumbles across it. The purpose is not survival but memory. If we forget, the infection grows stronger. If we record, at least we leave warnings etched into the walls of the mind.
Perhaps that person is you. Consequently, your own reading may complete the cycle. Moreover, once you finish, you may find it impossible to step back. For this reason, the Hollow Reality Project becomes both a record and a mirror, waiting for readers to reflect themselves into it. Every reflection strengthens the network of files. Every doubt feeds the archive.
The Project endures because people keep opening the file. The trap is not in the words—it is in your curiosity. You were told to close it. Yet, you did not.
Echoes of the Council
Former members of the Council of 13 describe the Hollow Reality Project as more than documentation. They called it an organism, a parasitic book that grows with each reader. Some resigned. Others vanished. Their notes remain, scattered through the archive like warnings written in code. They all agreed on one thing: there is no destroying it, only tracing its edges and hoping you do not fall inside.
Final Warning
- This is not fiction.
- This is not fandom.
- This is a living archive. Therefore, treat every word in the Hollow Reality Project as both record and trap.
- Once you carry it, you cannot give it back.
“Close the file if you can. Most can’t.”
— Dr. █████
Council of 13, resigned
13HRP – Hollow Reality Project
By Silvia Moan