The Hollow did not release him gently.
Its hold had been invisible yet absolute — not a hand upon the shoulder, but a weight that sank into the marrow, rooting him in place, as though the very idea of movement had been stolen from his body. It was a binding deeper than chains, an authority that existed not in metal or stone, but in the quiet, inescapable tyranny of presence. One heartbeat, its gaze — though it had no eyes — was upon him, ancient and immense, a vast and terrible intelligence pressing in from every shadow. The next, it was gone. Not lifted in mercy, not granted in kindness, but withdrawn, the way a tide pulls back from a ravaged shore, leaving wreckage bare for all to see. The absence it left was not relief but a hollowing — an emptiness carved into him, as if something essential had been taken along with it.
