Mike's claw scraped across the rune again, the bones beneath his fingers whispering like dry leaves caught in a storm. The gate before him pulsed once, then again before the spiral stairs of rib-bone groaned and opened downward, a seam splitting the marrow with unnatural precision. From below, a black wind rose. It carried the scent of decay, something ancient, sweet like rot and sharp like betrayal.
He descended.
The moment his foot hit the first step, reality split.
The torches went out. The fire, gone. The walls fell away into silence. The marrow-stairs curved endlessly in both directions, looping like a serpent devouring itself.
And then:
A child's voice.
"Mike?"
He stopped mid-step.
His head turned.
It was Kelsey's voice. Small. Afraid. Not the woman he married and saved from Hecate. The little girl she'd once been. The kind of voice that lived in someone's deepest memory, untouched by years.
"Where are you?" it asked again.
Mike's claws flexed.
He kept walking. Didn't answer.
Then the bones changed beneath his feet. Smoothed. Hardened.
He was no longer in the Hollow.
He stood barefoot on tile. Kitchen tile. Pale grey. The walls were soft cream. The air smelled of cinnamon and fresh bread. He blinked, then blinked again.
He was in their kitchen.
His and Kelsey's.
He stood by the counter. The fridge hummed.
Then he heard footsteps.
She walked in.
Kelsey.
Not hurt. Not possessed. Not torn by war. She wore a sweatshirt and pajama pants, hair tied up, half-asleep.
"Hey," she said groggily, rubbing her eyes. "Why're you just standing there like that?"
Mike didn't move. "What is this?"
She frowned. "...You okay?"
He felt himself stepping back.
This was wrong.
Too perfect. Too human.
She walked toward him. "Come on, it's cold. Let's go back to bed."
His claws were gone. No wings. No fire.
His heart thundered.
"Kelsey's still unconscious," he growled. "You're not real."
And the illusion cracked.
She stopped smiling.
Her face flickered.
She opened her mouth, and black smoke poured out. Her arms fell limply. Her eyes turned green.
"You wanted peace," the voice said through her mouth. "You wanted her. But you let the flame consume you."
He clenched his fists. "You don't get to wear her face."
"You gave her to the gods," the fake Kelsey whispered. "You let her bleed for you."
Mike roared and slammed his fist into the wall. The entire kitchen shattered like glass.
Silence returned.
And then a heartbeat.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
He was on all fours now.
His body was smaller. Smoother. His tongue flicked the air. Scaled, agile. Primal.
"No," he whispered. "Not again—"
But the words didn't come out.
Only hissing.
His memories scattered like dust in wind.
His mind began to revert.
He forgot language. Then faces. Then why he was even walking. All he remembered was the scent of wet stone and meat. The chase. The kill.
He was alone. No fire. No wings. Just survival.
He darted through a swamp of bones and shadows. Shapes moved around him. Massive, unknowable predators. He was hunted now.
Something grabbed him from behind, a net of magic. A crushing weight.
He screamed.
And in that scream, Bahamut's voice cut through.
"This is not real. Break it."
His claws caught on the edges of the illusion. He slammed into a wall, except it wasn't a wall.
It was a face.
His own face.
Burning.
Melting.
Screaming.
"You are not ready," it hissed. "You are not Kur. You are a child with fire in your teeth."
The burning Mike lunged, grabbing him by the throat.
"You failed her," it whispered.
Mike growled, clawing at his burning double, even as fire scalded his skin.
Bahamut's voice thundered louder:
"These are not visions. They are wounds made into walls. She crafted them from your soul."
Mike screamed, willed the fire to rise from inside him. The red-gold glow erupted from his chest like a furnace breached.
The burning double burst apart in smoke and cinders.
The Hollow returned.
He was kneeling on the bone platform, green flames surrounding him. Blood trickled from his nose. His hands trembled. The runes still glowed beneath him.
And a voice whispered above him again.
"You survived one layer," Hecate said. "But I have eternity to bleed you dry."
Mike spat to the side. "Then keep trying."
He stood.
And reality twisted again.
This time it was the battlefield. The caverns where he'd first fought the Mother and the Crone.
Only this time the djinn were dying faster. Hamza lay torn in half. Kelsey hung crucified between two obsidian spires, her chest torn open.
And standing above her?
Mike.
But not him.
Another version.
Twisted. Taller. Wings spread wide. Fangs dripping with gold-black ichor. He was laughing.
"You think you're different?" the doppelganger said. "You'll end up here too. Eating your friends. Drinking the last screams of your lover."
Mike's hands shook.
"I'm not that."
"You're already halfway there."
"No." Fire danced from his shoulders. "I control the flame."
"Do you?" the fake Mike whispered. "Or does it control you?"
He threw his hand forward and burned the vision to ash.
But the voices kept coming.
Whispers from the walls. From the flames. From his own bones.
Mike stumbled against a wall and finally shouted, "Enough!"
Bahamut's voice bellowed back:
"Then destroy the lock!"
"It's inside the spire. Beneath the runes. It binds this loop of echoes."
Mike turned to the bone obelisk again, clawed his hand across its surface. The runes hissed. Smoke billowed out.
He struck again.
Harder.
Blood splattered from his palm as the bone cracked.
He reared back, inhaled deeply and unleashed a torrent of dragonfire straight into the core.
The flames didn't ignite the obelisk.
They revealed it.
It wasn't a pillar.
It was a sealed soul anchor, bound with layers of memory, twisted fragments of Hecate's own being, set to trap intruders in an infinite loop of guilt and pain.
"Fucking witch," Mike growled.
He reached for the anchor and gripped it.
It tried to scream.
He squeezed harder.
And it shattered like brittle glass.
The torches went white-hot, then vanished.
Silence fell.
The gate beyond the platform cracked open.
The final seal.
The Hollow had spit him out. Or maybe, for the first time, it had acknowledged him.
He stood there, breathing ragged, smoke curling from his skin.
The echoes were gone. The voices silenced.
But one final whisper crept behind his ear.
"You're too late," Hecate said softly. "I've already started to reshape the world."
Mike didn't speak.
He walked toward the final threshold. Beyond it, a vast circular chamber pulsed with green flame, and above it a tree of bone, hanging upside down from the ceiling like a skeletal root system.
The path narrowed to a bridge of silver and ash.
And at the end stood a shadow, pulsing like a flame caught in ice.
The battle was coming.
Mike rolled his shoulders and smiled without humor.
"Let's see what burns."