The world did not shatter all at once.
It peeled apart like old paper, slow enough for Ava to feel each thread of reality snap one by one. The chamber's blue glow stretched into a smear, the sound of rushing wind pressing in from all directions at once. She clung to the stabilizer core, its heat searing through her gloves, the pulse inside it beating like a second heart.
Her ears rang. Somewhere beyond the static in her skull, she could still hear Caroline calling her name.
Ava forced her eyes open. The creature—the hunger—was no longer solid. It was unraveling, its edges coming apart into ribbons of shadow, each screaming in a different language. Some were whispers she recognized from the bunker. Others were older, deeper, the kind you felt in your bones rather than heard.
Caroline staggered into her peripheral vision, blood freezing in streaks along her temple. "Ava, it's breaking loose! If you drop the core now, we'll—"
The floor lurched.
Not just the floor. The idea of ground gave way. They were falling—not down, but through. The icy stone of the polar tomb melted into a rushing corridor of light and shadow. Gravity twisted. Time bent. Jules' silhouette spun past her, weightless. Ezra was gone. Marin—she didn't want to look.
The stabilizer core pulsed harder. It was no longer just heat; it was light trying to tear out of her hands. Ava gritted her teeth, fighting the urge to let it go. The hunger was pulling at her from every direction, trying to make her drop it. Images flashed in her mind—her mother alive and smiling, Ben safe, Cassandra never betrayed. If you release it, the hunger whispered, you can have them back.
She almost believed it.
Then Caroline's hand slammed down on her shoulder, shaking her hard enough to snap the vision. "Don't listen! It's a bleed illusion! Ava, look at me!"
Ava's breath came sharp. Her vision cleared enough to see Caroline's eyes—red from cold and exhaustion, but steady. Real.
The hunger screamed again. The sound this time wasn't outside—it was inside her head, tearing through old scars she didn't know she had. And then the corridor collapsed entirely.
They hit ice.
Hard.
Ava's vision went white with pain. She rolled onto her side, coughing up frost, and blinked until the shapes came into focus. They weren't in the chamber anymore. This was outside—an endless frozen expanse under a sky so pale it seemed hollow, as though someone had peeled away the upper atmosphere and left nothing but empty space.
Caroline was already pulling herself up, scanning the horizon with wide, alert eyes. Jules sat hunched a few meters away, clutching his arm, face pale.
A shadow moved on the far edge of the ice plain.
It wasn't the hunger—not exactly. This was smaller, a shard of it, trailing smoke and light as it crawled toward them. Its movements were erratic, twitching like an injured animal, but its presence pressed against their minds all the same.
"We didn't kill it," Caroline muttered. "We just tore it into pieces."
Ava forced herself to her feet, the stabilizer core still burning in her hand. "Then we finish it here."
The shard reared up, and the ice cracked outward in spiderweb patterns. From beneath, pale shapes began clawing their way out—echoes of people Ava had seen in the mirror chamber. Ben's face. Cassandra's. Her own. Each distorted, their mouths stretched too wide, eyes glassy with the hunger's light.
Caroline pulled her sidearm. "Tell me you've got a plan."
"I do." Ava's voice was raw, but certain. "We starve it."
The shard lunged, and the ice plain erupted into chaos.
---
The shard came fast—too fast for its size, its black mass streaking across the ice with impossible speed. Ava barely had time to shift her stance before it was on them, the ground beneath her exploding into shards of frozen spray.
Caroline fired. Once. Twice. Three times. The bullets passed through the shard as if hitting smoke, but each impact rippled the thing's surface, sending out concentric waves of light. Jules, teeth clenched against pain, dragged himself back and began unstrapping the secondary charge from his pack.
"Don't let it close the gap!" Ava shouted, pivoting to the side. Her boots slid on the slick ice. She planted her free hand down for balance and hurled the stabilizer core forward, its glow pulsing like a miniature star. The shard recoiled from the light, its body twisting and splitting into fronds that clawed at the air.
That reaction was the key.
"It's feeding on contact," Ava realized aloud, sidestepping another swipe. "If we keep it away from us, it can't—"
Her words cut off as the ice beneath her gave way. She plunged waist-deep into freezing water, the cold shocking every muscle into paralysis. The shard's fronds whipped toward her like harpoons.
Caroline moved without hesitation. She dropped into a slide, boots scraping hard across the ice, and kicked Ava free just as the fronds stabbed into the hole. Black tendrils plunged after her, but Caroline grabbed Ava's collar and hauled her up, dragging her across the slick surface.
Jules' voice came from behind them, tight with urgency. "Charge is live! Get it in the center!"
The shard reared up again, taller than any of them, its core flickering wildly. It was splitting—splitting into smaller bodies, each one a warped echo of someone Ava knew. Ben lunged for her with outstretched hands. Cassandra's face twisted into a snarl. Even Marin's outline, still and accusing, stepped forward.
The illusions weren't solid. She knew that. But her hands still shook as she pushed through them.
Caroline kept firing, forcing the apparitions back just enough for Ava to reach the stabilizer core where it had landed. Its casing was cracked, light leaking out in sharp beams that burned the air itself. Every pulse seemed to push the shard backward, shrinking its form.
"Jules, now!" Ava shouted.
The detonator's beep was barely audible under the howl of the Hollow Sky. Jules tossed the charge with his good arm. Ava caught it, jammed it hard against the stabilizer core, and armed both with a single motion.
The shard knew.
It came at her in a blur, the false faces screaming in unison. The pressure in her head spiked until her vision blurred and her knees buckled. The stabilizer's light swelled, and for one heartbeat, Ava saw everything—every life the hunger had stolen, every fragment it had hoarded to sustain itself.
Her hand clenched around the trigger.
A blast of pure white tore through the ice plain. The shockwave picked her up and flung her backward, weightless in the glare. Sound became a distant echo. The Hollow Sky cracked, the pale dome above them splintering into lines of darkness that bled into something far deeper.
When Ava's body finally hit ground, there was no ice beneath her—only cold air and the hollow sound of wind rushing through endless space. She lay still, chest heaving, her ears ringing. The shard was gone. The echoes were gone.
But the Hollow Sky was still breaking apart.
Caroline crawled to her side, eyes wide with alarm. "Ava, the whole place is collapsing! We need an exit—now!"
Ava pushed herself up, scanning the tearing horizon. Through the chaos, she saw it—a faint line of light far ahead, like a door standing alone in the void. It was small. Distant. But it was something.
She met Caroline's gaze. "Run."
And they did.
---