It should have been a familiar feeling, an ability he used countless times. He was no stranger to this place, yet everything about it felt foreign.
Normally, the presence of light wasn't frequent inside this place, yet it was now bathed in warm radiance.
In front of him, the towering presence of the King of Hollows, Gilran, stood. His oppressive grey eyes felt like they could suck him in and suffocate him at any moment.
"Aren't you tired of wearing masks?"
Altair looked the king of hollows directly in the eyes; he would only lie to himself once again if he said that he wasn't.
But Altair didn't answer him directly. "You talked about me having a choice."
"I did."
But the king of hollows stopped talking, his oppressive grey eyes just gazing at him intently.
"But you aren't given that choice just yet."
Around Gilran, the light turned brighter, blinding Altair in the process.
When the light faded out, Altair no longer stood in the King's presence; he was back in the Lawless Abyss, surrounded by the swirling mist.
Glancing around, Altair found himself in a completely alien part of the Lawless Abyss.
Before he had been dragged into the Hollow King's hall, he had been walking among the ruins of an old city. Now there were no broken walls, no shattered windows, no remnants of civilization at all.
He stood in the middle of an endless field of overgrown grass.
There was nothing else around him.
No wind, not even the faint chitter of insects. The Abyss had always been strange, but never had it been this silent.
"What am I even doing here?" Ever since talking with Gilran, the young convict felt emptier inside than ever. The King of Hollows saw right through him just as he was warned he would.
There wasn't a single secret he didn't see… not even those that he even concealed from himself.
With a sigh, he began walking. He didn't know where he was going, nor did he care. His boots pressed into the damp earth, wet blades of grass brushing against his legs as the fog shifted sluggishly around him.
He didn't know how long he had been walking, only that the fog was starting to disperse.
In the distance, the silhouette of a building revealed itself to him, and without any other place to go. Altair slowly made his way towards the building.
As he arrived in front of it, he observed its layout, which looked like an ordinary warehouse; the only thing notable about it was its decay.
One side of the building had moss growing over it, while the rest of it was overtaken by thick green vines running all around it.
Walking into the warehouse, Altair immediately smelled the musty stench of rot. The air was thick with dust and visible mushroom spores glimmering in the light.
The air was thick with dust and visible mushroom spores, visible in the faint light.
Unlucky.
He knew immediately what that meant. The Fog changed everything it touched — animals, plants, even fungi. These mushrooms were proof of that. Breathing too much of the air here could mean death or worse.
Reaching into the front pocket of his suit, Altair took out a silk handkerchief, taking a deep breath before putting it in front of his mouth and entering deeper into the warehouse.
The warehouse wasn't anything he expected; it was way too empty.
No equipment, heavy machinery, no storage creates, nothing.
The only thing even remotely notable was a row of metal lockers.
Curious, Altair approached the first one. He pulled at the handle.
Locked.
So was the next. And the one after.
He stepped outside to take another breath before returning to the warehouse and making another round, searching for keys, but with no success.
What am I even doing here? Part of him questioned why he was here in the first place, but with no clear path, no instructions, nor that much of a choice at all, Altair approached one of the lockers.
With a grunt, he tore the first locker open.
Inside, taped to the door, was a photograph.
A family of three. A man and woman smiling, holding their small child up between them. The baby couldn't have been more than a year old.
His eyes lingered on it for a while before he turned to look at the locker's other contents.
It was a single orange hazmat suit hanging in the middle of the locker.
Going around to look at the contents of the rest of the lockers, he went around, forcing them all open, only to find some other pictures and a single hazmat suit in each of them. Their names were inside the lockers, but they faded with time.
The only other feature of the warehouse was a single hatch embedded in the center of the floor.
He left, stepping outside to fill his lungs with clean air before returning to fetch one of the hazmat suits. Slipping it on, the spores no longer concerned him.
The hatch, however, did.
With a little resistance, the hatch creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading into a deep, pitch black corridor.
In the end, Altair went in.
A set of lights automatically turned on.
What is this place?
The lights above him flickered in and out, creating an ominous feeling across the long corridor.
As he walked through the dimly lit and suffocatingly narrow passage, Altair had a small feeling.
This is the place where I should be.
The suffocating feeling grew worse the deeper he went, the lights cutting off for even longer periods.
In front of him, a large metal door was broken and had fallen to its side; its surface was bent with deep scrape marks running through it.
This is probably why he sent me. Altair sighed and entered the room, his brows furrowed up at the sight.
A room full overtaken by plants and nature, a large tree growing in the middle of the room, breaking parts of the ceiling.
He knew that what he needed the most at the moment was information; whatever the reason was for the King of the Hollows to send him here could most likely be found in this room.
On the right side of the room, Altair found a row of shelves and desks, papers scattered all over them, but their contents could no longer be discerned from the deterioration of the now yellow paper.
He went around the shelves, searching for readable pieces of documents, only finding a handful in the process.
Better than nothing.
He picked up one of the least deteriorated documents.
[Fallen Leaves Examination record #M444 — The subject appears to have completed assimilation with the droplet. Erratic behavioral patterns are no longer present. ]
There was barely any information even in the most preserved of the documents, so he searched for more of them.
[Fallen Leaves Examination record #M026 — No subjects have survived the merging process. The implants continue to fail. Earlier tests indicate that younger subjects exhibit reduced pain responses during the procedure.]
[Fallen Leaves Examination record #M129 — Our institute has received a new Droplet. Its purity is higher than the previous ones, its origin traced back to the Covens of the Second World.]
Barely getting any information, Altair read more and more of the examination records until he reached the last of the readable ones.
[Fallen Leaves Examination record #M876 — Containment is no longer possible. The Subject continues to grow in strength while producing more plant matter. Another breach attempt is imminent. Extermination requested.]
These four were the only documents providing Altair with any usable information, but he learned all that he needed to know.
He finally understood the reason for being sent here.
"—here?"
He was just about to leave when he heard someone weakly call out to him.
His muscles grew tense as he looked in the direction from which he heard the voice. It came from behind the large tree in the middle of the room.
"—someone really here?" The voice belonged to an older woman, strained at first but growing stronger as she realized someone was truly present.
"Please—"
"Please just kill me. Kill me! Kill me! Kill me! I can't stand it. I can't stand it. Let me out! Kill me, please! Kill meee!" She let out a visceral scream, repeatedly begging for death.
As she screamed, other weak voices made their presence known as well, realizing that someone was present, they also began to beg.
"Just let me die! I'm begging you! I can't wait a second longer, kill me!" Their screams echoed inside the small room, all while Altair just stood still.
Their voices came from behind the large tree, but what if they were the echoes of a fog Entity simply mimicking humans?
Still, Altair decided to unzip a part of his hazmat suit, retrieving his only weapon from his suit's pocket before zipping it back.
The mostly gray Droplet of Deon, granting him the ability to summon flames and resist their heat at the same time.
With his essence refilled after leaving the Hollow King's hall, he would be able to summon smaller flames at least three or four times at best.
With the Droplet in hand, Altair walked towards the three, ready to summon flames at a moment's notice.
But there was no need for that.
The ground was filled with large roots, while the large trunk of the tree was open, grasping at the bodies of numerous researchers wearing the same hazmat suits he wore.
"What happened to you people?"
As if they didn't even hear him, they continued to scream nonstop, begging for death. No matter what he asked them, they only grew louder when they saw him.
Behind him, the large trunk of the tree was split open, a beating hard intertwined with the roots slowly beat, imitating a real heart.
Or was it an imitation?