The wind cut like a blade that night. Not the soft kind that rustled leaves or rattled shutters, but sharp and insistent, gnawing through layers of clothing and into skin. I pulled my coat tighter, but it was useless. The storm was coming, and there was no escape.
By the time I reached the outskirts of Reth Vale, the streets were barely recognizable. Ash and soot mixed with rain, twisting the scent of smoke and wet stone into something acrid. Burnt timbers leaned against shattered windows, metal twisted into jagged shapes that gleamed in the storm-light. The market square, once full of laughter and clanging coins, was now blackened, broken, abandoned.
I had come for scraps. Anything I could trade for food or water that wouldn't crack my teeth. Copper, steel, a shard of glass maybe—anything. But the storm moved faster than I expected, black clouds rolling over the hills and swallowing the last light of day.
Then I saw it.
At first, it was only a mist curling down the street, drifting between ruined buildings like smoke that refused to rise. Then I noticed the rain. It did not fall. It hovered, frozen in the air, each droplet suspended like beads of glass.
The Hollow.
Stories had always warned of it. Places where reality bent, twisted, and broke. Forgotten things seeped into the present, and those who entered were rarely seen again. Some returned hollow—shadows of themselves.
I should have turned back. Every instinct screamed at me to run. But something drew me forward.
I stepped into it.
The storm did not stop completely, but it became unreal. My breath hung in the air without misting, and my boots made no sound on the cracked stone. In the center of the street, a man stood perfectly still.
He did not breathe. He did not blink. His eyes were locked on something ahead. A blade hovered above another man's throat, frozen just before it could strike.
I swallowed hard. This was no statue. Not a trick of the light. This was a moment stolen from reality.
I reached forward. My fingers brushed the air near the blade.
The space shattered.
A whisper entered my mind—not words, but a sinking understanding.
You take me. You take the price.
The storm returned with a roar. Rain pelted my shoulders. Wind gnawed at my skin. My head throbbed. Something inside me felt altered, wrong.
I reached into my pocket. My fingers closed around a shard, black and smooth, icy to the touch.
The fragment.
My heart pounded. I had planned to tell someone, a friend I trusted. But their face, their name, their existence—gone. The Hollow had taken more than the stolen moment. It had begun taking pieces of me.
I stumbled through the ruined streets. The fragment pulsed in my pocket like a heartbeat not my own, a reminder of the cost I had already begun paying.
Footsteps snapped me from my daze. Sharp, deliberate, approaching from the shadows.
I froze. Whoever it was, they were no passerby. My grip tightened on the fragment. Its pulse quickened.
A figure emerged. Hood drawn, cloak plastered to wet clothes, eyes sharp and calculating.
"You're the Binder," the figure said quietly but firmly. "I can sense it."
I stepped back. "How do you know that?"
"Because I am one too," the figure replied, drawing a worn notebook from their coat. Pages were filled with sketches, symbols, and hurried notes. "My name is Ryven. If you want to survive, you need to listen to me."
Fear twisted my chest. My life had changed, though I couldn't yet understand how.
Ryven did not waste time. Binders were hunted—by mercenaries, rival Binders, and even their own kind. The fragment I held was not just a piece of broken time; it was a beacon, and predators would come.
"The Hollow is not a place," Ryven said, flipping through the notebook. "It is a wound in reality. Fragments like yours are shards of that wound. Powerful. Dangerous. Unstable."
I stared at the fragment. It pulsed faintly, alive. I had taken it. I had stolen it. And I would pay.
"How do you control it?" I asked.
"You do not. Not yet," Ryven replied. "Every use costs something. Memories, feelings, pieces of who you are. The more you rely on it, the more you lose."
I shivered. "And if I lose too much?"
"You become hollow too," Ryven said softly. "Lost to the fragment. Worse than dead."
---
The following days blurred. I followed Ryven through ruined streets, learning to sense the Hollow, feel the pulse of the fragment, and listen to the whispers it carried. Each fragment had its own voice, its own hunger. Mine was tied to a single terrible moment—the moment before the first murder.
Every use took a price. Faces I knew, names I remembered, pieces of my past—gone. My identity frayed at the edges.
At night, I dreamt of fire. Flames licked a blackened sky, ash falling like snow. A distant, cold voice called to me:
"Remember, or be forgotten."
I woke shivering, the fragment heavy in my hand.
---
The city outside offered no sanctuary. Factions moved in shadows, hunting Binders, killing without hesitation. Ryven and I stayed among the ruins, alert and trusting no one.
One evening, as the sun bled beneath the horizon, a figure appeared. Another Binder. Merciless. Eyes like ice. Blade whispering death. They demanded the fragment.
Ryven stepped forward. "This one is under my protection."
The fight that followed was brutal. Power collided, fragments flashing like lightning. I barely understood what happened, only that Ryven was wounded and holding ground against impossible odds.
When the mercenary finally retreated, they left a warning:
You cannot hide from what you have taken.
---
I clutched the fragment tightly. The Hollow whispered, louder now, pulling me deeper into a darkness I could not yet understand.
I had crossed a line into a world I did not belong in—a world of fragments, Hollows, and hunters. There was no turning back.
I had power.
And I was already paying the price.
A memory lost. A piece of myself fading into ash.