The silence was suffocating.
Ethan's boots scraped against the uneven stone, each step sounding like a scream in the endless dark tunnel. He forced himself to move carefully, breathing shallow, remembering Selene's warning: Don't echo.
But the deeper he walked, the harder it was to stay quiet. The Hollow City seemed to lean closer with every breath he took, as if the walls themselves were listening.
He pressed his hand against the damp surface of the tunnel. The stone was cold, slick with condensation, but beneath it he felt something else—something alive. A faint vibration thrummed there, like the beat of a distant drum. The same rhythm he had heard inside the cathedral. The rhythm of the Heart.
His heart answered it.
Ethan bit back a curse. "Not again…"
He tried to push forward faster, ignoring the pounding in his chest, but the tunnel bent and branched unpredictably. One moment it narrowed so tightly he had to turn sideways to fit; the next it opened into vast chambers where his flashlight beam barely reached the walls.
Each time he thought he had found a straight path, it looped back or split into three more. A labyrinth.
It didn't take long for doubt to creep in. What if I'm just walking in circles? What if Selene's not even alive anymore? What if… what if this is what the Hollow City wants—to bury me in these tunnels until I'm nothing but an echo myself?
The thought nearly crushed him, but he shoved it down.
No. He couldn't lose Selene. Not here. Not like this.
Hours—or minutes; time had no meaning here—slipped by. Ethan's flashlight flickered, its beam weakening. The battery was dying.
Panic rose in his throat. He tapped it against his palm, coaxing it back to life, but the glow was dimmer now. The darkness pressed in tighter.
That was when he heard it.
A whisper.
Not in his head this time. Not like the Choir's invasive voices. This was softer, carried by the stale air of the tunnels.
Ethan…
He froze, his heart seizing. The sound had come from behind him.
Slowly, he turned.
The tunnel behind him was empty. Nothing but stone and shadow.
Ethan… help me.
His blood turned to ice. The voice was Selene's.
He stumbled back a step, his throat dry. "Selene?" His voice cracked, too loud, echoing down the tunnel. He winced, clapping a hand over his mouth, but the sound had already traveled.
No response came—only the faint drip of water somewhere deep in the dark.
He clenched his fists. It's a trick. Another illusion. Like my mother's voice.
But then he heard it again. This time clearer, closer, as if she were standing only a few feet away.
Please… Ethan, it hurts…
His chest ached. Every instinct screamed at him to run toward it, to find her. Yet reason told him this was exactly what the Hollow City wanted: to lure him deeper, to break him.
He took a shaking breath. "If you're real, Selene… say something only you would know."
Silence.
Then—laughter.
It wasn't Selene's voice anymore. It was dozens of voices overlapping, distorted and jagged. They mocked him, repeating his words back to him, twisting them into grotesque shapes.
If you're real, Selene… Selene… Selene…
The tunnel walls vibrated with the chorus. Ethan staggered, pressing his hands over his ears, but the laughter was inside him, rattling his bones.
"Stop!" he screamed.
And the laughter stopped instantly.
The silence was worse.
Shaking, Ethan pressed forward, refusing to look back. His breaths came shallow, his flashlight beam bouncing wildly against the stone.
The tunnel sloped downward now, steeper and steeper, until he was practically sliding. His boots scraped desperately against the slick floor, but momentum carried him. He stumbled, fell, and tumbled violently down the incline.
He hit the ground hard, his flashlight skittering across the floor. Pain shot through his ribs, his shoulder. He groaned, pushing himself up, blinking into the gloom.
The flashlight had rolled to a stop several feet away, its beam pointing upward.
At a door.
It was the first door Ethan had seen in the Hollow City. Not bone, not stone. Wood. Old, rotting wood bound with rusted iron.
He crawled toward it, every muscle aching. His fingers traced the surface. Symbols were carved into the wood—spirals, eyes, jagged lines that seemed to move when he looked too long.
A chill ran through him. The symbols weren't just carvings. They were words.
And he could read them.
Chosen. Open. Become.
His stomach twisted. His hand hovered over the iron handle. He should turn back. He knew it. Whatever was behind this door was meant for him.
But he couldn't.
Not with Selene still lost. Not with the Heart's rhythm calling louder with every second.
He gritted his teeth and pulled.
The door creaked open.
The chamber beyond was vast and circular, its ceiling lost in shadow. Torches lined the walls, their flames pale and sickly. At the center of the room stood a pedestal of bone, and upon it… a book.
It was bound in cracked leather, its pages yellowed and brittle. Chains wrapped around it, but they were broken, as if someone—or something—had freed it before.
Ethan stepped closer, his breath shallow.
The book pulsed.
Not metaphorically. Literally. Its cover rose and fell with each beat, in perfect time with the rhythm in his chest.
"No…" Ethan whispered. "No, this isn't real."
But it was.
Drawn forward against his will, he placed his hands on the book. The moment he touched it, voices exploded in his head.
A flood of memories that weren't his. Screams, songs, rituals, centuries of pain. He saw faces, countless faces, all of them singing the same hymn. He saw the Heart being fed—again and again—with lives, with souls, with blood.
And in the center of it all… himself.
He saw his own face staring back at him, over and over, across centuries. Different clothes, different eras, but always the same eyes.
He wasn't the first.
He was only the latest.
Ethan tore his hands away, stumbling back. "No. No, that's impossible."
But the truth burrowed deep into him: the Hollow City hadn't chosen him at random. He had always been tied to it. Bound across lifetimes, across deaths.
The Heart wasn't just beating in him. It had always been his.
The book trembled violently, its pages flipping on their own. A word burned across the open parchment, glowing red-hot:
RETURN.
The torches flared. The chamber shook. The door slammed shut behind him.
And from the shadows above, something stirred.
Ethan's flashlight flickered, its beam catching a glimpse—an enormous shape slithering along the ceiling, pale and wet, dozens of eyes opening one by one to stare down at him.
The voice of the Choir filled the chamber, louder than ever, overlapping into a single command:
Chosen… kneel.
Ethan clenched his fists, his fear boiling into fury. His throat burned, his chest thundered. He opened his mouth—
And screamed.
What do you think Ethan saw in those visions—are they real memories of past lives, or just the Hollow City's manipulation? Share your theory!