The Hollow was gone.
Not destroyed—just swallowed by something far worse.
The chamber was collapsing in on itself, its stone turning into drifting fragments of light. Golden veins split across the walls, every crack singing with a god's hymn. The cocoon was no longer still—it pulsed and throbbed, its surface broken open like a wound. From within, the light of a half-born god spilled endlessly.
And in front of it—stood Aelric.
Or what was left of him.
---
His body was no longer human.
The corrupted arm had devoured half his chest, spreading into ribs of black flame. His jaw was cracked, leaking embers instead of blood. Tendrils grew from his spine, lashing wildly against the chamber walls. Every heartbeat twisted him further into something monstrous.
And yet, his grin lingered.
"I'm still standing," he rasped, though his voice split into two tones—one his own, the other hollow and ancient.
Elara pressed herself against the shattered floor, trembling. The timer on her wrist blazed like molten fire.
[01 Hour : 41 Minutes Remaining]
Her tears stung. "It's too fast. I won't make it. I won't—"
"Don't look at that!" Aelric's roar cut her panic, sharp and merciless. His one good eye burned straight at her. "Look at me. As long as I'm still moving, you keep breathing."
She sobbed, clutching the broken lantern shards to her chest. "And if you stop?"
Aelric's grin widened, terrifying and brilliant. "Then you scream louder until I start again."
---
The cocoon split wider.
A colossal hand of golden light stretched outward, fingers like swords tearing the chamber apart. The hymn rose to deafening pitch.
You are nothing but seconds. You are already hollow. You belong to us.
Aelric's laugh cracked blood from his lips. "If I belong to anyone, it's to my own damn stubbornness!"
He hurled himself forward.
His corrupted tendrils lashed against the god's golden hand. Sparks of black and gold exploded, shaking the Hollow into chaos. Every impact tore Aelric's flesh further, but his corrupted flames only grew hungrier, clawing deeper into divinity.
The god's voice thundered:
Overflow detected. Collapse inevitable.
---
Elara's hands shook. The lantern shards in her palms pulsed faintly with each beat of her heart.
She staggered to her feet, voice hoarse but firm. "You said not to stop screaming your name."
Her throat burned. But she screamed anyway.
"AELRIC!"
The shards blazed, a shield of light blooming around her. The hymn faltered for a heartbeat, the god's hand twitching in hesitation.
Aelric seized the opening. He drove his corrupted arm straight into the golden palm, tendrils stabbing deep. The divine flesh cracked, molten radiance spilling like blood.
The cocoon howled, its voice layered with countless echoes.
---
But with each strike, Aelric slipped further.
His corrupted side stretched higher, devouring his shoulder, his neck, crawling toward his good eye. His laugh became distorted, almost indistinguishable from the Hollow's static.
Elara saw it—the moment he would lose himself.
"No," she whispered. "Not like this."
She pressed the lantern shards together, even as they burned her hands raw. Her blood sizzled against the light.
"Don't you dare disappear into this thing! Not after everything you've done! Not after you dragged me this far!"
The shards flared again, the light linking with the tendrils that grew from Aelric's back.
For a heartbeat—he froze.
---
Elara's voice cracked, but she kept shouting. "You told me once that borrowed seconds are still yours to spend! Then spend them on me! Don't spend them on this monster!"
Aelric's corrupted eye twitched. His good eye flickered, recognition struggling against the tide.
"Elara…" His voice split again, human and inhuman clashing.
She stepped forward through the storm, her wrists burning, timer tearing her flesh. "You're still you. Even if the whole world calls you Hollow—you're still mine."
The word struck deeper than her lantern ever could.
---
For an instant, the hymn faltered.
Aelric's grin softened—not completely, but enough. Enough to remind her that he was still there, still fighting.
"Mine, huh?" His voice cracked with a laugh, broken but alive. "Guess that means I don't get to give up yet."
Then he roared, louder than the hymn itself, tearing his tendrils free from the god's flesh and wrapping them tighter.
The cocoon screamed.
Golden light splintered, cracks spreading across its radiant surface.
---
But the price came swiftly.
Elara's timer flared like fire on her wrist, the numbers collapsing too fast to read.
[01 Hour : 10 Minutes Remaining]
[00 Hours : 59 Minutes Remaining]
Her knees buckled, blood dripping from her nose. She gasped, "It's—draining me too—"
The god's voice filled the chamber, merciless and cold.
Every second spent here belongs to us. You will both be erased.
Aelric's body trembled, his corrupted flames gnawing deeper into his own ribs. He turned, blood searing his grin.
"Then erase me last," he spat. "Because I'm not letting her go first."
---
He pulled on his corruption harder than ever before.
The tendrils twisted into a storm, wrapping around the god's arm and dragging it down. His bones split, his spine cracked, but he refused to let go.
Elara staggered closer, holding her lantern shards forward, pouring what little light remained into his flames.
Together—corruption and light merged.
Black and gold spiraled, wrapping around each other, sinking deeper into the cocoon's heart.
The hymn shattered into chaos, the god's voice fracturing.
Impossible. This union cannot exist. You are breaking the law.
Aelric's laugh was ragged, bloody, defiant. "The law never saved anyone. The law never kept anyone alive. The law—"
He drove his corrupted fist through the cocoon's core.
"—can burn."
---
The chamber exploded in silence.
Not sound. Not light. Just absence.
Elara felt herself falling through nothing, lantern shards disintegrating in her hands. Her timer froze, then ticked again, slower but still burning.
Aelric's silhouette stood against the broken cocoon, half his body ash, half his body flame.
And as the pieces of the Hollow collapsed around them, she realized—
The god was not destroyed.
Only unsealed.
---
The last thing Elara saw before her vision blacked out was Aelric turning toward her, his grin crooked, his body barely holding together.
"Don't blink," he rasped. "The second you blink, we're already dead."
Then darkness swallowed everything.