The mud, as always, was the first thing Kaelen noticed. It was a constant, cold presence, seeping through the worn-out leather of his boots and sucking at his feet with every step. It smelled of rot, waste, and the despair that clung to the border town of Duskhaven like a shroud.
*Another day,* he thought, the words a dull, familiar mantra in his mind. *Just get through another day.*
Duskhaven wasn't a place for dreams; it was a place for survival. Nestled on the edge of the Gloomweald, the town was a miserable collection of leaning timber buildings and patched-up roofs, perpetually damp from the mist that rolled in from the twilight forest. It was a buffer, a forgotten speck on the map where the "civilized" Sanguine Cities and the proud Werewolf clans dumped their problems. Here, humans like Kaelen scrambled for scraps, living in the shadow of creatures they could never hope to match.
Kaelen was seventeen, but his eyes held the weary cynicism of a man twice his age. His frame was lean, hardened by years of manual labor and insufficient food. A mop of unruly black hair fell over his eyes, which were the color of the overcast sky—a flat, unremarkable grey. He preferred it that way; being unremarkable was a survival tactic.
He was a Void. The word was a brand, a curse. It meant his soul was a locked door with no key, incapable of channeling even the faintest spark of Essence. In a world where power was everything, he was nothing.
"Look what the gloom-drake coughed up," a grating voice sliced through the morning haze.
Kaelen didn't need to look up. It was Roric and his two lackeys, blocking the narrow alley leading to the market square. Roric, a burly boy with a cruel smile, had just enough brute strength to be a problem. He'd never be chosen by a Werewolf clan or recruited by the Vampiers, but next to a Void, he was a king.
*Just keep walking. Don't engage. Don't give them a reason,* Kaelen told himself, his shoulders tensing.
"Where you off to, Void?" Roric stepped forward, planting himself squarely in Kaelen's path. "Got an important appointment? Gonna go channel some mighty Essence?"
A chuckle rippled through his friends. Kaelen's knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists inside his pockets. The familiar heat of shame crept up his neck. He hated it—hated the taunts, but more than that, he hated the tiny, treacherous part of him that still hoped, against all evidence, that they were wrong.
"I'm just going to work, Roric," Kaelen said, his voice low and even. He tried to sidestep, but one of the other boys shoved him back.
"Work?" Roric sneered. "What work can a Void do? Sweep floors? Haul garbage? You're less than a dog. A dog at least has instincts."
*I have instincts,* Kaelen thought bitterly. *The instinct to run. The instinct to hide. The instinct to survive.* But he said nothing. Arguing was fuel for their fire.
Roric's eyes glinted. "I think you owe a toll for using our street. A little something for our protection."
"We both know you're the only thing I need protection from," Kaelen muttered, the words escaping before he could stop them.
The smirk vanished from Roric's face. "What did you say, you Essence-less freak?"
The first punch caught Kaelen in the stomach, driving the air from his lungs in a painful gasp. He doubled over, and the world dissolved into a blur of fists and boots. He curled into a ball, his mind retreating inward as the blows rained down.
*Don't cry out. Don't give them the satisfaction. It'll be over soon. It always is.* He focused on the cold mud against his cheek, the grit grinding into his skin. This was his life. A cycle of pain and humiliation, with no end in sight. The hollow feeling in his chest, the one that was always there, seemed to grow wider, a void not just of magic, but of hope.
After what felt like an eternity, the kicking stopped. "Remember your place, Void," Roric spat, before he and his friends sauntered off, laughing.
Kaelen lay in the mud, breathing in the stink of it. Every part of him ached. Pushing himself up slowly, he wiped the blood from his split lip. The hollow feeling was now a cold, hard knot in his gut. *What is the point?* The thought was clearer now, more dangerous than ever before. *Why keep fighting for a life that's not worth living?*
He spent the day doing exactly what Roric had mocked: hauling rotten fish crates at the docks for a few copper bits. The work was mind-numbing, the pay a pittance. As dusk began to deepen into true night, a strange silence fell over Duskhaven. The usual sounds of the town—the bickering, the clatter of shutters—died away. The air grew colder, sharp and metallic.
A high-pitched scream tore through the twilight, followed by an unnatural silence.
Then, a wave of pure, undiluted *dread* washed over the town. It was a palpable force, seeping into the very bones of the buildings and the souls of the people. Kaelen froze, his blood turning to ice. He'd heard stories. This wasn't a Werewolf raid or a demonic incursion. This was something else. This was a Vokai.
Panic erupted. People scrambled for their homes, barring doors and windows. Kaelen saw it then, flowing down the main street like a river of concentrated shadow. It had no fixed form—a swirling mass of darkness from which glimpses of tormented faces and grasping, skeletal hands emerged and dissolved. Where it passed, wood splintered, and the life was sucked from the air, leaving behind a brittle, frozen husk.
*Run. Hide.* The instincts he'd praised earlier screamed at him. He turned to flee, but a child's whimper cut through the chaos. A little girl, no more than five, stood frozen in the middle of the street, separated from her mother, directly in the path of the advancing horror.
The Vokai sensed her—a spark of pure, terrified life. It coalesced, focusing on her, a maw of shadows opening wide to consume her essence.
Everyone else had vanished. It was just the girl, the monster, and Kaelen.
*Run,* his mind begged. *You're a Void. You can't fight that. You'll die.*
He looked at the child, her small body trembling. He saw himself in her terror, the helplessness he felt every day. The hollow ache in his chest throbbed. What was the point of surviving if it meant being a ghost, if it meant watching the world burn from the safety of the shadows?
A different instinct, one he didn't recognize, surged up from that very hollowness. It wasn't courage, not really. It was a refusal. A final, desperate *"No."*
With a raw shout that was torn from the depths of his soul, Kaelen launched himself forward. He wasn't thinking, only moving. He slammed into the little girl, shoving her out of the way and into a nearby alley.
And in doing so, he placed himself directly in the path of the Vokai.
The cold was absolute. It was beyond temperature, a nothingness that sought to erase him. The spectral form enveloped him. Agony erupted in his mind—not physical pain, but the pain of a thousand lost souls, their rage, their sorrow, their despair, flooding into him. He felt his consciousness fraying, his very self dissolving into the void.
*This is death,* he thought, with a strange clarity.
But as the Vokai's Spectral Essence poured into him, seeking to fill and then shatter his soul, it encountered the hollowness. And the hollowness did not break. It did not resist. It *accepted*.
The agonizing flood became a torrent, then a vortex, swirling into the infinite emptiness inside Kaelen. It was like pouring an ocean into a bottomless well. The screams in his head grew distant, the cold became a chill, and then a strange, thrumming power. The darkness that had surrounded him was being pulled inward, into *him*.
The process was violent, unnatural. He felt his body convulse, his bones vibrating. He saw flashes of memories not his own—a warrior's betrayal, a lover's loss, a lifetime of bitterness. He drank them all. The Vokai, for the first time, knew fear. It tried to recoil, to pull away, but it was trapped. Kaelen's Hollow Soul had latched on, an unstoppable siphon.
When it was over, Kaelen collapsed to his knees in the suddenly silent, empty street. The Vokai was gone. The oppressive dread had vanished. All that was left was a faint, shimmering residue of frost on the ground.
And inside him, something stirred.
He felt… different. The hollow ache was still there, but it was no longer empty. It was filled with a cold, restless energy. He looked at his hands. For a fleeting second, he thought he saw a wisp of shadow curl around his fingertips before fading.
The townspeople began to emerge, their faces pale with shock and fear. They looked from the saved child, now sobbing in her mother's arms, to Kaelen, the Void, kneeling alone where a soul-devouring monster had just been.
They didn't see a hero. They saw the boy who had touched the darkness and hadn't been consumed. They saw the faint, ghostly pallor of his skin, the unnatural grey of his eyes that now seemed to hold a flicker of the abyss.
The gratitude in their eyes was quickly replaced by a deeper, more primal fear. They backed away from him.
Kaelen slowly rose to his feet. The physical pain from Roric's beating was gone, replaced by this new, strange thrumming in his veins. He met the gaze of the townsfolk, and for the first time in his life, they looked away first.
The village elder pointed a trembling finger. "What are you?" the old man whispered, his voice cracking.
Kaelen had no answer. He looked at his hands again, then towards the dark, endless expanse of the Gloomweald. The path ahead was unknown, terrifying. But for the first time, the path behind him was even worse.
He had started with nothing. Now, he had a monster inside him. And as he took his first step away from Duskhaven, cast out by the fear in the eyes of the only home he'd ever known, a single, terrifying thought echoed in the new silence of his soul.
*It is enough.*