The sky was torn open with cracks of pale light. Beyond them stretched only the endless abyss—an ocean of black that swallowed sound, swallowed life, swallowed entire continents whole.
At the very edge of one crumbling cliff stood a boy. Barefoot. Hungry. Forgotten.
Kael Ardyn.
He was small, maybe ten at most, his ribs pressing against his thin shirt, his hair whipping in the cold abyssal winds. The people of the settlement called him The Hollow Child. Born of nothing, carrying nothing. The kind of life the world itself had already abandoned.
But tonight, the abyss called his name.
⸻
The ground trembled. From the fog below, it rose—a creature of pure void, black skin split by glowing veins of violet light. Its claws dragged sparks from the stone as it climbed onto the cliff.
An Abyssal Beast.
Kael's legs shook. He had no weapons. No training. Just scraps of courage sewn together by desperation.
The beast's eye—if it could be called that—glared, a molten shard of hatred.
Kael ran. Stones shattered under his feet as the beast lunged after him. The ground crumbled behind him into the abyss. His chest burned. His lungs screamed.
And then—he slipped.
The cliff edge vanished beneath him. His body plunged into nothingness. For a moment, there was only silence. The kind of silence that wasn't empty, but heavy. Alive.
The Veil.
It should have swallowed him whole. It should have ended him like countless others.
But instead, it whispered.
A hum, deep and endless, echoed in his chest. Not in his ears. Not in the air. Inside him.
"You are hollow… therefore you can carry us."
The void sang. His body vibrated with a strange, impossible frequency. His heart skipped, then matched the hum. His vision filled with pale threads of light, infinite strings crossing the abyss.
And then—he stopped falling.
He stood. In the middle of the void itself.
⸻
The beast dove after him, claws tearing at the silence. It roared, soundless yet deafening.
Kael's hands rose without his will. The hum inside him sharpened into stillness—so absolute that the beast's resonance faltered.
Its glowing veins flickered. Its body stuttered, like a string pulled out of tune.
Kael's voice cracked out, raw and terrified—
"Stop…"
And the abyss answered.
A ripple of nothing burst from his hands, slicing the beast apart without light, without flame—without anything.
The Abyssal Beast dissolved into shreds of silence, pulled back into the Veil. The cliff returned beneath his feet. The hum faded.
Kael dropped to his knees, trembling, clutching his chest.
Above him, the sky was the same cracked dome. The world unchanged.
But inside him—something had awakened. Something nameless.
A Silent Frequency.
And as the night winds tore past him, Kael realized two things:
1. He had survived when no one else could have.
2. The world would never forgive him for it.