---
The dust takes too long to settle.
Particles cling to your skin, your lashes, your tongue. The air tastes like burnt metal and something older—something that shouldn't exist beneath concrete and steel. The chamber is quiet now, but not peaceful. The kind of quiet that only comes when something is deciding what to do next.
The hollow doesn't sleep.
It curls beneath your ribs, pulsing in irregular waves, as if replaying the battle in reverse. Each memory sends another tremor through your nerves. You clench your fists, trying to ground yourself, but the sensation only sharpens.
Azael straightens from the crate, rolling his shoulders. His blade hums faintly as he wipes shadow residue from the edge. "We need to move," he says.
"Already?" Your voice cracks more than you expect.
"Yes." He doesn't look at you. "This place is compromised. Kaelthyr doesn't test twice."
The word test makes your chest tighten. The hollow coils tighter, almost offended.
You scan the chamber. Cracks run like veins through the floor, branching outward from where the larger figure struck. Thin dust trickles from the ceiling. The structure isn't stable anymore.
You exhale slowly. "Where do we go?"
Azael hesitates.
That's new.
"There's another site," he finally says. "Older. Buried deeper. He won't reach it easily."
"He?" you repeat.
He nods once. "Not immediately."
That answer doesn't comfort you but you follow him still, with obvious dread of what might happen next.
---
Five hours passed, and you're no where near the site, and you start to worry about kealthyr catching up with you.
Azeal notices your worry and speaks up "Don't worry, we're almost there" His words seemed to comfort you a bit as you hold his hand and squeeze it tight.
Several hours later, you appear in what seemed like a forest, tall trees with menacing shadows, the air tasted like danger, every step felt like a mistake, the trees closed up the sky as you walked deeper into the woods.
Then you reach it, the stairwell is narrow and spirals downward into darkness. Emergency lights flicker, casting long, distorted shadows that stretch across the walls like grasping hands. Every step echoes too loudly.
Your boots crunch on broken glass and old debris. The hollow pulses in sync with your heartbeat, faster with every level you descend.
"Does it always react like this?" you ask quietly.
Azael's footsteps slow. "No."
You look at him. "Then why now?"
He doesn't answer right away. When he does, his voice is low, almost reluctant.
"Because it knows it's being watched."
Your stomach twists.
The lower level opens into something that doesn't feel like a bunker. The walls are lined with strange markings—etched symbols, diagrams, equations, and shapes that don't look human-made. Some glow faintly, pulsing like veins of dim light.
You step forward, drawn in despite yourself.
"What is this place?"
"A containment site," Azael says. "Or… it was supposed to be."
The hollow surges when you approach the center of the room.
There's a circular platform, cracked and scorched, with restraints embedded into the floor—metal rings, chains, devices designed to pin something down.
Something powerful.
Something like you.
Your breath catches.
"Was someone held here?" you whisper.
"Yes."
The hollow screams.
Images flash in your mind—hands gripping metal, chains snapping, voices shouting, light exploding outward. None of it is yours. And yet it feels too familiar.
You stagger back, clutching your chest.
Azael grabs your arm. "Don't sync with it. Not here."
"Sync?" you repeat, dizzy.
He releases you, jaw tight. "The hollow isn't just energy. It's a memory structure. A fragment of something that existed before you."
Before me.
The words echo too loudly in your head.
Then the lights flicker.
And every symbol on the wall lights up at once.
A low vibration rolls through the chamber—not from the floor, but from inside your bones.
A voice fills the room.
Not from speakers. Not from air.
But from somewhere, somewhere dangerous, carrying the air of violence
Then it speakw
"Such an impressive style of adaptation."
You freeze.
Azael's hand goes to his blade. "He's not supposed to reach this depth."
The air ripples. A figure forms in the center of the chamber—not physical, not shadow, but something in between. A silhouette made of shifting geometry and light.
Kaelthyr.
He tilts his head slightly, studying you.
"You exceed projection models. That is… inconvenient."
Your heart pounds. "You're the one sending them."
"Correct." He nods, with a smirk playing on his lips
Azael steps in front of you. "You're escalating too fast." He says and Kaelthyr laughs.
"Escalation is the only valid response to anomaly." Then his gaze returns to you and he says, "You are anomaly."
The hollow flares violently, reacting to his presence like a predator recognizing another predator.
"Your hollow is incomplete. That is why it screams." kealthyr says, preparing to attack
You grit your teeth. "What do you mean incomplete?"
Kaelthyr's form fractures into multiple overlapping images.
"You are a fragment. A vessel. A continuation of something that refused containment."
The restraints on the platform glow.
"The original was terminated. The hollow remained."
Your vision blurs.
The hollow pulses harder, as if rejecting the words—but also recognizing them.
Azael grabs your shoulder. "He's manipulating you."
"Correction," Kaelthyr says.
"I am informing you."
He turns his gaze back to Azael.
"And you, Azael, are delaying inevitable convergence."
This time Azeal is enraged.
"Get lost!!!" He barks, his pulse glowing with something ancient he draws his blade and charge for Kaelthyr.
A flicker of unease crossed Kealthyr's eyes as he knows he's no match for Azeal, and the last battle had drawn most of his energy.
He cast one last glance at you before disappearing into a vortex.
---