The sky had been cracked for ten years.
Not metaphorically.
Not poetically.
Cracked.
Kael Virex remembered the first time he noticed it. He had been seven, lying in a hospital bed after the Incident, staring at the ceiling when the nurses screamed. When he ran outside, the sky looked like shattered glass—thin glowing fractures stretching across the clouds like spiderweb veins of light.
They called it The Fracture.
They said a star exploded too close to Earth.
They lied.
Kael knew because he heard it.
The voice.
It started as whispers in his dreams. A distant echo vibrating through endless dark space.
Find me.
He sat upright in bed now, sweat clinging to his skin. The whisper had grown stronger.
Outside his apartment window, the sky flickered faintly blue.
"That's new…" he muttered.
His phone buzzed violently on his desk.
EMERGENCY ALERT: ECHO ACTIVITY DETECTED. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.
Kael's stomach dropped.
Echo activity meant fragments were falling again.
Fragments of the Hollow Star.
He ran to the balcony despite knowing better. Across the city skyline, streaks of blue fire tore through the clouds like shooting stars — but slower. Intentional.
One streak changed direction.
It was heading straight for his district.
"No no no—"
The object slammed into an abandoned construction site three blocks away. The impact didn't explode outward. Instead, it collapsed inward, like gravity folding into itself.
And then everything went silent.
The voice returned.
Come to me.
Kael didn't remember leaving the apartment.
He didn't remember running.
But suddenly he was there — standing at the edge of a smoking crater. The air shimmered like heat over asphalt. Rubble floated inches above the ground, suspended by invisible force.
At the center of the crater hovered a small orb.
It pulsed.
Cracked.
Breathing light.
Kael stepped closer.
His mind screamed to run.
But the whisper was no longer distant.
It was right behind his thoughts.
You survived once. You will survive again.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers touched the orb, pain detonated through his body. Not burning. Not freezing.
Unmaking.
Memories flashed before him: the Fracture in the sky, a blinding column of light descending when he was seven, hospital machines screaming, doctors shouting that he had flatlined for twelve seconds.
Twelve seconds.
Dead.
The orb cracked further, its light spilling into his veins. His shadow twisted unnaturally against the crater wall, stretching too long.
And then his shadow stood up.
It peeled off the ground like liquid ink forming a human shape.
Kael collapsed, gasping.
The shadow version of himself looked down at him with glowing red eyes.
"You finally came back," it said calmly.
Kael stared in horror. "What… are you?"
The shadow tilted its head. "I am the part of you that crossed over when the star broke."
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Echo Response Units.
Government enforcers.
"They can't see me yet," the shadow continued. "But they will see what you become."
Kael struggled to stand. The orb had dissolved into his chest, leaving faint glowing cracks beneath his skin.
"What did you do to me?"
The shadow smiled.
"I completed you."
Floodlights burst over the crater. Armored vehicles surrounded the site. Soldiers in black exo-suits aimed glowing rifles.
A voice echoed from a loudspeaker:
"Unidentified Echo contact! Kneel and place your hands on your head!"
Kael's heart pounded violently.
"I didn't do anything!" he shouted.
Energy gathered in his chest.
The cracks under his skin glowed brighter.
The shadow stepped behind him and whispered in his ear:
"They will never let you live as you were."
A soldier fired.
The bolt of compressed light struck Kael in the chest.
The world froze.
The energy didn't hit him.
It bent.
Curved around him like gravity itself warped space.
The ground beneath his feet fractured.
The soldiers stumbled as invisible pressure forced them to their knees.
Kael's eyes glowed blue and violet.
He wasn't controlling it.
He was falling inward, like the crater.
Like the star.
The shadow's voice echoed through his skull:
"You are the Hollow Core."
The pressure intensified until every vehicle's windows shattered simultaneously.
Then—
Darkness.
When Kael opened his eyes, the crater was empty.
No soldiers.
No vehicles.
No sirens.
Just silence.
And the sky above…
The cracks had grown wider.
From within them, something enormous moved.
Watching.
The whisper was no longer soft.
It was awake.
You are my echo.
And far above the fractured sky, the Hollow Star pulsed.