The Weight of the Unseen

The light grew.

Not fast. Not like a flare bursting in the dark, not like salvation reaching out with eager hands.

It was slow. Deliberate.

A pulse, faint but insistent, pushing through the black in steady beats. A heartbeat. A signal. A whisper threading through the Hollow's endless weight.

I ran toward it.

The stone beneath my feet finally stabilized, solidifying under each step, no longer shifting between textures, no longer questioning whether it wanted to exist. The air around me—if this place even had air—remained thick, pressing against my shoulders like a weight I wasn't meant to carry.

The Hollow had let me go, but it hadn't forgotten me.

The whispers still slithered at the edge of my mind, too faint to understand, too deep to ignore. The weight of something unseen—something I couldn't name—pressed against the back of my skull, reminding me that I was still watched.

That I had been seen.