Chapter 5: The Hollow King’s Whisper
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The city was breathing.
I could hear it—a slow, dragging inhale through shattered windows and rusted gates, the whisper of something enormous shifting beneath the streets. The buildings were wrong, bent at angles that should not exist. The shadows moved when I wasn't looking, stretching long fingers across the walls.
I should have run. I should have felt fear.
But all I felt was… hunger.
Not for food. Not for water.
For something else.
Something I couldn't name.
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The man—my so-called guide—was ahead of me. His presence was the only thing that still felt real. I followed because I had no other choice.
But with every step, the city whispered.
"You don't need him anymore."
"You're already ours."
I clenched my teeth. The voices were inside me now, slithering through my skull like parasites. I pressed a shaking hand to my forehead.
Stay awake. Stay aware. Stay—
A streetlight flickered overhead.
And in that brief pulse of light, I saw them.
The Hollowed Ones.
Lining the street in perfect silence.
Grinning. Watching.
Waiting.
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I stopped walking.
The man turned, his face unreadable. "Ignore them."
I couldn't. I knew what they were now.
I had seen inside them.
Empty shells. Something had scooped them clean. No soul, no thoughts, no self—just walking echoes of what they used to be.
And the worst part?
They didn't mind.
They wanted me to join them.
One of them—a woman in a torn hospital gown—tilted her head, her hollow sockets gazing into mine.
"Almost ready."
The others nodded in unison.
"Almost."
I took a step back.
The man grabbed my arm. "Keep moving."
I looked at him, and for the first time, I realized…
He wasn't stopping because he didn't see them.
He was stopping because he did.
And he knew what they meant.
I wasn't like him.
I was like them.
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We kept walking. The Hollowed Ones followed, silent and patient.
I didn't ask why they weren't attacking.
I already knew.
They were waiting for me to break.
And I was so close.
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We turned a corner, and I felt it before I saw it.
The air thickened. My chest tightened. My head pounded with the weight of something vast and ancient pressing down.
A door.
Rotting wood. A symbol carved into its surface—spiraling, shifting, moving when I blinked.
I knew this door.
I had seen it before.
But I didn't remember when.
The man exhaled. "We're here."
I swallowed hard. "What's inside?"
He didn't answer.
Because we both already knew.
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The door creaked open.
Darkness spilled out like ink. Wet. Pulsing. Alive.
I stepped inside, and the world collapsed.
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I was nowhere.
No walls. No ceiling. Just endless black stretching forever.
And then—
A voice.
Not a whisper. Not a thought. Something deeper.
"Do you understand now?"
A shape unfolded in the void.
No eyes. No face. Just absence given form.
My body locked. My thoughts fractured.
This was the thing that had taken from me.
And now, it stood before me.
Waiting.
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I tried to speak. My mouth moved, but no sound came out.
The figure tilted its head.
"You are still clinging to something human."
It took a step forward.
I tried to move—but my body didn't obey.
"It hurts, doesn't it?"
A cold hand pressed against my chest.
Pain. Raw. Endless.
Memories unraveled inside me, pulled apart like rotten threads. My mother's face blurred, my father's voice faded, my own name—
Gone.
Replaced with something new.
Something ancient.
"You are ready now."
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I collapsed. My breathing ragged, my skin burning.
Something inside me had changed.
The hunger—the emptiness—was worse.
But it no longer frightened me.
Because now I understood it.
And I knew what had to be done.
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The world snapped back.
I was in the room again.
The man stood over me, his expression grim. "Did you see it?"
I smiled.
Not because I was happy.
But because I finally knew what I was.
The Hollowed Ones were waiting outside.
And this time, they weren't whispering.
They were kneeling.
Because I was no longer like them.
I was something worse.
And they were ready to follow.
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TO BE CONTINUED…