Chapter 22 – The Descent Into Hollow Light
Riven is falling.
But not in the way a body should fall.
There is no wind rushing past him, no stomach-lurching pull of gravity. Instead, he drifts, weightless, suspended between time and space like a broken thread unraveling from a tapestry.
Above him, the world is a distant, fractured thing. The city—or what remains of it—shimmers as though seen through rippling water. The neon lights twist, bending in ways they shouldn't, their glow dimming as if the world itself is forgetting they were ever there.
And below?
Nothing.
A vast, endless void of pale light stretches beneath him. Not warm, not golden—but hollow.
Empty, yet somehow… full.
"You are unraveling."
The voice slithers through his mind, soft and patient.
Not spoken. Not heard. Felt.
Riven grits his teeth, trying to reach for something—anything—to stop his descent. His hands stretch forward, fingers curling, but there's nothing to grasp. Nothing solid.
His own hands blur at the edges.
The fingers are still there. But… at the same time, they aren't.
His pulse quickens.
"Do you feel it?"
The whisper seeps into his bones.
"The world forgetting you?"
A shiver wracks his body. A deeper kind of cold than he has ever known. It isn't the kind that comes from ice or shadow.
It is the cold of absence.
The cold of vanishing.
No.
He clenches his jaw. Focus. He will not let this happen.
With sheer force of will, he twists his body midair, fighting the weightless pull. He tries to summon his strength, his power—something to anchor himself to reality.
But it isn't working.
Because reality is already slipping away.
Then—impact.
Not with the ground.
There is no ground.
He stops.
Suspended. Held.
Not by hands. Not by force.
By something unseen.
Something waiting.
His breath catches. A presence stirs in the void around him. No, not one. Many.
A sea of shifting figures emerges from the endless white, their forms flickering—not fully there, yet impossible to ignore.
They are watching him.
And Riven knows them.
Not by name. Not by memory.
By what they are.
Heroes.
The forgotten. The erased. The ones who should have been legends, should have been stories—but instead became nothing.
They shouldn't exist.
And yet, they do.
A terrible realization coils around his ribs.
This is where they went.
This is what became of those who were erased.
Not death. Not oblivion.
Something… worse.
The weight of their stares presses down on him. Thousands of eyes. Thousands of unspoken pleas.
Then—movement.
The figures shift, flickering closer.
One step. Another.
They reach for him.
Not violently. Not with malice.
With desperation.
A whisper ripples through the void, a chorus of voices rising in unison—some trembling, some resolute, all of them aching.
"Remember me."
"Please."
"I don't want to disappear."
Riven staggers.
The hands don't touch him—not physically. But he feels them all the same.
They press against something deeper.
Something inside him.
He gasps, his vision distorting. Images flicker through his mind—memories that aren't his. Faces he's never seen. Voices he's never heard.
They are trying to anchor themselves to him.
To be remembered.
To exist.
To make a home inside his mind.
Riven jerks back, panic coiling tight in his chest. "No," he growls. "Get out of my head!"
But the whispering doesn't stop.
It only grows louder.
The figures close in.
Their fingers reach through his skin—not physically, but through something deeper.
Something essential.
His self.
His identity.
And for the first time, a terrible question takes root in his mind—
What happens if they succeed?
If they imprint onto him, if they fill the void inside him—will he still be Riven Steele?
Or will he become something else?
His pulse pounds. His body feels less solid.
Threads unravel.
His name falters.
His thoughts blur.
"Let go."
The whisper is there again, but it is no longer coming from the lost heroes.
It is something deeper.
Older.
Colder.
"You don't belong to yourself anymore."
Riven screams.
And the world shatters.