Chapter Two: Into the Hollow

The trees loomed like sentinels, their branches arching together high above, shutting out the fading sun. As Nuel stepped into the forest, the world quieted.

Not just the usual quiet of nature.

An unnatural quiet.

No birds. No rustling underbrush. Just the sound of his boots crunching brittle leaves and his own heartbeat drumming louder than it should've.

He considered turning back.

Then the disk in his coat pulsed again—slow, steady, like a heartbeat trying to match his.

"Brilliant," he muttered. "Haunted tech with a sense of direction."

But sarcasm didn't mask the truth. Something had drawn him here. And though he didn't understand it, he'd learned to trust his instincts since the Fracture. They'd kept him alive this long.

And now, something told him this forest held answers.

He kept walking, muscles tense, senses sharp.

The trees grew stranger the deeper he went—some twisted unnaturally, their trunks split and fused like veins of bone. The air grew colder too. Not freezing, but still and dry, like walking into a sealed crypt.

Then, just as he began to question the path, the forest opened.

A clearing.

In the center stood a ruin—part stone, part metal, ancient and unfamiliar. Like someone had tried to build a cathedral using blueprints from a dream. Vines climbed its sides, and alien moss glowed faintly between the cracks.

The disk in his coat pulsed harder.

He stepped forward.

As his foot crossed the threshold into the clearing, something moved.

Not a shadow. Not a creature.

A ripple.

The air warped like heat off pavement, and then—snap—it cleared.

Nuel stood still.

A figure was there now.

Cloaked, face hidden, standing at the foot of the ruin. They didn't move, didn't speak.

Just watched.

Nuel reached for the crowbar on his back. He didn't draw it—yet.

"Hello?" he called, voice cautious.

The figure tilted its head slightly. Then raised a hand.

Not in warning. In greeting.

"I don't mean any harm," Nuel said. "Just following a... strange signal."

The figure pointed at the disk in Nuel's coat pocket.

"You know what this is?"

The figure nodded once.

Then finally, it spoke.

"You've heard the voice, haven't you?"

Nuel frowned. "What voice?"

But he already knew.

"Nuel…"

The dreams. The visions. The pull toward this place.

The figure stepped forward, lowering its hood.

A woman, not much older than Nuel, with pale skin and short-cropped hair the color of midnight. Her eyes shimmered faintly, like starlight on water.

"I'm Nyra," she said. "And if the disk called to you, it means you're one of us."

"One of what?"

She studied him for a moment, as if weighing how much to say.

"Someone fate didn't forget."

Nyra led him into the ruins.

Inside, the walls hummed faintly with power, strange markings etched into the stone—runes that shifted subtly when he looked too long. In the center of the room stood a pedestal. Empty.

Until Nuel pulled out the disk.

It floated from his hand on its own, hovering above the pedestal, and settled into place with a soft click.

Light burst from the floor in quiet rings, scanning both of them.

Then a voice filled the chamber.

Female. Soft. Ancient.

"Subject designation: Nuel. Pattern linked. Inheritance potential: latent."

Nuel stepped back. "What the hell does that mean?"

Nyra didn't answer right away.

Instead, she walked to a nearby wall, pressed her hand to a rune, and opened a hidden compartment. Inside was a small case. She opened it carefully, revealing a thin, silver bracelet engraved with the same runes.

"Your body's changing," she said. "I can feel it. Your energy's... waking up. The disk didn't just call you here. It's unlocking you."

Nuel stared at the bracelet. "Unlocking me for what?"

Nyra held it out to him.

"For survival."

He hesitated, then took it.

The moment the bracelet touched his skin, it latched around his wrist and tightened—not painfully, but firm. The runes glowed briefly. A warmth spread up his arm.

Then pain.

Not sharp, but deep—like something inside him shifting, stretching.

His knees buckled.

Nyra caught him as he stumbled.

"Breathe. Let it happen."

Visions slammed through his mind.

Flashes of burning skies. Creatures that walked between moments. And a girl—his sister?—standing in a corridor of light, crying out his name.

Then everything went black.

When he woke, the sun had nearly set.

He lay near a campfire just outside the ruin. Nyra sat beside it, tossing sticks into the flames.

"You're awake."

Nuel sat up slowly, blinking away the dizziness. "What the hell was that?"

"An echo," she said. "From the Rift."

He looked down at the bracelet. It no longer glowed, but it felt like it was part of him now—bonded.

"What did it do to me?"

"Not much yet," she said. "But it started a process. You're connected to something older than the Fracture. The same thing that changed our world might've touched you long before it began."

"Why me?"

"That," she said, "you'll have to figure out yourself."

Nuel stared into the fire.

His life had been simple before. Aimless, but simple.

Now?

Now, he was carrying alien tech in his pocket, had a stranger telling him he was "linked to fate," and visions of a sister he'd thought long dead.

He didn't know what lay ahead.

But he knew one thing.

He couldn't run from it anymore.