The Hollow Below

They made camp in the upper galleries, where the light from the Origin Tree could still be seen, faint as a remembered dream. The chamber beyond the descent had begun to reshape itself overnight. The floor was no longer stone but something softer. It gave slightly underfoot, like moss or parchment left to curl. The walls breathed.

Finn sat near a cluster of broken stones that had been arranged into a crude bench. He held the seed the reader had carried from the tree, turning it over in his hands. It was small, black, and perfectly smooth. Warm.

The reader moved through the edges of the light, collecting fragments of fallen ink. Some of it had hardened into brittle flakes. Other bits pulsed faintly and tried to reform letters that no one knew.

They hadn't spoken much since the descent. There were no words that wouldn't echo too loudly in a place built on silence.

But in the stillness, life had not stopped.

A boy appeared near the corridor's edge, barefoot and holding a bundle of cloth. He was no older than ten, his face marked with a streak of ink like a birthmark. He looked at Finn, then at the reader, and held up his offering.

"Saltbread," he said. "We bake it where it's dry."

The reader smiled gently. "Thank you."

The boy left just as quickly as he came, disappearing into a crack that hadn't existed the night before.

Finn broke the bread and handed half to her.

"What's down there?" he asked.

She didn't answer at first. She looked at the seed in his hand.

"That depends what we plant."

He ate the bread. It was coarse and sharp, like it had been baked over stone and scrubbed with brine. But it was warm.

Later, they walked the perimeter of the new chamber. Strange glyphs had appeared overnight, etched into the floor in shapes too fluid to be drawn by hand. They shimmered only when not being looked at.

The reader traced one with her finger. "Memory root," she said. "These were the first stories, not told, just understood."

Finn knelt beside one. "Are they dangerous?"

"Only if forgotten."

As they explored, they found signs of habitation. A small clay cup tucked into a niche. A single boot beside a closed panel. Scrawled marks beside a threshold: three dots, a line, a curve. A language still forming.

And voices. Soft ones. Muted by layers of stone. They weren't alone down here.

Something else had survived in the hollow below.

They made a second camp that evening near a raised platform. It resembled an altar, but the reader insisted it was older than any place of worship. She called it a 'listening stone.'

When they slept, they took turns. Finn sat watch while the reader dreamed, her body wrapped in her coat, her fingers gently twitching as if turning invisible pages. The silence around them seemed to breathe in sync with her rest.

Finn examined the platform. Its edges were curved, like water-worn marble, though it shimmered faintly as if absorbing memory. He sat on its base and listened.

No voices. No movement.

Just a single sensation. Like being read by something that had no eyes.

He whispered aloud, "What do you remember of me?"

The stone warmed under him.

Then cooled.

The reader stirred and rose. She came to sit beside him, her voice low.

"These halls remember everything. But they don't offer it freely. You have to live beside it."

He looked at her. "Then what do we do now?"

She smiled faintly. "We wait until the hollow decides to speak back."

In the morning, their campsite had changed.

The listening stone had moved three paces north.

And beside it stood a girl made entirely of paper.

She blinked.

Then she spoke a name neither of them had ever heard before.

It belonged to Finn.

The girl did not move again. Her skin crackled like dried reeds when she turned her head. She was hollow, but not fragile. Her form shifted slightly with every breath, if she even breathed at all.

Finn approached slowly, the name she spoke still humming in the air behind his ears.

"What did you say?"

The girl looked at him with eyes drawn in faint graphite. "Your before-name. The one written on the inside."

"I don't have another name," he said.

She tilted her head. "You do. It's folded."

The reader stepped forward. "Paperfolk speak in layers. She's saying your name is hidden. Not lost."

Finn crouched to meet the girl's eyes. "Why now? Why are you here?"

"To return the fold," she said.

She reached toward him and placed something in his palm, a small square of parchment, sealed with no ink, no symbol. Just heat. When he touched it, he felt a pulse.

"What is it?"

"A name not yet spoken," she said. "Yours, if you choose to open it."

Finn looked to the reader. "Is it safe?"

"Nothing is safe down here. Only true."

He held the parchment tighter. "Then I'll wait. Until I'm ready."

The paper girl nodded once and turned. Her body folded inward as she walked, page by page, until she was gone.

Silence returned. But not emptiness.

Something had begun to remember Finn more clearly than he remembered himself.

He tucked the sealed square into his coat pocket. For the rest of the morning, he walked with a quiet awareness, glancing now and then at where the girl had vanished, listening for the rustle of parchment.

The reader gathered firewood, not branches, but long curled strips of fibrous bark that grew along the walls like veins. When burned, they released a sweet, slightly metallic scent that reminded Finn of childhood, though he couldn't place the memory.

As they warmed by the fire, a quiet chime echoed through the passage behind them.

"Was that her?" he asked.

"No," the reader said. "That was the bell root. It grows near decisions."

"Is that a warning?"

"An invitation."

He didn't respond immediately. He watched the flames flicker and tried to imagine what his name might be, the one folded within the square. Would it change him? Or would it explain something he'd always known?

The fire crackled. In the quiet, they heard another sound, laughter. High and short. Then silence.

The reader stood and turned toward the sound.

Finn followed.

They stepped into a narrow passage lined with murals. Some were old, faded images of people with no faces. Others had been freshly scratched into the walls. One showed a man with a cloak made of feathers. Another, a door with no handle. And another, a mirror that reflected a flame.

At the end of the corridor, they found a small alcove where a table had been set. A bowl of dried fruit. A pair of polished stones. A note:

For the ones who woke the tree.

Below it, someone had drawn a spiral.

Finn ran his finger along it.

The spiral moved under his touch.

And a voice whispered, "We are still unfolding."