The city was no longer just a place. It had become a parasite gnawing at Nerin's soul, a whispering void that clawed at the edges of his sanity. Every step he took echoed like a dirge, every breath thick with rot and despair.
The blood-red moss pulsed beneath the cracked stones, its rhythm a sick mimicry of a heartbeat—alive, but corrupted beyond recognition. The sky above twisted; the twin moons hung like bleeding wounds, casting sickly light over a city made of bones and nightmares.
Nerin's fingers itched, tracing the burning hollow mark branded deep into his flesh. The cold blue flame beneath his skin flickered with a will of its own, twisting memories and pain into sharp, unbearable edges. Each pulse threatened to tear him apart or make him whole—he wasn't sure which anymore.
The voices returned—whispers like serrated blades sliding under his skin. They spoke in a language older than time, a tongue of curses and blood debts.
His steps slowed as the shadows coalesced, forming figures familiar yet grotesquely warped. Faces he'd seen in fleeting dreams, or perhaps in past lives, twisted into masks of torment. They reached out with hollow hands, begging, threatening, mocking.
Nerin's mind fractured, splintering beneath the weight of memories not his own—faces of the forgotten, screams of the lost, promises of salvation turned to ash.
A voice sliced through the chaos—cold, detached, cruel.
"To survive, you must become the echo."
The words etched themselves into his mind as the city breathed deeper, exhaling a fog of despair.
He stumbled forward, the knife now an extension of his trembling will. Shadows twisted around him, claws scraping reality thin.
Then, a revelation—his trait, Hollow Memory, was no accident. It was the key, the curse, the weapon.
Memories weren't just ghosts—they were echoes, weapons forged in pain.
Nerin closed his eyes, letting the hollow mark burn hotter, letting the city's voices flood him. Faces flickered, moments replayed in cruel loops. He reached out with his mind, grasping shards of forgotten knowledge, sharpening instincts born in shadow.
When he opened his eyes, the hollowed around him recoiled—their own memories too fragile to face his newfound resolve.
The city's hunger raged, but Nerin's echo was louder now.
He was no longer just prey.
He was becoming the nightmare.
The city had no mercy. Its breath was a foul wind, thick with rot and despair, curling around Nerin's throat like a noose woven from broken dreams. The blood-red moss pulsed sickly along the walls, spreading its corruptive hunger into every crack and crevice.
Nerin stumbled through twisting alleys that bent like broken ribs, shadows crawling beneath his skin. The Mark burned cold fire beneath his flesh—no longer just a brand, but a living thing that clawed at his sanity, whispering secrets soaked in blood and darkness.
The sky cracked open above—a second moon bleeding shadows that spilled like ink across the bruised heavens. The sickly glow cast grotesque shapes onto the decaying cityscape: buildings like shattered bones, windows empty eyes watching his every move.
Voices clawed at him—whispers of the Hollowed, cursed souls who'd lost themselves to the city's ravenous hunger. They drifted like ghosts, voices weaving curses and riddles into the thick, poisoned air.
"Remember the cost," they hissed. "The price of power is flesh and blood."
Nerin's fingers tightened around the bone knife, the cold edge biting into his palm. He was no longer just running. He was hunting now, the hunter and the hunted tangled in a grim dance of survival.
A figure emerged from the shadows, tall and gaunt, crowned by chains that rattled like death's lullaby. Her eyeless sockets bled darkness, her smile too wide, a slash of shattered glass.
"You embrace the echo," she whispered, voice scraping like sandpaper on bone. "But the Hollow Mark is a leash... and the leash tightens with every scream."
Nerin's breath caught. The city's pulse quickened—a drumbeat of ancient malice and unspeakable hunger.
With a sudden lurch, the ground beneath him cracked open, tendrils of black flame licking upward, threatening to consume.
Nerin leapt back, heart hammering, mind teetering on the edge of collapse.
The Hollowed city was no place for mercy.
And Nerin was no longer the boy who crouched on the ruined shrine steps.
He was a vessel of cursed memory, a shadow given teeth, a whisper given voice.
The trial had only just begun.
The city's rot wasn't just in stone and moss. It gnawed beneath the skin, beneath the bone, settling like venom in the marrow. Nerin's breaths came ragged, each inhale thick with the stench of decay—a scent that clung to his soul like a second skin.
His hands trembled, clutching the bone knife as the hollow whispers pressed in, voices dripping with ancient venom and fractured memories. The walls weren't just crumbling; they were digesting light itself, swallowing hope in a feast of shadows.
A low rumble thrummed beneath his feet—like the city's heart beating slow, but with terrible intent. The blood-red moss pulsed, spreading faster now, tendrils creeping like blackened veins over cracked stones and broken bones.
Nerin's gaze snapped to the alley's end where a figure waited—a hollowed warrior, muscles like rotted steel, eyes burning with the same cold blue fire as the Mark on Nerin's palm. The creature smiled—a mouth too wide, filled with teeth that gleamed like fractured obsidian.
"You carry the Echo," it hissed, voice like shattered glass. "But the Echo demands a price."
The creature lunged, claws scraping against the stone in a scream of hunger. Nerin barely dodged, pain exploding along his ribs as claws grazed flesh.
The Mark flared, pain slicing through his veins, memories flooding his mind—faces lost to time, screams trapped beneath the city's skin, the hollowed cries of those who failed the trial.
He stumbled back, knife flashing, cutting through shadow and bone. The warrior howled, dissolving into a cloud of black mist that seeped into the moss, fueling the city's unholy hunger.
Nerin's breath was a ragged rasp, chest burning with cold fire. The Echo inside him whispered—adapt, survive, consume. His hollow memory stirred, weaving shards of the past into a blade sharper than steel.
He had become both predator and prey, a shadow with teeth.
The city's pulse quickened, the Hollow Mark burning brighter—a beacon to those who lurked beneath the skin.
And Nerin knew, with a cold certainty:
This was only the beginning.