The city's dusk swallowed the horizon, bleeding shadows into every crack and crevice. Nerin staggered through the skeletal streets, the black sun on his palm pulsing like a living wound. Each pulse echoed a truth he could no longer deny: the hunger hadn't just fed—it had rewritten him.
His reflection flickered on the shattered glass of a broken window. But it wasn't one face staring back. It was many.
A dozen versions of himself—each twisted by pain, fear, and rage—swam in and out of focus. One smiled too wide, a grin full of jagged teeth; another was a hollow shell, eyes black pits sucking in the last vestiges of hope.
The hunger inside whispered in fragmented voices, a chorus of fractured selves vying for control.
Feed me.
Kill them all.
Remember nothing.
Nerin's hands trembled, nails digging into flesh as the voices threatened to drown his mind. The black sun flared fiercely, a blaze of cold fire scarring his skin.
"You're breaking," a voice hissed from the darkness. "Or are you finally becoming what the Mark demands?"
He swallowed the pain and grit of shattered memories, trying to grasp the remnants of who he once was. But the hunger was relentless. Every heartbeat a war, every breath a struggle between man and monster.
Ahead, a shadow moved—sharp, silent. The child from before, now grown into something far more terrible, her eyes glowing chains that bound his fractured soul.
"Your trial isn't over, Hollowed," she whispered, voice like shattered glass. "The real battle begins now."
Nerin clenched his fists. The line between salvation and damnation blurred until it vanished altogether.
He was no longer just a survivor. He was the storm that shattered worlds.
And he would either destroy everything—or be destroyed himself.
The choking dusk wrapped the Hollowed City in a shroud thicker than death itself. Nerin's breath came in ragged shards, each one cutting through the poisoned air like glass. The black sun burned cold on his palm, a frozen wound that pulsed in time with the unsteady rhythm of his heart.
Ahead, the gaunt figure from the alley emerged from the shadows—no longer a child, but a living nightmare crowned in whirling chains that hummed with cruel intent. Her eyes, empty voids, spilled darkness like ink, dripping onto the cracked stones beneath her feet.
"You cannot run from what you are," she said, voice fracturing like splintered bone. "The Hollow Mark is not just a curse—it's a war, and you are its battleground."
Nerin's fractured mind recoiled. The voices in his head clamored louder, a cacophony of despair and fury vying for dominance. The hunger was more than a beast; it was a parasite, gnawing away at the remnants of his soul, twisting his memories into weapons against himself.
But the real enemy wasn't just the darkness within—it was the puppeteer pulling the strings behind the Hollowed veil.
A chilling realization slithered through his thoughts: the Hollow Mark was not simply a brand of suffering. It was a key, forged in ancient agony, designed to unlock a gate far older and far more malevolent than any man dared imagine.
The city groaned as shadows lengthened, tendrils of blood-red moss pulsating with sinister life. The second moon cracked wider, bleeding ink into the sky, as if tearing the very fabric of reality.
Nerin's voice cracked, "Who are you? What do you want?"
The gaunt figure's smile spread, sharp teeth gleaming like shattered glass. "I am the herald of the Hollow's true master. The one who watches from beyond the veil, waiting for the final piece—the soul that will shatter the boundary between worlds."
His hand clenched tighter around the bone knife—the weapon born from the city's decay, his lifeline and his curse.
The battle for his mind had only begun.
And the Hollow's war was far from over.
The air twisted around Nerin like a suffocating shroud, thick with rot and whispered lies. The gaunt figure stepped forward, chains spinning a deadly halo that rattled like the bones of the damned. Her black eyes bore into him, devouring every shred of hope, every flicker of resistance.
"You think yourself a survivor," she crooned, voice serrated and cold. "But you are the Hollow's pawn, a piece on a board you cannot see."
Nerin's grip tightened on the bone knife, knuckles white as the shadows danced grotesquely along the crumbling walls. The hunger inside him throbbed with a fury that was both a curse and a weapon—a raw, primal force waiting to be unleashed.
"You speak in riddles," Nerin spat, stepping closer. "Tell me who commands you. Who pulls the strings behind this nightmare?"
The herald's smile twisted into something more sinister, more hungry. "The Hollow Master watches beyond the veil, a god forged in suffering and chaos. The Mark is the lock, and you—the key."
Her chains writhed, slicing the air, each link humming with a dark energy that clawed at Nerin's flesh and soul.
With a roar, Nerin lunged, bone knife slicing through the night like a shard of frozen lightning. The herald dodged with unnatural grace, laughter spilling from her lips like poison.
"You cannot kill what is already death," she whispered, eyes glowing brighter, chains spinning faster. "But you can try."
The city around them groaned, the blood-red moss pulsing faster, the broken moon bleeding shadows that seeped into the very stones beneath their feet.
Nerin's world narrowed to the fight—the jagged knife, the spinning chains, the hunger clawing inside him, urging him toward oblivion.
Every strike carved a story of desperation, every breath burned with the price of power.
The Hollow's war had begun.
And only the strongest would survive.