The blood-red moss hissed underfoot, writhing like a living wound as Nerin stood amidst the ruins—a fragile sentinel at the edge of oblivion. The cracked moons hung low, dripping shadows like spilled ink over a city bleeding ancient sorrows. His palm throbbed, the Hollow Mark burning beneath skin as if it sought to tear itself free.
Memories clawed their way to the surface, jagged fragments from a time before his torment—before the curse branded him in fire and shadow.
The Hollow Mark was no accident. It was a sentence, an inheritance from a forgotten age when gods warred and devoured the souls of the fallen. Born from betrayal, the Mark was a lock forged in blood, sealing away a power so terrible it threatened to unravel existence itself.
Nerin's voice was barely a rasp, a vow swallowed by the wind. "I will not be your prisoner."
The air thickened, whispering the ancient tale—how the Mark was born from a fallen god's dying scream, how its curse wove itself into the flesh of the chosen, binding them to an endless cycle of suffering and rebirth.
But the true horror was the hunger—the insatiable void within the Mark that fed on memories, pain, and hope until nothing remained but hollow shells.
His vision blurred, memories bleeding into dreams and nightmare. Faces lost to time, laughter turned to ash, hands reaching for salvation only to grasp despair.
Yet, beneath the despair, a stubborn ember remained. The Mark pulsed not just with power—but with potential.
"Break the cycle," a voice echoed from the shadows—Morthen's whisper, a ghostly command. "But first, embrace the hunger. Only then can you control it."
Nerin clenched his fist, the black sun split in two burning fiercely. The war inside him was just beginning—between the monster the Hollow wanted him to be, and the man still fighting to reclaim his soul.
The city watched, silent and waiting, as the first true battle for the Hollow Mark's fate ignited in the depths of his heart.
The hunger was a beast clawing at Nerin's insides, a cold fire gnawing away at his sanity. It wasn't merely a craving — it was a void screaming to be filled, a black sun devouring every shred of light within him. Every heartbeat pulsed with its corrosive hunger, a poison promising power at the price of his soul.
Nerin's reflection in a shattered mirror flickered—his eyes darkening, the Hollow Mark beneath his skin glowing with a dreadful blue flame. It whispered to him, promising dominion, strength, and freedom from pain if only he surrendered.
But surrender meant annihilation.
A voice cracked the silence—Morthen's echo, seeping from the shadows like a serpent's hiss.
"You must feed it," the ghostly figure intoned, "not to let it consume you, but to bind it, to turn hunger into weapon. Memories, pain, fear—devour them, shape them. Let the Hollow forge you anew."
Nerin swallowed bile, every nerve aflame. The hunger clawed deeper, urging him toward madness, toward sacrifice. He closed his eyes, feeling the line between man and monster blur, his past bleeding into present agony.
Visions slammed into him—faces twisted in torment, whispers of ancient gods laughing as mortals were torn apart, the Hollow Mark burning through centuries like a wildfire that could never be quenched.
He clenched his fists, nails biting flesh. "I will not be devoured."
But to survive, he needed to embrace the hunger. To starve it, only to feed it on his terms.
The city's walls seemed to pulse with his torment, the blood moss flickering with sinister life. Somewhere deep below, chains rattled—waiting for the one who could break them.
Nerin opened his eyes. The black sun glowed fiercely, a promise and a threat.
The war inside had just begun.
The city's veins pulsed with rot and whispered lies, a living tomb beneath the cracked moons. Nerin stood at the edge of the abyss—the hunger thrumming like a heartbeat beneath his skin, a beast clawing for release. This was no mere hunger for flesh or blood. It demanded something far darker: memories, pain, and the marrow of his very soul.
His breath hitched as the shadows twisted around him, coiling like serpents eager for sacrifice. The black sun on his palm flared, burning cold fire deep into his bones. The hunger spoke in riddles, promises laced with threats: Feed me, and I shall grant you power beyond reckoning. Starve me, and you will rot in silence.
Nerin's fingers curled into fists, trembling not with fear, but with the bitter resolve of a man drowning in a sea of despair yet refusing to sink. The first feast had to be his own. To feed the hollow, he would have to harvest from himself — from the deepest well of pain and memory.
The world around him warped as the hunger reached inside his mind, dragging forth shards of his past: the orphanage burning, the screams he could never forget, the faces of those he failed to save. Each memory was a blade slicing into his heart, each pang a morsel offered to the beast within.
He staggered, chest heaving, as the hunger swallowed the agony, its dark fire licking at the edges of his sanity. The pain began to dull, replaced by a sharp clarity—a cruel gift from the Hollow.
A voice echoed through the void—Morthen's ghost, chained yet unbroken.
"Good. Now you understand. Power is born in sacrifice, and the Hollow demands a price for every breath of freedom."
Nerin's eyes burned with cold fire. The hunger no longer whispered—it roared, a savage symphony rising from the depths of his soul.
The city groaned, ancient bones shifting beneath the blood-red moss. Somewhere, chains rattled louder, waiting for the next soul brave or foolish enough to feast upon the Hollow.
He was no longer just a man branded by a curse. He was a vessel—a blade forged in darkness, hungry for the day it would cleave through the veil of fate.
The silence that followed the feast was a wound bleeding into the void. Nerin stood alone amidst the carcass of his past, the black sun on his palm pulsating with a sickly rhythm — a heartbeat not his own. Power had come, sharp and cold, but so too had the price.
His memories—the once-vivid tapestry of pain and loss—had begun to unravel. Faces faded like mist, laughter turned to echoes, emotions calcified into hollow, meaningless shapes. The hunger had fed, yes, but it had devoured more than just agony; it had stolen pieces of his very self.
His reflection fractured in a pool of stagnant water, eyes sunken deeper, a hollow shell staring back at him. The city around him seemed to twist in mockery, its rotten bones creaking like the hinges of a coffin.
Morthen's voice slithered out from the shadows, cold and relentless.
"You wanted power. You have it. But remember—every gift from the Hollow comes chained to a curse. To wield the Mark is to sacrifice yourself piece by piece."
Nerin's throat tightened. The hunger inside was no longer a beast begging to be fed—it was a parasite nesting in his veins, rewriting his flesh, his mind. He could feel it pulling, twisting, reshaping him into something... else. Something darker.
A distant scream split the dusk—ragged and raw—a reminder that the Hollow's game was far from over.
He was a weapon forged in despair, a shadow walking the razor's edge between salvation and annihilation.
The question now was not if he could survive, but what he would become once all the pieces were gone.