The smoke never really left.
Even hours after the attack, Shelter Three still reeked of ash and fear.
The walls groaned under the weight of exhaustion, generators hummed like tired lungs, and people whispered prayers to lights that flickered too often.
Kael sat apart from the others, hands trembling, staring at his own shadow.
It didn't move when he did.
It waited.
Ashveil was quiet — too quiet.
> "You shouldn't have spoken my name so easily," it murmured finally, voice softer than breath.
"Names have weight. They remember things we'd rather forget."
Kael closed his eyes. "That thing that attacked us—what was it?"
> "A Hollow," Ashveil whispered. "A Whispered who tried to kill the voice inside. You saw the result."
---
Mira approached, wiping blood and soot off her arms.
"They're calling it the 'black man,'" she said. "Some of the refugees think it's an omen."
"It was a man," Kael said. "Or something pretending to be one."
"Does it matter?"
He looked up. "It said something before it died. That the moon never fell."
Mira paused. "You think it meant something?"
"I think," Kael said quietly, "we're still paying for what happened to it."
---
Later, as the survivors cleaned up, Kael noticed something strange at the far end of the camp.
Where the Hollow's shadow had touched the ground, the dirt had hardened into glass.
Inside the glass was a faint imprint — the outline of a face, eyes wide open, screaming silently.
He crouched, touching the surface.
It was warm.
> "He's still here," Ashveil murmured. "Hollows don't die. They collapse inward, until there's nothing left but the echo of what they hated most."
"What did he hate?"
> "Himself."
---
That night, Kael couldn't sleep.
The air was thick, heavy with unspoken things.
Outside, he could hear the faint crackle of power lines, the distant muttering of survivors dreaming in fear.
And underneath it all, he heard a second sound — slow, rhythmic, deliberate.
Footsteps.
He grabbed his makeshift weapon and stepped outside.
The light from the nearest lamp shivered.
Something stood beyond the fence.
Not a Dormant — too still. Too human.
The figure was tall, wrapped in what looked like strips of shadow. Its face was blank, smooth like glass.
It tilted its head when it saw him.
Then, it spoke — not aloud, but inside his skull.
> "You took my name."
Kael froze.
Ashveil stirred, uneasy.
> "That's impossible. He's gone."
> "Gone," the voice said, "but not ended."
The Hollow Man stepped closer. The lamps flickered, dimmed, and died.
Only Kael's mark still glowed, faintly blue.
> "You wear it," the Hollow said. "The weight. The lie."
"What do you want?"
> "To remember."
It reached for him — and for a moment, Kael didn't see the Hollow at all.
He saw himself.
Kneeling in the street.
Covered in blood that wasn't his.
Holding something small and broken beneath a dead lamp.
A memory he didn't know he had.
He gasped. "That's not real."
> "Everything you forget becomes real somewhere," the Hollow whispered. "That's what we are."
Then it was gone — leaving behind only the faint shimmer of glass in the dirt, and Kael's reflection looking back at him from it.
---
When he returned inside, Mira was waiting.
"You look like you saw a ghost," she said.
"I think I did."
"Was it the same one?"
Kael nodded slowly. "He said he wanted to remember."
Mira frowned. "Then he's not done with you."
> "Neither am I," Ashveil added quietly.
Kael looked down at his hands — faintly glowing, still trembling — and realized that both of them were right.
---