The last light died the way a candle dies in a locked room: slowly, then all at once.
Elias crouched behind the collapsed stone arch, breath held so tight his ribs ached. The Hollow did not have a proper sunset. The sky simply forgot how to be bright. Grey bled into black, and the black began to listen.
He had been here eleven hours.
Eleven hours since the bus stop in Bandung vanished and the world folded inward like wet paper. Eleven hours since the first system window burned itself into the air in front of his eyes.
```
[THRESHOLD CROSSED]
World: The Hollow
Status: Unbound
Trial: Survive the First Night
Failure Condition: Death or Madness
Time Remaining: 07:12:44
```
The numbers had been counting down ever since.
Elias pressed his back against the cold stone. His clothes were still the same cheap jacket and jeans he had worn to campus. No weapon. No food. Only the faint blue interface that hovered at the edge of his vision like a migraine that had learned how to speak.
