The silhouette of the Hollow Pulse held its hollow posture in the room...a carving of night, a vacuum of shape, an outline that should not exist.
It did not breathe.
It did not sway.
It did not flicker like an unstable illusion.
It simply was.
Aurelianth felt its attention like fingers pressing into his skull from the inside.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
Like the thing wasn't touching his body but touching the very idea of him.
Lioren clung to his arm, trembling so violently he could feel it through his skin.
"Aurelianth," she whispered, "don't move."
He didn't intend to.
The Hollow Pulse tilted its head a fraction a micro-motion, almost lazy, almost curious.
But the air around them responded violently.
His lantern cracked.
Shadows burst into spirals.
The walls bent inward as though reality was leaning closer to listen.
Aurelianth's runes reacted instantly...flaring, shifting, scrambling like frantic animal tracks across his skin.
His veins expanded with too-bright light.
Silver-white arcs shot through his arms and chest.
The Pulse's head twitched.
Aurelianth felt it.
Felt it notice the flare of power.
Felt it recognize the instability.
Felt it tighten its focus.
And then.....
The silhouette raised an arm.
Slowly.
Smoothly.
With a deliberate intention that froze Aurelianth's blood.
"What's it doing?" Lioren breathed, voice trembling.
Before he could answer, reality bent.
Literally.
Lines of the room stretched.
Shadows elongated.
The corners of the chamber curled like parchment catching fire.
And a sound swallowed everything.
click—THUMP
click—THUMP
click—THUMP
This time, the clicking wasn't rhythm.
It was command.
His body shook in response.
Veins pulsed too fast.
Ribs ached.
Heart spasmed.
"No....no...." Aurelianth gasped, gripping the bed frame to stay upright. "It's trying to sync...
again...."
The Hollow Pulse extended its hand fully now palm outward, fingers long and elegantly hollow,like the absence of a limb trying to touch the world.
The shadows behind Aurelianth peeled off the walls.
They stretched toward the silhouette.
Toward him.
Lioren screamed.
"Don't let it touch you!"
Aurelianth stumbled backward....
But the shadows followed.
Bending.
Snapping.
Snaking toward him with liquified hunger.
The Hollow Pulse whispered:
"Come."
Aurelianth's breath shattered.
The shadows lunged.
He threw up his hands instinctively....
White-silver light burst from his palms.
The room exploded with radiance.
Lioren shielded her eyes.
The walls trembled.
The shadows recoiled.
The silhouette flinched...a small, precise flinch...but enough to shake the chamber.
Aurelianth gasped at his own hands.
"What....what did I just....?"
But the Hollow Pulse was already recovering.
It didn't retreat.
It didn't vanish.
It didn't rethink its intent.
It simply raised its other arm.
Then.....
Reality split.
A tear in the air opened behind the silhouette a slit of darkness that bled starlight in reverse.
A hole in the world that showed nothing.....not void, not sky, not space.....pure Unfinished.
Lioren choked on her breath.
"That..... that's a breach.....!"
Aurelianth felt every bone in his body scream.
The breach widened.
Cold wind whipped through the chamber.
Lanterns shattered.
Runes flickered.
Aurelianth's heart stumbled in its own rhythm.
The Hollow Pulse stepped back into the breach...anchoring itself on the threshold
and dragging a second silhouette forward.
This one was smaller.
More unstable.
More liquid.
A copy of Aurelianth's outline.
His own shape....but hollow.
Lioren whispered, horrified:
"It's making a vessel…"
Aurelianth's blood ran cold.
"A vessel?" he breathed.
"For what?" Lioren whispered.
The Pulse answered:
"For you."
Aurelianth staggered back until his shoulders hit the stone wall.
"No.....no....no...."
The Hollow Pulse stepped into the room fully now.....the breach behind it warping the shape of existence.
The hollow copy of him lurched closer.
Slack.
Empty.
Waiting.
"Enter."
Aurelianth's heart seized.
Lioren threw herself between him and the hollow shape.
"NO! He doesn't belong to you!"
The silhouette didn't even acknowledge her.
It simply glided forward.
Lioren raised her lantern.
The moonlight inside it swirled violently....reacting to the Pulse's presence...
and then burst outward in a blinding arc.
The hollow Aurelianth replica cracked down the center.
It screamed a sound like metal warping inside water and dissolved into black mist.
The Pulse stilled.
The girl in front of Aurelianth swayed, breathing hard, skin pale.
Aurelianth caught her before she fell.
Her heartbeat raced against his palm.
"Lioren....why would you...."
"Because....because the world chose you.....
but I choose you too."
His breath hitched.
The Hollow Pulse's silhouette flickered.
Aurelianth felt the shift not in reality, but in intention.
The Pulse was angered.
Confused.
Something new.
Possessiveness.
Its shape stretched, flickered, tightened.
The clicking heartbeat pounded:
clickTHUMPclickTHUMPclickTHUMP
And the silhouette spoke in a voice like breaking stone:
"Do not touch what belongs to me."
Aurelianth's runes erupted in white flame.
"HE DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU!" Lioren screamed.
The Pulse lunged.
A tendril of shadow whipped across the chamber aiming straight for her throat.
Aurelianth moved without thinking.....
His hand raised.
His veins burned.
Light poured from his fingers...not a beam,not a blast,but a pulse of raw creation energy.
It struck the shadow-tendril.
Shattered it.
The silhouette jerked violently as if struck.
Aurelianth gasped.
His knees buckled.
He had used power he did not understand.
The Pulse froze.
The breach trembled violently.
Ripples of distortion ran across the walls and floor.
Then.....
In a slow, deliberate motion,the Hollow Pulse stepped back into the breach.
Its final whisper filled the room with ice:
"You will answer me next time."
And then....
It vanished.
The breach sealed with a crack like a giant bone snapping.
The chamber collapsed into silence.
Aurelianth sank to the floor, shaking.
Lioren scrambled to his side, gripping his shoulders.
"Aurelianth....Aurelianth.....are you okay? Please.....look at me...."
He looked at her.
His voice broke.
"It tried to take me."
"I know."
"It tried to....replace me.....use me....."
"I know."
"It's not going to stop, is it?"
Lioren pressed her forehead to his.
"No," she whispered.
"But neither will you."
He swallowed hard.
"What now?"
She squeezed his hands.
"Now… we prepare. Because the Pulse isn't just hunting you."
Aurelianth blinked.
"What do you mean?"
Lioren's voice was barely breath.
"It's hunting everything around you.
Your choices.
Your future.
Your existence."
She touched his face.
"And the world isn't the only one watching."
Aurelianth looked down at his glowing veins.
For the first time,he felt something inside him awaken....something not born of fear or hunger.
Something else.
He wasn't sure what to call it.
But the Pulse felt it too.
Because from far beneath the sea,through stone and water and world....
A new whisper answered him:
click.