"Burden grows lighter the moment it's acknowledged, even if nothing else changes."
The descent into the valley felt too quiet.
Not peaceful—emptied.
Even the wind seemed to avoid the outpost ahead, slipping sideways through the tall grass instead of flowing down the main road as it once had. The grass bent as if pushed by hands that were no longer there. The air shimmered faintly above the rooftops, a subtle distortion Aarav could feel humming along his teeth like a vibration in an instrument string pulled too tight.
The boy clutched Meera's hand tighter. "It wasn't like this before," he whispered, voice nearly swallowed by the stillness.
Meera leaned closer, trying to soften her voice despite the tension bracketing her jaw. "We believe you."
Arin's knuckles whitened around his staff. "No sudden movements once we're inside. The disturbance is active."
The hum inside Aarav's chest pulsed again—subtle but relentless. It wasn't just movement; it was pressure, a tug, the gravitational pull of something unseen threading itself through the air. It felt as though the outpost were exhaling in slow, uneven breaths.
He tried to steady his breathing.
Tried to anchor himself in the sound of his boots on dirt.
Tried to focus on anything except the invisible tide crawling over his ribs.
He failed.
As they approached the gates, Amar stopped abruptly, raising a hand. His eyes shifted downward.
Footprints.
Lots of them.
More than Aarav had expected. More than the outpost should have held.
Aarav exhaled shakily. "People were running."
"Not all of them," Amar said.
Arin crouched, brushing the dirt with two fingers. Some prints were normal: scattered, rapid, bearing the chaotic rhythm of panic.
But others…
Dragged.
Staggered.
Moved in straight lines with unnatural precision—as if the feet belonged to bodies that no longer needed balance, only direction.
"The shard reached them," Arin murmured.
Aarav's stomach twisted. "Are they still alive?"
"That depends on your definition," Arin said, rising with an expression carved from old grief.
They entered the outpost.
And immediately understood why the boy had begged them not to come.
Half the buildings were intact.
Half sagged or leaned, their forms buckled like softened wax.
But all of them bore the same unnatural shimmer—clinging to their edges like a mirage frozen mid-waver, as if the structures were trying to remember their original shape and failing.
Meera whispered, "This isn't just damage. This is… rewritten."
Arin nodded grimly. "Resonance warping. The same effect the King used in the ancient collapse."
Aarav froze. "I saw that in the shard's memory."
"Exactly."
And that single word, spoken with such certainty, made the valley feel ten degrees colder.
The hum inside Aarav sharpened.
Alarm.
Recognition.
Warning.
He swallowed, but the air tasted metallic.
They moved deeper into the outpost. Everything around them felt caught between states of being. A wooden cart lay on its side, but its wheels had sunk halfway into the earth like clay pressed into wet ground. A lantern above a doorway elongated into a thin, drooping curve, stretching downward as though melted by invisible heat. The cobblestone road had places where stones simply… erased, gaps filled not with soil but with something like smooth, light less glass.
Shadows flickered even though nothing moved.
Aarav rubbed his arms. "This place feels wrong in ways I can't explain."
"You don't need to explain," Amar muttered. "We can see it."
Meera held the boy close. "Stay with me. Eyes ahead."
The hum inside Aarav pulsed harder the deeper they walked, syncing with something he did not want to understand. The buildings leaned as if drawn toward him. The air thickened. Even sound seemed swallowed; his heartbeat felt too loud, too exposed.
As they passed an alley, a sheet of parchment fluttered next to Aarav's boot. Its surface was blank—utterly blank—no ink, no texture, like a memory stripped clean.
Aarav whispered, "Everything here lost its memories."
Arin didn't respond. Which said enough.
A faint creaking sounded ahead—wood bending without wind.
Amar's hand snapped to his weapon as he scanned the nearest building. His voice tightened. "Movement. Inside."
Meera pulled the boy behind her. Aarav felt himself snap upright, every nerve on high alert.
"What do you see?" Arin asked quietly.
Amar pointed toward a house whose front wall had half-melted into the ground, as if gravity had been rewritten mid-command. "A figure. Still. Standing in the corner."
Arin nodded once. "Stay behind me."
He stepped toward the doorway, the warped threshold bending inward at his touch as though reluctant to let them pass.
"Aarav," Amar whispered, not looking back, "if anything moves toward you, you run. Understood?"
"I'm not leaving you—"
"You run," Amar repeated, tone brooking no argument.
Meera met Aarav's eyes. "We're all walking out of here. But we're not playing hero."
Aarav's throat tightened. He nodded.
Arin tapped his staff lightly against the doorway.
The air inside rippled.
A shape shifted.
A human shape.
A man.
Alive.
Relief sparked in Aarav—brief, fragile—until the man stepped into the fading light and every instinct in Aarav's body recoiled.
The man's eyes were wide.
Too wide.
Unblinking.
Unseeing.
His movements were stiff, mechanical, as though his limbs remembered the pattern of walking but none of the subtlety—no weight shift, no hesitation, no human softness.
Meera whispered, "He's… hollow."
Arin nodded. "A victim of imprint. The shard didn't kill him. It replaced what made him him."
The man took a step toward them. Slow. Soundless. Inexorable.
Aarav's breath caught. "Should we help him?"
Amar extended an arm to block him. "You go near that, and you'll end up like him."
Arin lifted his voice, gentle but measured. "Do you know your name?"
No response.
The man simply stood—facing Aarav.
Waiting.
Swaying slightly as though on strings held by invisible hands.
Aarav's resonance spiked—sharp, electric, painful.
The man's head snapped toward him, like a compass needle finding true north.
Amar stepped between them instantly. "Arin. Fix this."
Arin's voice remained steady. "He's not dangerous unless we trigger him."
The man blinked.
Once.
Then slowly, with a trembling hand, he pointed directly at Aarav.
Meera sucked in a breath. "Arin—what does that mean?"
Arin's voice fell low. "It means he still retains a fragment of thought. A memory strong enough to override imprint."
Aarav stepped forward before Amar could stop him.
"What memory?"
The hollow man's voice cracked like brittle glass trying to remember how to be sound:
"Anchor."
Aarav froze.
Meera whispered, "He remembers the shard… calling you."
Arin shook his head. "No. He remembers seeing the shard search for you."
Aarav's skin prickled. His heartbeat thrashed in his throat. The world narrowed to the trembling ruin of a man standing before him.
The hollow man convulsed, body straining as though wrestling itself. His mouth opened again, voice scraping raw from a throat that no longer served him properly:
"He… comes…
for…
you…"
Aarav felt the bottom drop out of his chest.
Meera covered her mouth.
The boy buried his face in her sleeve.
Amar stepped closer, ready to pull Aarav back.
Arin's expression hardened to something ancient—a knowledge long buried rising once more.
And then—
The hollow man collapsed.
Not fainting.
Not dying.
Just collapsing.
A puppet whose strings had been cut.
His body hit the ground with terrifying softness, all tension gone.
Aarav dropped to his knees beside him. "We were too late."
Arin knelt, placed two fingers against the man's temple, and closed his eyes.
"He's alive," Arin said quietly. "His body remains."
Amar frowned. "But…"
Arin looked up, eyes dark with truth no one wanted.
"His mind," he finished, "was taken."
Aarav felt the world tilt like the valley itself shifted beneath him.
The Voided King wasn't a legend.
Wasn't a myth.
Wasn't a warning.
He was already reaching through the fractures.
Already shaping shadows into hands.
And he knew exactly who he was looking for.
"The weight didn't vanish, but it finally felt like something he could hold."