"Regret whispers louder than fear, because it already knows the way into your chest."
The air inside the Temple of Hollow Stone was colder than the world outside.
Not naturally cold—this was the kind of cold that carried memory.
It pressed into Aarav's lungs, thinning the air, sharpening every sound.
The entrance corridor stretched ahead like the throat of some ancient beast, ribbed with carved supports that glowed faintly as he passed. The glow wasn't steady. It pulsed—slow, rhythmic, in time with the hum in his chest.
Aarav swallowed hard.
"It's reacting to you," Meera whispered beside him. "Just like the pillars."
Aarav nodded, unable to form words.
Amar, still carrying the hollow man, scanned the shadows. "This place isn't abandoned."
Arin's voice echoed quietly through the stone. "Temples like this don't die. They wait."
Aarav didn't want to ask what they were waiting _for_.
The corridor opened into a broad chamber—a circular space beneath a dome of cracked stone. Shards of pale light flowed down from fractures overhead, catching on floating dust. Carvings lined the walls: spirals, geometric webs, symbols that seemed to shift when you stared too long.
Meera stepped forward, eyes wide. "These patterns… they're harmonic. Not decorative."
"Everything in this place was built to manage resonance," Arin said. "To contain it. To regulate Anchors."
Aarav's pulse thudded once, hard.
"Regulate?" he asked.
Arin met his eyes. "Anchors lost to resonance create collapse zones. Like the outpost. Like the fractures. The Forerunners built temples like this to prevent those collapses. To turn Anchors into stabilizers instead of weapons."
Aarav stared at the walls.
So this place…
was built for people like him.
Amar stepped farther into the chamber. "Explain the 'trial' part of this. You mentioned that earlier."
Arin hesitated. "Temples learned Anchors through resonance. The same way an ocean recognizes a tide. But learning meant testing. Proving. Aligning."
Meera crossed her arms. "Can you say that in a way that doesn't sound like you're trying not to scare him?"
Arin sighed. "The temple will test Aarav's emotional stability. His control. His identity. It will bring echo against echo."
Aarav stiffened. "Echoes… like memories?"
"Not memories," Arin said. "Reflections. Pieces of what you carry. And pieces of what chases you."
Aarav's chest tightened.
"So it's going to show me him."
Arin nodded. "Fragments. Shadows. Not the King himself."
Aarav wasn't comforted.
Meera put a hand on his shoulder. "Whatever happens, we stay together."
Arin shook his head. "Only Aarav will see the trial. You'll see nothing but stillness. The temple isolates Anchors so they face themselves."
Amar scowled. "Not happening. If he falls, we catch him."
"The trial isn't physical," Arin said. "It's resonant."
Aarav exhaled shakily. "Meaning…?"
Arin pointed to the center of the chamber.
"Meaning you step onto the stone. And the temple steps into you."
A circle of stone lay embedded in the floor—smooth, pale, with faint cracks that glowed like veins under skin. It wasn't inviting. It wasn't threatening.
It simply _was._
Meera squeezed Aarav's arm. "We believe in you. All of us."
Aarav tried to steady himself. Tried to breathe past the humming inside him. Tried to ignore how the stone circle seemed to grow brighter each time he looked at it.
"Alright," he said softly. "Let's get this over with."
Arin positioned himself behind Aarav.
Amar and Meera stood on either side, close enough to catch him if he collapsed.
Aarav stepped onto the stone.
At first, nothing happened.
No tremor.
No glow.
No change in the air.
Then—
The stone warmed beneath his feet.
The chamber's light dimmed.
The carvings shifted—subtle at first, then unmistakable.
The hum inside his chest surged, syncing with something beneath the floor.
Meera's voice sounded far away. "Aarav…?"
He looked at her—
but she was fading.
Not vanishing—
just blurring at the edges, like she was behind a sheet of water.
"Aarav, step back!" Amar shouted. But the sound came from the end of a long tunnel.
He tried to move his foot—
—but the stone held him.
Tightening.
Locking.
Claiming.
"Aarav, breathe!" Meera cried.
Aarav opened his mouth to answer—
—and the chamber vanished.
Everything went black.
Then white.
Then neither.
A vast emptiness unfolded around him, shifting like a storm made of thought.
Shapes floated at the edge of perception—
fractured memories,
echoes of voices he didn't recognize,
a crown split in two,
hands grasping sand,
a city collapsing into dust.
Then a figure formed in the distance.
Human.
Tall.
Blurred by shimmering distortion.
Aarav's breath caught.
The figure stepped forward, and the distortion thinned—
revealing eyes that held a depth of grief that could break the sky.
No face.
No lips.
Just void.
But eyes—
eyes that remembered him.
A whisper rippled through the emptiness.
_Aarav._
The resonance in his chest screamed.
He stumbled backward—
—and the figure advanced.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Inevitable.
_Aarav… Anchor…_
The voice fractured.
Echoed.
Split into three.
Then one again.
Aarav's pulse hammered. "No—no, you're not real. You're just a remnant."
The figure stopped.
Then tilted its head.
As if amused.
Or disappointed.
_You carry what I lost,_
the voice whispered.
_And what you carry… will break you._
Aarav felt cold flood through him. "I'm not you."
The void-eyes narrowed.
_Not yet._
Aarav's feet dug into the shifting nothing beneath him. "I won't become you."
The figure raised a hand—
not threatening,
but reaching.
_The world will ask it of you._
Aarav stepped back. "I choose who I become."
The figure paused.
Then whispered:
_Then show me._
The emptiness shattered—
and the world rushed back in a tidal wave of sound, light, heat—
Aarav gasped and collapsed onto the stone floor.
Meera caught him before he hit the ground.
"Aarav! Aarav, talk to me!"
Amar steadied him from the other side. "Breathe, damn it!"
Arin knelt, placing a hand on Aarav's forehead. "What did you see?"
Aarav's hands shook uncontrollably.
He looked up, voice barely a whisper.
"I saw him."
Arin swallowed. "A remnant?"
Aarav shook his head.
"No.
He saw me."
The chamber went silent.
And somewhere deep under the temple—
the stone hummed in response.
"He wasn't free yet, but the memory had lost its teeth."