"Not all battles end with victory; some end with understanding."
The hum from the corridor deepened until it wasn't a sound at all—more a pressure sliding through the stone, a vibration that crawled up Aarav's spine and settled behind his teeth. Dust drifted from the ceiling in thin ribbons. The carved walls pulsed once, then again, as if bracing.
Arin's jaw tightened. "Move. Now."
Amar didn't wait. He shifted the hollow man across his back and grabbed Aarav by the forearm long enough to make sure he could stand. "If you feel faint, tell me. If you fall, I'm carrying you."
"I won't fall," Aarav said, though his legs weren't convinced.
Meera pulled the boy close and pressed a palm to the chamber wall, tracing the carved lines. "This path…" She inhaled sharply. "Arin, look."
The carvings glowed in a repeating pattern—one line lighting, another dimming, creating a rhythm that flowed toward a narrow passage on the far side of the chamber.
Arin nodded. "The temple is guiding us."
Aarav steadied himself. "Away from whatever is coming?"
"Yes," Arin said. "And for good reason. That corridor behind us leads to the Anchor Hall. The temple doesn't open that unless something has gone wrong."
The hum behind them grew louder.
Aarav didn't want to see what "gone wrong" meant.
They ran.
The glowing path curved sharply left, then dipped into a long stone walkway lined with pillars carved with spirals and fractal patterns. As they passed, each pillar lit briefly, reacting to Aarav's presence.
Meera kept close. "They're sensing you."
"I know," Aarav said.
Amar didn't slow. "As long as it keeps us alive, let them sense whatever they want."
The hum spiked suddenly—followed by a deep, cracking sound.
Aarav glanced over his shoulder.
A wave of distortion seeped into the chamber they had just left—an expanding wall of warped air, bending light, twisting the edges of the stone floor.
Meera gasped. "Is that a fracture?"
"No," Arin said. "It's something older."
The distortion coiled inward, pulling itself into a form—not humanoid, not animal, not anything with a shape anchored in reality. A tangle of moving lines and shifting angles that never fully settled, a being made of resonance that had gone sour.
Aarav stumbled. "What _is_ that?"
Arin's voice was grim. "Echo-spawn. The temple's buried memories, corrupted by centuries of silence."
The echo-spawn twitched—
a flicker,
a spasm,
a reshaping.
Then it surged forward.
"RUN!" Arin yelled.
They sprinted down the corridor.
The echo-spawn hit the ground where they had stood moments earlier, sending cracks spidering through the stone. It moved wrong—too fast, too weightless, bending around corners as if the world's rules applied only loosely to it.
Aarav felt the resonance inside him spike in terror.
Amar shouted, "Left—go left!"
They veered into a narrower hallway, nearly colliding with a column. The glow around the carvings intensified, pulsing frantically, lighting the path ahead.
"The temple's still helping us," Meera breathed.
"Not helping," Arin corrected. "Herding."
"That's not better!" Amar snapped.
Aarav couldn't argue.
The hum behind them rose to a shriek.
The echo-spawn barreled into the hallway—its outline rippling like it couldn't decide how to exist. A long tendril of warped air lashed forward and struck a pillar. The stone melted into white dust.
Aarav's breath hitched.
"That thing can unravel stone," he said.
"It can unravel _anything,_" Arin replied. "It's made from broken resonance. Don't let it touch you."
"Wasn't planning on it," Amar muttered.
The hallway ended abruptly in a wide chamber—smaller than the last, circular, with a pool of still water at the center. The water glowed faintly from within, as if moonlight had been trapped under its surface.
Meera skidded to a halt. "There's no exit!"
Arin scanned the chamber quickly. "There is. Hidden. The temple wants him to find it."
Aarav felt the hum in his chest pull sharply toward the pool.
He pointed. "There."
Arin nodded. "Go. Touch the water."
Aarav stepped forward, but Meera grabbed his hand. "Wait—touch it with what? Your foot? Your hand? Your—brain?!"
Arin's patience finally tore. "Meera, he touches it with his hand!"
Aarav knelt by the pool. The surface was impossibly smooth. The moment his fingertips broke the water—
A shock of cold shot up his arm.
He gasped.
The water glowed brighter—
spreading from his touch,
traveling across the entire surface,
lighting the chamber in pale blue.
The floor rumbled.
A shift.
A click.
A deep grinding sound.
Behind them, the echo-spawn screeched.
A circle of stone beneath the pool rotated, splitting open to reveal a spiral staircase leading down into darkness.
"There!" Arin shouted. "Everyone down—go!"
Amar moved first, carrying the hollow man.
Meera followed with the boy.
Aarav stood—
—then froze.
The echo-spawn slid into the chamber.
It didn't walk.
It didn't crawl.
It simply _shifted,_ collapsing into itself and expanding forward like a ripple in water.
Its tendrils reached for him.
Aarav's chest pulsed in panic.
Meera screamed, "Aarav MOVE!"
Arin thrust his staff forward and slammed its tip into the floor.
A shield of vibrating light burst outward—thin, flickering, but enough.
"GO!" Arin roared. "NOW!"
Aarav didn't argue.
He dove into the opening and down the first steps of the spiral.
As he descended, he saw the shield above him shatter—
felt the surge of corrupted resonance flood the chamber—
heard Arin shout something he couldn't make out—
and then the stone door slammed shut above him.
Aarav froze on the staircase.
Meera's voice echoed below. "Aarav, come on!"
But Aarav stood gripping the railing, chest heaving.
Because the last thing he heard before the door sealed—
the echo-spawn whispering through distorted sound—
was his name.
_Aarav…_
Then silence.
"He felt bruised by clarity, but stronger for holding it."