Hollow Gamer Novels & Stories

Before they made gods, they tested ghosts.” --- Thirty-one years ago. Hollow’s first real breath was not in a lab. It was in a coffin. It began in a place not listed on any map. Room 314, Hollow Sector 0: Beneath Navarro’s original corporate campus in Valeburn. Room 314 had no windows. No nameplate. Just a steel door locked from the outside and a viewing glass designed for one-way shame. Inside, they didn’t teach children.

“I’m not asking for forgiveness. Once I left Ashford, I’m basically nobody right now. I don’t exactly have anything impressive left to offer you.” “What are you planning to do then?” Marcus exhaled. “Go back to what I actually liked in college. Game engineering. I started a company with two old classmates.” Allison remembered. The game he built in college—won the national university game design competition. And that wasn’t even his major. He’d entered just to grab some extracurricular credits. Ended up taking first place. “Congrats,” she said quietly. “Glad you found something you actually want.” “So when I said all that just now, I wasn’t fishing for a yes. I just wanted you to know where I

“Gods… Ragnor, that’s—” “The Hollow.” My voice came out as a low growl, steady despite the icy dread crawling up my spine. Valkyrie turned to me, her eyes searching mine for confirmation—for denial. But I had none to give. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “It can’t be.” It was. The Hollow was more than just a spirit. It was a force beyond this world, a parasite that didn’t just consume bodies—it devoured souls, leaving nothing but an empty, twisted husk behind. A fate worse than death.

What came through wasn't human. It had been, once. You could tell by the general shape and the way it moved on two legs. But everything else was weird. Its skin had turned gray and leathery, its fingers elongated into claws, and its face stretched into something with too many teeth. A Hollow. Class D anomaly that fed on fear. The crowd started cheering. The Hunter raised his sword. The Hollow circled him, making a clicking sound they made when they were hunting. I'd heard it before during deployments. It usually meant you were about to be attacked.

“Those were only sentries. When the Hollow truly reaches for you, it won’t send something you can’t kill. It’ll send something you don’t want to.” Her breath stilled. “Meaning?” He hesitated. “Faces you know. Voices you trust. The Hollow feeds on hesitation.” She stared at him. “So you’re telling me my enemies are going to look like my friends?” “Yes,” Ragnar said simply. “And if you hesitate, you won’t live to regret it.” Before she could answer, the war room door banged open. One of the scouts stumbled in, eyes wide.

"The trick," said the boy to Nora's left, "is to never look impressed." He was human. She could tell by the way he'd been reading the room since they sat down, Blond, a little anxious around the eyes, doing a decent job of hiding it. He'd chosen the seat beside her with the specific energy of someone who wanted an ally before the room decided what they were. "Even when you're impressed?" Nora said. "Especially then." He adjusted the collar of his shirt. "Looking impressed tells them where the ceiling is. You know, where they've got you." He glanced at her sideways. "Marcus Hale. Legacy admit. My father attended twenty years ago."

It was as if Reaper’s Hollow operated in its own bubble—a dated bubble at that. There was one other male in the room. A tall, thin, though well-built, African American sat at a table in the back, his long legs not fitting under the table. He was flipping through a sports magazine, and Cutter noticed he hadn’t bothered to bring anything else but a pencil. He looked up at Cutter and ran a hand over his bald head before declaring. “Dang—they really did hire another dude.” Trying to curtail his laughter, Cutter stepped over. “Hi. Just the two of us then?”

“If this is about Mira No. Mira remembered. But only pieces. You bring shape to her echo. She was not the first. You are not the last. Kaima reached out. The ghost stepped forward. And then it opened the core beneath them. The floor dissolved into translucent light, revealing a chamber far below a vault of memory. Hundreds of suspended glyphs hovered in midair runic systems older than any Pact, some formed from pure tone, others from physical motion, and one that shifted shape as it was observed. Ari whispered, “This isn’t from our world.” Kaima pointed downward. The ghost guided them both. The Hollow is not a place. It is a memory. A resonance discarded by early shapers. Too unpredictable.

A large crowd of competing bards shifts around the stone pillars today, all eager to watch the human fail. "Garran Hollowmere is taking the male lead role," Elowyn whispers near my ear, her nose twitching. "He is a warrior under contract with the Silverhowl Guild, but his wolf has never achieved true stardom." "Understood," I murmur, keeping my gaze forward. I refuse to let personal relationships interfere with my art; whether my partner is a legendary alpha or a packless pup, work is a sacred ritual.

"I look festive." "You look like someone who has already decided to do something catastrophically stupid and is doing their makeup to delay the conversation about it." I set down the eyeliner and turned to face him. Drake Valcoin, ancient vampire, only male Divine Warrior in recorded history, Council Elder, and the man who had literally pulled my soul back from the Neverplain, looked genuinely worried. Not the performative concern he used in Council chambers. The real kind, the kind that lived behind his eyes when he thought no one was paying close enough attention to catch it. I was always paying attention.