Hollowed Minds Novels & Stories

Chapter 22. Pick a movie from N*****x. The scariest part isn't the feeling of loneliness or the darkness surrounding the intense pain or even the depths of ignorance. It's the realization that you have intentionally surrendered yourself to isolation, deprived yourself of emotions, lost the ability to smile and sold your soul to agony. And I had lost the ability to smile. I had lost the ability to feel anything except for that creeping hollow of pain in my abdomen and the strong waves of loneliness in my heart.

’ His mind argued. ‘Didn’t he promised that no one would share Axel’s property? Isn’t he the one he’s talking about?’ Zadkiel’s heart reasoned. ‘Geeezzzz... haven’t you heard the saying that ‘Promises are made to be broken?’ His mind mockingly stated. ‘We’re you thinking that I’m a fool?’ His heart questioned. ‘Aren’t you?’ His mind spat, feeling victorious. It was speaking with confidence. Zadkiel’s heart froze. Couldn’t fight the mind’s irony. Was his heart a big fool to believe some promises? Damn it! His mind was indeed officious, isn't it?

"A series of 'Dark-Nodes' are forming. They aren't Purists, and they aren't Architects. They’re something new—The Hollows." The Hollows were regions of the universe where the Expansion had moved too fast, leaving behind "Low-Resolution" zones where the reality was thin, grey, and hungry. They didn't have teams; they had "Eraser-Swarms" that sought to pull the vibrant, high-definition matter of the Sovereign Valley back into the void. The Call to the Rim

"They’re using the deep-sea pressure to amplify the sound. It’s a sonic bomb, Leo. If that rig fires, it’ll shatter the neural stability of every shifter in the hemisphere." ​As they approached The Obsidian Bore, the rig emerged from the mist like a mechanical monster. It was a tower of rusted iron and glowing violet lights, sitting in the middle of a swirling vortex of seaweed and debris. ​"No guards on the perimeter," Silas noted, checking her thermal scope. "But the internal heat signatures are... strange. They aren't wolves, and they aren't human." ​"They're 'Hollows,'" Leo said, his arm beginning to vibrate with a warning signal. "The Iron Trust’s final experiment. Bodies without minds,

**KELLY THOMPSON'S POV** The moon's corpse left a void in the sky, a starless wound that bled silence. In its absence, the laws of the world frayed. Rivers ran backward. Wolves gave birth to stillborn shadows. The plague-veins in Eden's arms lay dormant but restless, a sleeping storm neither he nor Isolde could name. The packs called it *the Hollowing*-a sickness of the soul, a hunger for what the moon had taken.

I whispered. "You won't have a choice," Elena said. "The Tether is already looking for a new anchor. Now that the Thorne Alpha is gone, the Void in your blood is starving. If you don't find a new source of energy soon, your own power will turn inward. It will eat your mind, your memories, and finally, your heart. You’ll become a 'Hollow'—a mindless shadow wandering the halls of this Spire." She turned toward the heavy silver doors of the lab. "Silas! Bring in the candidate."

The Still-Lands didn’t just absorb sound; they absorbed hope. As the Silas-puppet unhinged its jaw, the hundreds of Hollowed behind him began to vibrate, a collective humming that set my teeth on edge. It was the sound of a vacuum trying to fill itself with our very souls. "Form a circle!" Kaelen roared.

Mara stumbled back as the crack widened just enough to reveal darkness below— —and a faint, rhythmic glow rising from deep under the foundation. Not ocean. Not rock. Something older. The beam flickered violently. From the sea, the Drowned One’s eye opened again. And from beneath the lighthouse— something opened in answer. The Heart Below The crack split wider. Cold air rushed up from beneath the lantern room floor, carrying a smell older than salt—like stone sealed away for centuries. The faint blue glow pulsed again, steady and slow. A heartbeat.

The forest fell silent once more. “The First Covenant was never forged to win wars.” He looked directly at me. “It was forged to preserve hope after defeat.” I took a cautious step forward. “What is the Hollow?” “A memory.” His answer only deepened my confusion. “A city remembers those who build it.” “A forest remembers those who protect it.” “The Hollow remembers promises.” The silver patterns beneath my skin suddenly burned. Not painfully. Like recognition. The same warmth spread through Leo. Ace. Maya. The ground beneath our feet answered.

in reply, but she didn't look up or otherwise engage. Annie felt hollowed out as she unpacked her things and went over her next day's schedule. Unwilling to credit herself with anything but average smarts, Annie thought of herself as a grind and was proud of her workmanly ('workwomanly?') study habits. She had grown up in the chaos of her mother's emotional dramas, and wasn't allowing Michele's moods to get in the way of her classwork any more than she had allowed her mother's to.