The Hollow: Contagion of Self
The books were watching now.
Milo stood still, breath thin, as the shelves swayed like trees in a dead wind. Whispers rustled across pages that hadn't been opened in years—pages that shouldn't have known his name.
Then came the sound.
Footsteps.
Not just one pair.
Three.
From behind a row of crooked encyclopedias, a figure shuffled out.
Milo blinked.
It was… him.
Or it used to be.
This version wore the same clothes, but faded, stretched, like they'd been worn too long. His hair was longer. Face pale. Eyes dull.
This Milo looked up—and didn't even react to seeing himself.
He just whispered, like an apology no one would accept,
"I gave up. The silence was better."
A second ghost emerged—this one with messy hair, wild eyes, and ink-stained fingers. He walked in circles, muttering lines of poetry to no one:
"The void speaks in soft regret.It never shouts.It only remembers."
He scribbled invisible words on his arm and stared at walls as though they were judges.
The third came crawling.
Screaming.
"Nobody's coming. Nobody's ever coming!"
This one looked the youngest—and the most terrified. His voice echoed wildly through the Hollow, but no echoes returned. His mouth opened too wide, like someone trying to scream in a dream but choking on the silence.
Milo stumbled back.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no—this isn't real. These aren't—"
But even as he said it, something tugged inside him.Recognition.They weren't monsters.They were possibilities.
His hands began to fade again. His skin went waxy. Lightless.
Each of the ghost-Milos paused.Turned to him.Smiled.
Not cruelly.Just… invitingly.
The poet whispered:
"Join us. Be quiet. Stop trying so hard."
The screamer just screamed.
Milo dropped to his knees. His breath came in shallow gasps, like the air was drying out his lungs from the inside. His voice cracked as he cried out:
"[i.d.e.a.l.]! Anybody! Please!"
No answer.
Only the ticking.
Only himself.
Or what he might become.
Then—
A sound.Small.Delicate.Almost... playful.
"Don't fall apart yet," a tiny voice said.
A white mask floated down from above, glowing faintly in the air like a forgotten dream trying to be remembered.
It stopped in front of him.
The mask turned slowly—no mouth, no eyes—just smooth blankness and warmth. Then, beneath it, a body assembled: scribbles of light and static forming a childlike figure. Lines danced across the silhouette like a chalk drawing trying to stay inside its own outline.
"Who... are you?" Milo whispered.
The figure cocked its head.
"I'm Echo," it said cheerfully. "She left me here. When she decided no one wanted her anymore."
"She?"
"The girl," Echo said, gesturing to the air like that explained everything. "The one you're trying to save."
Milo's breath caught.
"You're part of her?"
Echo nodded, floating gently in a circle around him.
"I was the part that wanted someone to notice. The part that used to wait by the window. The part that cried when no one asked what was wrong."
They stopped. Looked at Milo with their featureless face.
"She doesn't want me anymore."
Milo's voice was quiet.
"So… what do you want?"
Echo tilted their head again, like it was obvious.
"To burn it all down. The library. The memories. The ghosts. If no one remembers… then maybe it won't hurt."
Echo lifted a hand, and fire flickered to life—bright white, not orange, not red. A purifying flame.
"Loneliness grows in quiet corners. So I'm going to make sure there are no corners left."
They offered the flame to Milo.
"Help me. It's the only way to end the silence."
Milo looked at the fire. It was beautiful.
He thought of the library.
He thought of the girl.
And then, quietly, he said:
"Maybe... there's another way."
Echo didn't argue.
They just watched.
And waited.
"Why remember pain," Echo said, "when forgetting is so much easier?"
They dangled the match between their fingers — a single flicker of fire against the endless, unread silence.
Milo stared at the flame.
"It's easier," he agreed. "But it's emptier, too."
Echo's head tilted, curious. "So?"
"So... I think I'd rather hurt and be real than forget and be nothing."
Echo blinked slowly, as if buffering an emotion they hadn't accessed in years.
Milo stepped forward. The air around them thickened with the weight of things unsaid.
"I'll show you," he whispered. "Something I tried to erase."
He knelt, opened his palm — and memory rushed out like breath held too long.
A Birthday That Never Happened
"I was ten," Milo said. "I planned my own party. Blew up the balloons. Made a playlist. Waited by the door for hours."
He laughed, but it cracked at the end.
"No one came. Not even my parents. They forgot. Said they were working late."
Echo didn't speak. Just hovered closer.
"I told myself it didn't matter. That birthdays were stupid anyway. But I sat there until the candles melted into the cake."
He looked up, tears brimming, but not falling.
"I didn't want to forget. I just didn't want to care anymore."
For the first time, Echo trembled.
Then—without a word—they pressed the match into Milo's hand.
The Fear Arrives
And the fire went out.
Everything went out.
A windless hush swept through the Hollow, so vast and consuming it felt like the world had held its breath.
The books snapped shut.
The shelves collapsed in on themselves.
And from the shadows, it rose.
The Forgotten One.
A giant of shredded pages and dust, its limbs stitched together from neglected letters and unsent texts. No eyes. No mouth. Just absence—concentrated.
It didn't roar.
It didn't charge.
It just erased.
Wherever it stepped, the world blinked away.
When it reached for Milo, his memories flickered — entire sentences vanished from his thoughts mid-word. His arms went numb. His name almost slipped from his mind like sand through fingers.
Milo staggered back. He couldn't punch this thing. He couldn't run from it. He couldn't even scream—because sound didn't survive in its presence.
Unless...
Unless he made it mean something.
He took a breath. Then yelled into the void:
"I hated being the quiet one. I hated pretending I liked being alone!"
The air shivered. A ripple of color sparked in his chest. His hand returned—flesh and light.
The Forgotten One reeled slightly, dust sloughing off its shoulder.
"I was scared no one cared about me... so I acted like I didn't care about anyone!"
Another shockwave.
His voice came back stronger.
"I cried when I got left on read. I still reread old messages and pretend they mean something!"
With each confession, pieces of the Hollow returned — books fluttered open, shelves rebuilt. Echo's static body flared with light, drawn toward Milo like a flame to a candle.
The Forgotten One lurched, desperate now, reaching for Echo.
"No!" Milo shouted. He ran, wrapped his arms around the trembling child of light.
"I see you," he said.
"I always saw you."
"You matter."
And Echo burst into radiance — laughter, light, memory — then folded into Milo's chest like a star collapsing into a gem.
New Power Unlocked
The Forgotten One paused.
Then cracked.
It let out one final silence — a scream made of nothing — and shattered into pages that rained softly across the Hollow.
Milo stood alone again.
But only in space — not in feeling.
In his hand now rested a charm: a glowing white mask, warm to the touch.
Voice of the Unheard unlocked: Milo can now summon the invisible. He can give shape to things forgotten — secrets, paths, emotions — and draw them into light.
The World Changes
The Hollow unraveled.
Not in destruction — but in release.
Books turned to fireflies and lifted into the stars. Shelves dissolved into golden threads. The ground melted into stardust beneath his feet as a soft sun began to rise on the horizon.
[i.d.e.a.l.] appeared beside him, its voice... softer.
"You overcame the silence. Most do not.""This… changes your odds."
But before Milo could ask what that meant—
The sky cracked.
Literally.
A jagged glitch, purple and black, split across the clouds like a scar across heaven.
And from somewhere beyond it... something watched.
Something that did not blink.Something that remembered everything.