Chapter 10 Through the Hollow

The moment Ava stepped through the veil, her breath caught in her throat.

She expected darkness, maybe cold. But what greeted her was... quiet.

Not silence. Quiet. A stillness that felt unnatural, like the dream world itself was holding its breath. The air shimmered with pearlescent dust, suspended mid-float. Her footsteps echoed despite the absence of any ground beneath her-she was walking on something, but it was like a glass surface stretched across a glowing void.

Kael appeared just behind her, his hand brushing her shoulder for balance. Reina stumbled through next, looking nauseous.

"Where... are we?" Ava whispered, afraid that if she spoke too loud, everything around her would collapse.

Kael tilted his head. "We're past the veil. Inside the Hollow."

The Hollow.

The name felt wrong to say, like it didn't belong in her mouth. Like speaking it aloud might call attention to them.

Reina wiped a streak of sweat from her brow. "It's like... everything here is asleep but awake. Dead but breathing."

Ava looked ahead. The landscape unfolded in pieces-fragments of cities suspended in the air, staircases leading to nothing, bits of sky torn open like paper. Buildings floated sideways, upside down, even inside out. Some structures flickered, glitching in and out of sight like unstable memories.

"Dreams," Ava murmured. "These are all broken dreams."

Kael nodded. "The Hollow consumes them, but it doesn't destroy them. It repurposes them. Corrupts them. What you're seeing are the remnants of thoughts that never fully formed."

They walked slowly, every step echoing louder than the last. Ava felt like they were being watched. She wasn't sure if it was the sky-or what replaced the sky-that made her feel that way, but the sensation clung to her like humidity. Too close. Too heavy.

Ava stopped at the edge of a spiraling staircase leading nowhere. Beneath it, the void shimmered like ink dropped in water. She crouched and reached toward the edge, her fingers brushing the staircase's base.

It was warm. Alive. Beating.

She flinched back. "This place... it's alive."

"Everything in the dream world is," Kael said, voice low. "But this-this is different. This place remembers."

Suddenly, a faint sound reached them. A lullaby. Soft, familiar.

Ava froze. "That song..."

It was her mother's lullaby.

She turned sharply, eyes scanning the expanse. No one was there. The melody floated on the air, weaving through the ruins and staircases like it belonged here.

She walked toward the sound, heart hammering. Reina reached for her arm, but Ava pulled away.

"I have to see," she whispered.

The melody grew louder. Then the light around her changed-warmer, golden, as though the Hollow had suddenly dressed itself in sunlight. She stepped into a hallway made of mirrors, each one reflecting a different version of herself-laughing, crying, younger, older, broken.

Then she saw her mother.

Not a reflection. Not a memory. A figure standing in the center of the mirrored corridor, humming the lullaby and facing away.

"Mom?" Ava choked out.

The figure turned.

It was her mother's face, but wrong. The smile too wide, the eyes glowing a dull, metallic silver. When it spoke, it was her mother's voice, but layered with something else. Something ancient.

"You've come far, little Dreamweaver. But this is not where you belong."

Ava stumbled back. Kael and Reina had caught up by now, and they stepped protectively in front of her.

"She's not real," Reina hissed. "It's using your memories against you."

"I know," Ava whispered. But her eyes still watered.

The hollow-mother stepped forward. "You don't understand the weight of your power. You carry more than just dreams. You carry possibility. And possibility is dangerous."

"Who are you?" Ava demanded, her voice steadier than she felt.

"We are what remains," the figure said. "We are what the world forgets. And we remember you."

The mirrors around them began to crack.

Kael drew a blade from his side-its edge glowing with blue dreamlight-and pointed it at the entity. "Back away. Now."

The hollow-mother smiled, then crumbled into ash. The hallway collapsed with it.

The three of them found themselves back in the void again, breathless.

"That wasn't just a trick," Ava said. "It knew me. It knew things I haven't told anyone."

"The Hollow feeds on memory, too," Kael said grimly. "The deeper we go, the more it will pull from us. If you hold on to anything too tightly-grief, guilt, love-it will use it."

Reina nodded. "We have to keep moving. The Dream Engine is near."

Ava stared into the glowing chasm ahead of them, pulsing like a heart in the distance. She felt it calling to her. Not with words, but with... urgency. Like it was scared.

She squared her shoulders.

"Then let's go find it."