Chapter 6 Through the Hollow Veil

The sensation of falling was different this time.

Ava plummeted not through the usual velvet mists or star-kissed skies of the Dreamworld, but through a void-cold, heavy, endless. Her breath caught in her throat, though there was no air. Her thoughts came slower here, dulled by the oppressive weight around her.

And then... she landed.

Not with a jolt, but with a whisper-feet touching down on ground that wasn't quite solid. She stood on a surface like dark glass, but beneath it moved shadows: flickers of people, moments, regrets, grief. It was like standing on the surface of forgotten memories.

This wasn't a dream.

It was what lay behind the dreams.

The Hollow Veil.

---

Above her, the sky was an expanse of swirling gray. No sun, no stars, no moon-only a pale light from nowhere and everywhere. The air was cold, biting, and laced with whispers. Not voices-fragments of them. Laughter turned into cries. Names that had long since been buried.

Ava wrapped her arms around herself and walked forward.

With each step, the world pulsed faintly-like her presence was disturbing something ancient. The further she went, the more warped the space became. A house appeared upside down in the sky. A tree bloomed, then burned, then froze over, all within seconds. Time here was irrelevant. Logic, abandoned.

And yet... she felt drawn to something.

A thread of cold familiarity tugged at her chest, where the Lucid Key pulsed faintly under her shirt. She followed it.

---

She crossed a field of broken clocks, their faces shattered and their hands spinning violently. Beyond that, a mirror forest-trees made of obsidian, each reflecting different versions of herself: Ava as a child, Ava asleep, Ava running, Ava screaming.

One version reached out to her through the mirror. Ava stepped back instinctively.

Then, she heard footsteps.

Real ones.

She turned sharply.

A figure approached-tall, thin, shrouded in a mist that didn't part. Its face was obscured, shifting constantly like a projection made of oil and smoke.

"You shouldn't be here," it said. The voice came from everywhere. It wasn't male or female-it was something else entirely.

"I need to find the source of the Hollow," Ava said, summoning all the courage she had. "I have the Lucid Key. I can sense it."

The figure tilted its head. "Ah... the key." It stepped closer, and for a moment Ava saw its face flicker-her own face, older, haunted, eyes dark as voids.

She clenched her fists. "What are you?"

The figure didn't answer. Instead, it reached out a hand and pressed a finger to her forehead.

Pain exploded through her mind.

She staggered back, falling to her knees. Images rushed into her vision-memories that weren't hers. Dreams that had collapsed. A world before Dreamweavers. A girl who tried to build something pure-and instead created the Hollow.

"You're not just a Dreamweaver," the figure whispered. "You are the breach."

---

Ava gasped and the world around her warped.

She stood now in a version of her childhood bedroom, except everything was gray. Her stuffed animals wept ink. The window showed a swirling void instead of a street. On the bed sat her mother-but her eyes were stitched shut.

"You were born dreaming too deeply," the stitched woman said. "And so the world began to bleed."

Ava shut her eyes. "This isn't real."

"No. It's worse," the voice of the Hollow returned. "It's memory twisted into prophecy."

Suddenly, a tremor shook the ground. Cracks formed across the mirror-floored landscape.

From the cracks, shadows poured-not just void, but shapes. Faces Ava recognized: Leo, Nyra, Isabella from her school, her father. All shadowed. All calling her name with warped voices.

She ran.

---

She sprinted through the twisting terrain, the Hollow pursuing her like a tidal wave of regret. She passed doors that led to other people's nightmares-war zones, funerals, crumbling schools-and each one called to her, but she resisted.

She reached a cliff that overlooked an endless abyss. At its edge was a small object: a crystal prism, suspended in a spiderweb of silver threads.

The Lucid Key around her neck pulsed like it was going to explode.

Ava stepped closer.

Suddenly, a tendril of the Hollow wrapped around her ankle and yanked her backward.

She hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of her.

The shadow towered above her now, forming a mouth. Not one of flesh, but of jagged fragments of broken dreams.

"You will never leave," it hissed. "You are already part of me."

Ava closed her eyes.

And remembered Leo's words: Here, thought is motion. Focus is power.

She didn't fight the shadow with fear. She didn't scream or run. Instead, she imagined.

She imagined light.

Warm, soft, stubborn light.

A candle flame that refused to die.

She summoned that light in her chest. Let it pour from her fingertips. Let it spread into the broken ground.

And the Hollow screamed.

The light didn't destroy it-but it forced it back, searing its edges. The tendrils recoiled. The false world cracked entirely.

Ava surged forward and grabbed the prism.

The moment her hand closed around it, the Hollow vanished-sucked inward like ink down a drain.

She fell.

---

When Ava awoke, she was on the floor of the Mirror Hall.

Leo and Nyra were there, kneeling beside her.

"You were gone for hours," Leo said, voice tight with worry. "We almost pulled you out."

"I found it," she said, holding out the prism.

The silver threads still pulsed faintly around it, the Lucid Key dimmed in her chest like it had shared too much of itself.

Nyra took the prism carefully. "This is a core memory... anchored in the Hollow. If we can trace its origin..."

"We can find where the breach began," Ava finished.

Leo looked at her with awe. "You went further than anyone's ever dared, Ava. You made it back."

She nodded, exhausted.

"But I'm afraid that was only the beginning."