Silence reigned.
No hum of Threads. No buzz of surveillance. Just the stillness of severed code and dead runes.
Elian stood alone in the ruined chamber, breathing like he had stolen air from the system itself. He flexed his fingers, still tingling from the console's fracture.
The system wasn't gone — not truly.
But for now, it couldn't see him.
A surveillance null field. A true blind spot. He hadn't just escaped detection — he had carved out a piece of the world where nothing could watch.
He didn't waste it.
Moving quickly, he mapped the room — small, circular, and crude. Not made for comfort or control. It felt wrong, like a memory overwritten too many times.
The console still jutted from the floor, cracked along its center. No light. No interface.
He circled it twice, then paused.
There.
Behind it, where stone met wall, a seam.
He knelt. Ran his hand along the fracture.
Rough… but not random. Carved.
With effort, he wedged his fingers in and pried it open.
A compartment hissed, releasing a burst of stale air.
Inside sat a cylinder — no wider than a wrist, etched with strange markings and wrapped in threadlike veins of obsidian metal. It pulsed faintly, almost… asleep.
"A node core," he whispered. "Still intact."
This was more than salvage.
This was leverage.
The system would want it. Others would kill for it.
And Elian?
He would learn from it.
He slid the core into his satchel and stood, only for his Threadsense to flare — not in warning, but confusion.
There were no threads here.
Yet the room was breathing.
The hairs on his arms lifted. He turned slowly.
Behind him, where nothing had stood before… now stood an archway. Faint. Ethereal. Almost imaginary.
Like it had been waiting for him to be alone.
And unnoticed.
He stepped forward, cautiously. The arch hummed with static, thin runes swirling around its frame like dying fireflies.
As he reached out — not to touch, just to test — a flicker passed through the air.
And a message appeared.
Not in blue. Not in red.
In white.
[Passive Thread Alignment Achieved]
[Temporary Access Granted: Hollow Gate – Designation: Observer's Wake]
[Caution: Entering blind zones may result in memory drift.]
"Drift?" Elian muttered. "Meaning…?"
But the message was gone.
He looked back at the broken chamber — at the dark console and the blind silence.
Then he stepped through the arch.
The world folded.
Not like a door.
Like a thought being rewritten.
He fell into The Hollow.
The air here was dense — not heavy, but full. Packed with invisible code, flickering just beyond vision. The threads weren't gone. They were… asleep. Folded like origami behind every surface.
He could feel the memory of actions that hadn't yet happened.
Footsteps on paths never walked. Voices from mouths never born.
And in the center of this dreamless space, a stone table.
Upon it, a broken helm.
Ancient.
And marked.
He approached it slowly, instinct sharp, mind calm.
Something about the helm felt wrong. Familiar.
He reached out — but stopped just short.
His Threadsense screamed.
And then he saw it.
In the reflection of the helm's black surface — not his face.
But the system.
Watching.
Waiting.
And smiling.
[System Lock Reinstated: Surveillance Pulse Incoming]
[Time Remaining: 00:02:37]
"So much for blind."
Elian turned. Ran.
The Hollow collapsed behind him.
And the game continued.