Ashes of the Hollow – Volume I
The Spiral never truly turned.
It peeled.
Each step Noctics took along the corridor of mirrors was a flaying — not of flesh, but of self. Thin layers of him, subtle, quiet, and long-clenched, peeled away like damp parchment. Each reflection carved, bit, laughed. Each one whispered truths shaped like lies.
And still, he walked.
Black water trailed behind his steps, but beneath that surface, he no longer saw feet — only the suggestion of legs formed from threads, memory, and something less than light. His body was not fully his anymore.
Neither was his name.
The mirrors stopped reflecting him.
They showed cities he'd never seen — burning towers, upside-down rivers, statues with mouths full of weeping teeth. In one, a field of children with no eyes knelt in prayer to a tree of veins. In another, he saw a blade buried in a corpse that wore his spine as a crown.
None of it real.
Or worse — all of it yet to be.
The Spiral whispered. Not in words. In suggestions.
> "All paths converge to ruin."
"The self is not stable."
"You do not ascend. You unravel."
Noctics stopped.
He'd lost track of the number of mirrors he'd passed — or broken — or bled beneath. His ribs ached where a thorn-like shard still pulsed beneath the skin. His shoulder still smoked. His breath came ragged.
But something had changed.
The Spiral wasn't just pulling now.
It was responding.
A thrum passed through his chest — not his heartbeat, but a rhythm beneath it. Alien. Measured. Purposeful. Like a language spoken through bones. He touched the spot above his heart — the place where the brand had been seared.
Still there. Hot.
But around it… a circle of red light, faint, moving like ink in oil.
A sigil. Half-formed.
The Spiral Nexus was marking him.
He didn't understand what that meant. Not yet.
But the moment he acknowledged it, the corridor broke.
The mirrors cracked — every one — in unison. A shatterwave like bells colliding. The shards didn't fall. They rose. Twisting midair, the entire corridor unspooled upward in a helix of burning glass.
The black water vanished.
Noctics stood on nothing.
The Spiral revealed itself.
Not as metaphor.
As mechanism.
Below him, above him — it was the same — a colossal structure of bone and bronze, infinite and coiled, twisting around a lightless core. Each rung was made of moments, mirrors, masks. It moved, yet stood still. Breathed, yet made no sound.
At its heart: a throne.
Empty.
A voice spoke. At last. Not whisper — thunder. Not in his head — in his marrow.
> "You are not meant for this place."
Noctics swallowed. Tried to answer.
The Spiral paused.
For the first time, he felt it hesitate.
> "And yet you were summoned."
The throne shifted.
One fragment of it — no larger than a pebble — detached. Floated downward. Drifted toward Noctics like a flake of ash.
He braced.
When it touched his forehead, time folded.
---
He stood in a different Hollow.
Burning.
Rebuilt.
Stranger.
Ash fell from the sky like snow. A moon with seven eyes stared from above.
He was older. Stronger. His shadow trailed behind him like a second beast. In his hand: a mask made of bone.
At his feet knelt the Butcher. Begging.
Noctics crushed the man's tongue beneath his boot.
He smiled.
---
He awoke on the Spiral.
Gasped.
The vision clung to his skin like tar. A future? A choice? A lie?
He didn't know.
He stepped forward.
Chains fell from above. Clamped to his wrists. Not as punishment — as measure. As weight.
A Trial must have burden.
A path opened.
Thorns lined it. Black. Barbed. Woven like vines into a corridor of flesh.
He bled just by looking.
The Spiral did not speak. It waited.
And Noctics knew — this was not merely the next step. This was the true Trial.
Reflections had tested his mind.
Now the Spiral would test his will.
He stepped into the thorns.
The first cut sang.
The second screamed.
The third whispered:
> "Are you still you?"
By the tenth step, he bled from every limb.
By the twentieth, he could not stand — but he crawled.
He bit his tongue to stay awake. Bit deeper.
Iron and ash filled his mouth.
Somewhere in the thorns, something laughed.
Not at him.
But for him.
A shape moved among the vines. Thin. Long-limbed. Skinless.
It wore no face. But it wore the Spiral.
Etched into its ribs. Wrapped around its throat.
It knelt before him, motionless.
And spoke in a voice that belonged to no gender, no age, no species:
> "What bleeds is real."
"What crawls is becoming."
"What survives… inherits."
It raised a hand.
Pointed behind Noctics.
He turned.
There, in the trail he had carved with his own blood — a symbol.
Drawn without his knowing. Formed from his pain.
It spiraled outward from each drop. From each footprint. From each scream.
A sigil.
The first of seven.
The Seal of Becoming.
It pulsed. Then burned.
Then vanished into his skin.
The Spiral turned.
Faster now.
Noctics felt his soul stretch.
Not break.
Adapt.
And something deep inside him — something sleeping — stirred.
A whisper, now in his own voice:
> "One rung climbed."
"Six remain."
"Do not look back."
---
He stood.
The thorns parted.
The faceless figure knelt lower. As if in reverence.
Chains loosened.
And behind him, the Spiral throne remained empty.
Waiting.