The days blurred into weeks, and by November 5, Lucas barely recognized himself. He wasn't the same kid who had stood in those woods, staring into the impossible. Something inside him had shifted—something heavy, something unrelenting.
He couldn't stop thinking about the mark on his chest. It wasn't just a scar; it was alive. At night, when everything was quiet, it would pulse faintly, a warm rhythm against his skin that didn't feel like his own. And every time he looked at it, he couldn't help but remember the vortex and that thing—the figure that haunted his dreams and appeared just out of the corner of his eye.
It needed a name. He couldn't keep calling it that thing."The Hollow Warden," he muttered one night. The name felt like it had been waiting for him to find it, like it already existed somewhere, and he was just catching up to it.
Lucas's room became a disaster zone—a reflection of his mind. Open books on physics, mythology, and conspiracy theories littered the floor and his desk. Sticky notes were plastered everywhere, each scribbled with half-formed thoughts. His trash can overflowed with crumpled diagrams and discarded theories.
He spent hours at the library, burying himself in obscure texts about wormholes, alternate dimensions, and symbols of power. The librarians gave him odd looks, but he didn't care. He wasn't searching for entertainment or education—he was looking for something that could explain the unexplainable.
None of it made sense. Every lead unraveled into more questions. The mark on his chest, the vortex, the Hollow Warden—it was like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.
At school, Lucas drifted through the days like a ghost. He barely spoke to anyone, not even Brian. It wasn't that he didn't care—he just couldn't explain.
| How could they understand? They didn't see what I saw. They didn't feel this. |
His teachers noticed his silence, his slipping grades, but no one really pressed. Well, except for Mrs. Smith. She asked him to stay after class one day.
"Lucas," she said gently, her brows drawn together in concern. "You've been... distant. Is everything okay?"
He hesitated, gripping the strap of his backpack. "Yeah," he lied, his voice tight. "I'm fine."
She didn't look convinced, but she let it go.
Nights were the hardest. The house felt too big and too quiet. His mom worked late shifts, and the emptiness left his mind too much room to wander.
Lucas sat on his bed, the glow of his desk lamp casting shadows across the walls. He traced the mark on his chest through his shirt, feeling the faint warmth of it against his palm. Sometimes, he thought he could hear it—like a low hum, just beneath the edge of hearing.
The name stayed in his mind: The Hollow Warden. He whispered it into the quiet, and the air in the room seemed to shift, growing heavier.
He shook his head, trying to push away the feeling, and grabbed his notebook from the nightstand. The pages were already filled with messy sketches and fragments of thought:
| Eyes like black suns. A maw that swallows light. Not hunting. Watching. Waiting. |
He stared at the latest sketch—a crude drawing of the Warden's elongated form, its hollow face framed by shifting shadows. His pencil hovered over the page as he added another note:
| What does it want? |
He slammed the notebook shut, frustrated. "I don't know," he muttered, running a hand through his hair.
The next morning, the world felt just as confusing. He walked to school under a gray sky, the chill in the air biting at his cheeks. His feet carried him on autopilot, his mind still turning over the same questions.
In science class, Mrs. Smith talked about ecosystems, but Lucas's notebook was open to another page, his hand sketching symbols he'd seen in one of his dreams.
"Lucas," she said sharply, breaking his concentration.
He looked up, startled.
"Can you repeat what I just said?" Mrs. Smith confronted him.
He stared at her blankly, then shook his head. "Sorry. I zoned out."
The class snickered, but Mrs. Smith just sighed and moved on. Lucas slouched in his chair, staring down at his notebook.
That night, as Lucas lay in bed, he felt the mark begin to pulse again, faint and warm. He pressed his hand against it, closing his eyes. The Warden's hollow face flashed in his mind, and a shiver ran down his spine.
He clenched his fists, forcing himself to breathe slowly. He didn't have the answers yet, but he knew one thing for sure: he couldn't ignore this. Not anymore.