Yuuji's world shattered into fragments, each piece slipping away like sand through his fingers. The light that consumed him did not burn—it dissolved him. His sense of self fractured into countless echoes, each one a reflection of something he could not comprehend. His body, his soul—everything became an endless cascade of spiraling thoughts and memories. He could not tell where he ended and where the world began.
The light folded itself inward, and Yuuji felt himself drawn deeper. His mind swirled in a vortex of sensations—of fragmented images, of sounds that carried no source, of words that lacked meaning but still felt important.
And then, suddenly—everything stopped.
The disorienting sensation of being pulled in a thousand different directions vanished, leaving him in a place that seemed both empty and overflowing with weight. It was as if the very air around him had become thick with presence. He could feel the press of something watching him, waiting for him to respond.
The world around him was dark—unnervingly so. It was a void that stretched infinitely in all directions, like the inside of a living, breathing mind. The walls… no, the edges of this space were shifting and malleable, bending and warping as if it existed outside the natural laws Yuuji had once known.
A voice pierced the silence, but not in a way that Yuuji could grasp. It was not words. It was thought—a presence that spoke directly into his mind. The sound was dissonant, sharp, and yet somehow familiar. The voice echoed through his entire being, sending ripples of cold through his very essence.
"Where do you think you are?"
Yuuji's body trembled, though he could not say if it was fear or something else. His chest was tight, his breath shallow, and his thoughts raced, trying to make sense of this incomprehensible realm. His limbs, his face, his very identity—everything felt as if it were slowly being worn away. He no longer knew where his body ended and this strange place began.
"I don't know," he whispered—or thought he whispered. His voice was strange to him, an echo of something he once owned but could no longer grasp.
The voice responded, but it was layered with a thousand others. The tone was not kind. It was too vast, too ancient to be anything as simple as kindness. Yet there was something tantalizing in it, something that whispered of truth buried deep within the unknown.
"You never did."
Yuuji's heart stilled. Truth? The word rang in his mind, its meaning elusive and yet fundamental. He knew this place wasn't real—or was it? His mind could not anchor itself to any fixed point. Reality slipped like sand through his hands.
And then—everything shifted.
The void dissolved. Not in the way that light fades, but as though the world around him was peeled away in layers, revealing something far darker underneath. Yuuji felt himself falling, not through space but through the very fabric of reality itself. Time seemed to twist around him, folding over and under like a collapsing wave.
As he fell, the Echo within him screamed. It was not his voice anymore. It was the amalgamation of everything he had become—a broken reflection of who he was, who he was meant to be, and something that had never been.
Then—he landed.
Not with the harsh impact of falling through space, but with the soft hum of something vast, like he was being drawn into a place that had never meant for him to land. A place where nothing was fixed.
Yuuji's feet found solid ground—or so it seemed. His eyes snapped open, and the world around him was… familiar.
Too familiar.
He was standing in the middle of a bustling Tokyo street—his old world, the one he remembered from before the chaos. Neon signs flickered in the rain, and the air was heavy with the scent of street food. People rushed past, their faces oblivious to his presence. The sounds of the city were loud and filled with life. Yet, in his chest, Yuuji felt only hollowness. It was as if he didn't belong here anymore.
He tried to speak—to call out to someone—but his voice was swallowed by the noise of the crowd. No one looked at him. They didn't even seem to notice him.
He looked around desperately. His hands were shaking. He saw his reflection in a store window—a man who looked like him but wasn't. His face was drained of color, his eyes sunken and lost, as if the soul inside had been hollowed out. The stranger staring back at him was a mere shadow of who he once was.
The voice returned.
"Do you remember this place? Does it feel real to you?"
The words washed over him like a cold tide, and Yuuji's head swam. The city before him began to fade—its brightness dimming, its sounds muffling, until everything collapsed in on itself. The streets shattered into a thousand fragmented images, disintegrating into a swirling vortex of color and light.
Suddenly, he was no longer in Tokyo.
He stood upon the threshold of a massive cathedral made of obsidian, its walls stretching up into a sky filled with writhing, black stars. The ground beneath him was made of swirling ash, and the air tasted of iron.
Before him stood a figure. Tall. Hollow. Yet it was not the Hollowborn he had seen before. This one was different. Its presence was far more... complete. It wore a mask of void, its eyes—if they could be called eyes—were burning with the faintest traces of a red glow. It extended a hand toward him, not as if to offer anything, but to command.
"You have crossed the threshold, Echo," the figure intoned. Its voice reverberated within Yuuji's chest, rattling his very bones. "You were always meant to be here."
Yuuji felt his breath catch in his throat. He didn't want to move. He didn't want to understand. But his limbs, his mind—they no longer obeyed him. The Echo pulled him forward, a force outside of his will.
The figure's hand closed around his wrist, and Yuuji's body burned with a fire that was not his own. He felt the flame course through him—not a physical pain, but something deeper. A memory—a truth—long buried within him, something forgotten that screamed to be remembered.
"You are the wound between worlds," the figure whispered. "You are the key to undoing them all."
And then, in a flash—everything paused.
For a single breath, Yuuji could feel the weight of the universe upon him, the pull of fate, the resonance of the Echo, and the truth of his existence.
He was no longer Yuuji. He was no longer a boy. He was something else—something both greater and worse. The light, the darkness, the world—none of it mattered now.
A voice, distant yet impossibly close, whispered in his mind:
"There is no end. Only the beginning."
The last thing Yuuji heard was the sound of his own heartbeat. Then, nothing.
Yuuji stood, frozen, in the cathedral of obsidian. The echoes of the last whisper reverberated in his mind—"There is no end. Only the beginning." His pulse hammered in his ears, a frantic rhythm like the drums of war. His body trembled, and yet, it felt detached from him, as if he were observing it from a faraway place. The shadow of the figure in front of him loomed, and its form seemed to ripple, shifting like smoke caught in a storm.
The figure's mask, a black void with only the faintest impression of eyes, flickered. It was as if it were uncertain, as if its form—its presence—was not entirely fixed. But its voice, when it spoke again, was unmistakable, cutting through the confusion like a razor's edge.
"You have come too far to turn back now, Echo."
The word Echo rattled through his chest. He remembered it. It was not a name, not a title—it was a state of being. He was an Echo, the void between the fragments of reality, a space where time and memory bled together. It was the label of someone who had become neither alive nor dead, neither present nor absent. He was... hollow.
The figure's hand loomed closer. As it did, the air around it seemed to stretch, bending the very fabric of existence like a taut string pulled too far. The space between them seemed to grow colder, the shadows deeper.
"You do not yet understand your purpose," it said. "But you will. You are the opening, the breach between all things. The Hollow Enclave watches, and the Dominion stirs. The echoes of what was and what will be sing in your veins. You will learn to listen."
Yuuji felt the pull of something deep within him—an urge to ask, to demand answers. But the words caught in his throat, as though his very voice had been stolen, and only silence responded. Instead, the hollow figure extended its hand toward him, and the space around it shifted again, twisting and warping like liquid light.
"I am not the one who will show you what you seek," the figure intoned. "But the path is already set. There is no going back."
The words hit him like a physical blow. He tried to move, to resist, but his body felt like a stranger to him. His mind swam in confusion—was this real? Was any of this real? Was he still in that white hallway, lost in some nightmare? Had he ever truly left?
Suddenly, the shadows of the cathedral shifted, as if drawn by some unseen force. They began to crawl up the walls, coiling and twisting like living things. The oppressive weight of the place grew heavier. The floor beneath him seemed to stretch into infinity, the edges vanishing into a void.
The figure did not move but pulled the space around them.
"You are already being watched," it said. "The Scourborn are not the only ones who have sensed your presence. There are things in the dark that hunger for what you carry. And soon, the Dominion will come for you."
The mention of the Dominion sent a chill through Yuuji's core. He had heard the name before—whispers, fragments of memories that had no clear source, but the terror they carried was unmistakable. The Dominion were the enemies of the Hollow Enclave, the elite who ruled through fear and absolute control. They were ruthless, and they were ancient.
"Do you understand what this means?" the figure asked, its voice softer now, as if it were watching his thoughts twist into place.
Yuuji's breath caught in his throat. He felt the Echo stir within him again—more forcefully this time, as though it were awakening, rousing something within him that had long been dormant.
He wanted to scream, to demand answers. Who was he? What was he becoming? He had been pulled from one world and cast into another. But the questions did not form. They were swallowed by the weight of the presence around him, drowned beneath the unrelenting pressure.
Instead, what came out of his mouth, barely a whisper, was: "What... what am I supposed to do?"
The figure's mask seemed to shift, though it remained motionless. Its presence pressed in on him.
"Survive," it said. "And remember who you were."
The words resonated within him, like a bell tolling in the distance, faint but constant. Remember who you were. The phrase clung to his mind, twisting and bending. But what did it mean? Who was he, really? Was he Yuuji? Was he even that person anymore?
His head swam with the uncertainty. And then, as if the world around him had heard his confusion, a flash of blinding light exploded in the distance, shattering the cathedral's dark perfection. For a moment, Yuuji thought he might be torn apart, his mind split open by the force of it. But instead, the light grew into a shape—one he recognized with a visceral jolt of memory.
It was a woman.
She stood in the light, her silver eyes glowing, her features indistinct as though she were a reflection distorted by ripples in a pond. The air around her shimmered, vibrating with an energy he could feel down to his bones.
"Yuuji," she said, her voice a soft but urgent whisper, like the rush of wind in a storm. "You cannot stay here. The Enclave has made its choice. But the Dominion will not forget. And neither will I."
The words struck him like lightning, an understanding sparking in his chest. This was the woman from the visions—the one whose silver eyes had haunted him, whose presence had drifted on the edge of his consciousness like a half-forgotten dream.
"Who are you?" he gasped, his voice trembling with the weight of everything he didn't know. His body, his identity—everything felt as though it was coming apart at the seams.
But she did not answer his question.
Instead, she extended her hand toward him, and in the next instant, the shadows of the cathedral recoiled. The figure before him—his former captor—was gone. The dark place around him began to dissolve, like mist burned away by the light.
"You must choose, Yuuji," she said, her voice now louder, clearer. "You have already been changed. The question is not who you are, but who you will become."
The void around him was no longer the oppressive, suffocating darkness. It had opened, revealing something far more dangerous. Yuuji felt a pull, a beckoning to step forward, to follow her into whatever lay beyond the threshold.
He looked into her eyes—into the depths of those silver orbs—and felt an unspoken promise, a weight that pressed upon him. Her gaze pierced him, as though she could see through all the walls he had built around his soul.
"You cannot outrun the echoes," she whispered, her voice carrying the weight of a thousand lifetimes. "But you can choose what they will whisper."
And then, with a final, sharp flash of light—everything stopped.
For the briefest moment, there was nothing.
And then—
He was alone again.
Alone, with the question still echoing in his mind, and the overwhelming sense that his fate had already been set into motion.
---
To be continued…