Finn stood.
Barely.
His knees threatened to buckle under him with each breath. His hands shook—not from exhaustion, but from a fear so deep it rooted itself into his bones. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to collapse, to curl into the smallest shape possible and hide from the presence pressing in from every angle. But he didn't. He wouldn't. Not yet.
The darkness around him was absolute. Not the kind of darkness that came with night or shadow—but something deeper. Hungrier. The kind of dark that devoured meaning. His heartbeat echoed in his chest like a drum in a graveyard.
Then he noticed it.
The whispers were gone.
He blinked, trying to steady his breathing. The sobs, the broken muttering of the hollowed—the sound that had lingered like background static in this place—wasn't just quiet.
It was gone.
Finn turned slowly. "Hello?" he called out, voice small, ragged. No answer. No echo. Nothing but the suffocating silence.
Where were they?
The people with eyes like broken glass. The ones who moved like ghosts. The ones whose dreams had already been chewed and swallowed and spit back out. They had been here. He had seen them. Felt their presence brushing against his skin like spiderwebs.
Now they were just… gone.
He took a shaky step forward.
The air shifted. Just slightly. Not a breeze. Not movement. But something deeper. As if the room breathed. And when it exhaled, it took something from him—something he didn't notice until it was already gone.
Finn's thoughts wavered. He blinked again. Something inside him, small and precious, had flickered and died. A memory maybe? A name?
What was my mother's voice like?
He couldn't remember.
His stomach twisted.
The King still hadn't moved.
The throne room was distant again, the memory of it distorted. Like a dream you tried to remember after waking. Finn knew the King was still there—still watching, still waiting—even if he didn't see him. The King's presence was everywhere. Heavy. Inescapable. It pressed down like deep ocean pressure, like the weight of an entire sky filled with judgment.
He stumbled forward, down a corridor that shouldn't have been there seconds ago. The walls were smooth and black, but breathing—breathing. Every few steps, they convulsed slightly, like the twitch of a sleeping beast.
The silence gnawed at him.
No wind. No footsteps. No sign of anything human.
Just the endless corridors of flesh and stone.
He tried to call out again, but the sound barely left his lips. The air swallowed it, like even his voice didn't belong here.
His hands gripped the side of the wall to steady himself—and it twitched beneath his fingers.
Finn recoiled, heart pounding in his throat. The wall had moved. He was sure of it. The texture hadn't been stone. It was too warm. Too soft. Like skin pulled taut over something that moved beneath.
The castle wasn't just the King's domain.
It was his body.
And Finn was inside it.
A shudder went through him. Not from cold—but from the dawning horror that he was no longer separate from the King. Not just trapped. Not just hunted. But inside something that could change its shape at will. That wanted him to move. To squirm. To panic. Like prey inside the belly of a predator that hadn't even begun to digest.
He broke into a run again. Not toward anything. Just away.
Every hall led back to the same chamber.
And every time he returned, the throne room was empty.
No King. No throne. No sound.
Just presence.
And that was worse.
It was so much worse.
Because he knew the King was still here. Watching. Smiling.
Feeding.
Not on dreams this time. But on something new.
On the fear building inside Finn like rot.
That was the true terror: The King didn't need to move. Didn't need to speak. He simply was. And in his silence, in his stillness, he made Finn unravel.
Bit by bit.
And the Hollowed?
They weren't hiding.
They weren't watching.
They weren't whispering anymore.
Because the King didn't need them anymore.
He had something fresh now.
Something whole.
Something he could tear apart slowly.
Finn fell to his knees again, trembling, and for the first time since he woke up in this place—he felt it. Not just fear.
Hopelessness.
He was in the belly of something ancient. Something that fed on the soft, warm light of people's minds.
And it hadn't even started with him yet.
Because it didn't need to chase him.
It could wait.