Man of Hollows

Hill stared at the shimmering runes hovering before him in muted awe. The sudden appearance of the runes, which he had summoned with the full expectation that they wouldn't appear, threw his thoughts into a tornado of confusion.

Based on what Hero had said earlier, the only people who could summon the mystical runes were those who possessed an awakened soul. Yet according to the runes, his soul was... dormant. That meant he had never awakened in the soul trial, which fully explained why he wasn't able to use his blessing or summon his runes.

But why was he able to summon them now? What had changed?

He needed to know.

Even Hero seemed confused by the sudden appearance of the runes, and so did Mime, who had her hands clasped against the sides of her face in dramatic shock.

The sight of her overly dramatic facial expression had a sort of therapeutic effect on his mind, slightly reducing his confusion and replacing it with amusement.

What a strange girl, he mused to himself, turning his full attention to the runes.

As his eyes moved through the runes before him, he began to blush at the amount of personal information being revealed by them.

After all, his height and weight were visible for everyone to see! How embarrassing!

However, there was a lot of terminology he wasn't particularly familiar with. Attributes, soul cores, soul arts... these were terms he had either heard once in passing conversation or not at all.

But among all these things, there was one particular set of runes that caused his heartbeat to accelerate.

It was the curse.

When he was perusing the runes, he wasn't too shocked to see that he had no blessing. When he saw the next two lines, though, he nearly fell back in shock.

Curse: [The Enchained Hollows.]

Curse Rank: [Dormant.]

I'm cursed? What does that even mean? And why?

He turned to Hero, observing the old man who was also staring at the runes with a slack jaw and wide eyes. Hero turned and met Hill's eyes.

"Uh... Hero?" Hill began. "A little help here?"

Hero continued staring at him, his brown pupils shaking side to side as he looked back and forth between the runes and Hill.

"Come on! You know more about this stuff than I do!" Hill urged, his voice rising desperately.

His urgent tone seemed to break the yoke of confusion that was resting on Hero. The old man quickly slapped his own face repeatedly before taking a few deep breaths and composing himself.

Mime, having seen this sudden display of self-harm, decided to horse around and slap her own cheeks, proceeding to prance around in a circle like a chimpanzee.

The mocking display seemed to fully awaken Hero's spirit. "That's enough, Mime!" he yelled, his voice low and gravelly as if his mind was burdened with sorrow. Turning back to Hill, he finally began to explain what was going on.

"So... I must say, this is not what I expected." He mumbled. "Not. At. All."

"What do you mean?" Hill asked.

"It's quite a lot to explain, really." Hero sighed, pointing to the runes that displayed his soul rank. "Your soul is dormant, so the fact that you can even summon your runes should be impossible. However, there is a special case scenario."

"Which is?"

Hero smiled, although it didn't quite reach his eyes. "If you're inside your own soul realm."

Hill stared back, his mind racing to connect the dots. "Wait, so—"

"And there's more," Hero interrupted, stepping forward and pressing his hand against one of the runes. Shockingly, the old man was able to physically interact with the runic letter, pressing his index finger against it and pushing it backward. This caused a ripple effect that traveled through the rest of the runes as if he had broken the surface tension of a pond. "When I summoned my runes, you weren't able to see them. Right?"

"Right..." Hill answered, feeling winded.

"It was the same for Mime; you couldn't see her runes." Hero muttered, withdrawing his hand from the rune and placing it at his hip. "And from my limited knowledge of soul theory, the only answer for such a phenomenon to be possible is if we're inside your domain. This desert," he paused, spreading his arms and gesturing to the bleak darkness around them. "It belongs to you. This is the inner workings of your soul. As I said before, your soul realm."

Hill stepped back, turning to observe the world around him. His world.

The darkness that surrounded him, the colorless void that lacked all detail and life. The ominous red disc in the sky, surrounded by mysterious planetary bodies.

This was his soul?

He didn't want to believe it, but everything seemed to point to that conclusion. He didn't know why it was so barren and so devoid of everything. And right now, he didn't even want to find out.

Turning back to Hero and Mime, a question formed in his mind. A necessary question, one that needed an urgent answer. "What about you two? What are you doing inside my soul?"

Hero glanced at the runes and shrugged. "I wouldn't know, child. Perhaps there's an answer within these runes."

Mime mimicked his movements to a tee, but instead of acting strangely, she walked over to the runes and pointed toward the ones that displayed his curse.

"Ah, yes," Hero mumbled. "Focus on that specific line."

"Why?" Hill asked, obliging regardless as he focused his attention on the line.

As if answering his question, a new line of runes appeared, splitting from the one above.

Curse Description: [To save a corrupting soul, eleven fragments of forgotten mystery emerged from the ether. A helping hand guided them into place, forcing them to replace the corruption with their very existence. As a result, a new union was formed. And thus, a new soul.]

Huh?

Hill stared at the cryptic description, unable to form any sort of analysis of what he was looking at.

A corrupting soul? Is that referring to me?

And what are these 'fragments of forgotten mystery?'

Nothing makes sense!

He turned to Hero again, hoping that the old man would somehow provide an answer. But just as he made eye contact with him, he noticed something different in the old man's expression. It was like a flicker of recognition had appeared on his face, perhaps even understanding.

Does he know something?

"Hero, do you know what this means?" Hill asked.

But before Hero could even respond, Hill felt a strange pulling sensation assault his very being. It started as a gentle tug, and it felt like invisible hands were grasping at his consciousness and causing his thoughts to get muddy and distorted. Suddenly, though, it quickly intensified into something far more powerful and mysterious.

"What's happening?" he managed to gasp, looking down in horror as he saw his body suddenly plunging into the light-eating sand below.

Hero reached out toward him, his weathered face suddenly full of emotion. "Hill! Wait—"

But his words were cut short as Hill sank deeper into the sand. The last thing he saw was Mime's pale face peering down at him. Her usually playful expression was now completely replaced by something that looked almost like sadness.

The pulling sensation intensified, and Hill felt as though his very essence was being drawn away from this strange realm. The darkness around him began to blur as if he was inside a tornado. The red disc in the sky pulsed with increasing intensity.

As consciousness slipped away from him, a few fragments of the curse description echoed in his mind: eleven fragments... helping hand... new soul...

What does it all mean?

Hill's eyes snapped open, and he found himself gasping desperately for air, his hands instinctively clutching at his throat and head. The transition from the timeless void of his soul realm to the physical world was jarring. If he could describe it, it was like being suddenly pulled from deep water to the surface.

His vision swam with afterimages of red light and complete darkness. He could hear voices as well—real voices, probably—calling his name through what felt like a thick fog.

"Hill! Hill, can you hear me?"

Blinking hard, he wiped his eyes and slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. He could feel his body trembling from the disorienting experience. As his vision gradually cleared, the familiar sight of purple twisted roots and the hole-filled cavern wall came into focus.

He was back in the underground forest. Not just back in the forest, he was outside of the lava worm cave.

Next to him, sitting on both sides like worried sentinels, were Lands and Soleil. Their faces were etched with anxiety, and he could see the relief consuming their expressions as they realized he was finally awake.

"Thank goodness," Soleil breathed, her face dripping with sweat. "I didn't think it would work..."

Hill tried to speak, but his throat felt dry and awfully raw. The memory of his soul realm felt both vivid and dreamlike, as if he had experienced something that existed in the space between reality and imagination.

But the knowledge remained. The weight of what he had discovered pressed down on him like a physical burden.

He was cursed. His soul was dormant, yet somehow he was able to summon his runes and enter his soul realm, which seemed like something that wasn't supposed to happen.

And to make things worse, there were two people inside his soul realm. Based on the curse description, it seemed to him that they were trapped inside his soul, being forced to wander the endless darkness that was inside him.

In a matter of minutes, or hours, everything he knew about himself had been turned upside down.