Mountain Runner

It started like any other run.

5:14 a.m. Cold breath. Tight laces. Burning thighs.

And that quiet sense of being the only person awake in the world.

But something was wrong.

The trail had changed.

Not in any obvious way—no fresh landslides, no new break in the ridge—but I knew the terrain too well. Every curve, every rock, every sound of wind brushing against pine bark. Today, those things felt unfamiliar. Off. Like someone had copied the mountain and got a few details wrong.

And the air—too still. Too quiet.

The usual screech of hawks overhead, the rustle of deer further down the slope, even the buzzing of flies near the creek... nothing. Just silence. A silence that made you aware of your own heartbeat.

I slowed down. Not from fatigue. From instinct.

Then I saw it.

A dark crevice split the stone wall at the trail's edge—like a wound in the earth I'd never noticed before. About shoulder-width. Jagged. Unnatural. I stared at it for a long moment, half-expecting it to vanish if I blinked.

But it didn't.

I stepped in.

It was tight. Just enough space for a human to squeeze through. My shoulders scraped the cold rock on both sides. After a few meters, the path widened—and opened.

That's when I entered the Hollow.

---

It wasn't a cave. Not exactly.

It felt too… intentional.

The walls were unnaturally smooth, carved with discipline. The floor was flat. Uneven stone, but deliberate. Like someone had shaped it to train on.

At the center was a sunken pit, ringed with faded stone steps. A crude arena.

Scattered around the edge were old, battered training gear—dumbbells rusted with time, broken ropes, splintered wooden poles. But it was the gloves that caught my eye.

Fingerless. Black. Leather so worn it was nearly grey. Heavy. I crouched beside them and picked one up.

It buzzed in my palm.

I blinked. The room tilted. A sensation flashed through me—like stepping into someone else's memory.

I saw a man—no, a boy. Mid-run. Charging up a slope at impossible speed. Wind tearing at his clothes. A shadow following him—something monstrous, barely seen. He didn't look back.

Then—gone.

I dropped the glove. Stared at my hand, now trembling.

My heart was pounding for a different reason now.

These weren't just gloves.

They were his.

Behind the training pit, etched faintly into the stone, were three small letters:

S. Hiro

Not much.

But more than I'd ever had.

I'd never seen a photo of my dad. Never heard his voice. Just the echo of Grandpa's words:

"He ran before you. Then he vanished."

But now, here in the belly of the mountain, I'd found a piece of him.

And somehow, it felt like he'd left it for me.

I turned back to the gloves.

Slipped them on.

The fit was too perfect. Like they remembered me.

A pulse of warmth traveled up my arms. My muscles tensed like they knew what to do before I asked.

I could feel it—his rhythm. His breath. His grit.

I wasn't just wearing gloves.

I was inheriting them.

As I turned to leave, I saw it.

A figure—just at the edge of the shadowed wall.

My height. My frame. Same running shoes. Same stance.

But older.

Stronger.

It didn't move when I moved. It moved before I did.

It raised a hand.

Pointed.

I turned.

And there, scratched frantically into the rock face, were words—dozens of them, repeated over and over again, all in the same shaky hand:

[RUN UNTIL THE MOUNTAIN BREATHES

NOT ALONE. NEVER ALONE.]

The letters shimmered for a moment—then faded.

I turned back to the shadow.

Gone.

But the image of that runner—myself but not—burned into my brain.

Something in me had awakened.

I stepped back from the wall, fists clenched inside the gloves.

Run until the mountain breathes.

It echoed in my mind like a riddle—one I didn't yet understand. But my legs were already humming with energy. My body was twitching with the kind of tension I'd only felt once before—right before collapsing from a 10K uphill sprint.

No. This was sharper. Focused. Controlled. I wasn't just tired—I was tuned.

I tested it—took off from the training pit and darted up a slope inside the Hollow.

I moved faster than I should have.

No—faster than I could have.

The way my feet found balance on shifting gravel, the way my eyes read each crack and crevice before I reached them—it wasn't natural. My reaction time was tighter. My breath more even. My body wasn't just responding—it was anticipating.

The gloves weren't magic. But they were close.

They remembered something. And now, so did I.

---

I followed the ascending tunnel deeper into the Hollow. Faint markings lined the wall every few meters—each a crude diagram. A running form here. A strike pattern there. And interspersed between them: symbols I didn't recognize. Not writing. Not language.

Marks of something old. Or something hidden.

I reached a final plateau.

A stone circle waited at the top. Inside, a mannequin-shaped target stood in the center—stitched leather, torso-high, pitted from years of impact.

I stepped in.

The air shifted.

Then it moved.

The dummy lunged forward—not on wheels or gears, but like it had life.

I barely ducked the first swipe.

A counterweight arm swung out behind it. I twisted and stumbled sideways, feet dragging. My shoulder scraped the stone. A second strike came from the opposite direction.

I didn't think—I reacted.

Dropped low, rolled, kicked off the wall.

In a heartbeat, I was upright again—and moving.

My body flowed. Spun. Dodged. Hit.

I jabbed the dummy's core and felt its wooden spine buckle slightly.

The gloves vibrated with each strike—like they were storing kinetic energy.

Strike. Shift. Breathe. Strike again.

Thirty seconds in, and I wasn't fighting like a high schooler.

I was fighting like someone trained on this mountain for years.

Someone like my father.

---

When I knocked the dummy down, it didn't rise again.

Silence returned.

But it wasn't oppressive anymore. It was listening.

I stood there, sweat dripping down my spine, the weight of the Hollow around me.

Then something clicked. A section of wall behind the circle cracked slightly and pulled open.

A stairway.

And behind it—a narrow hallway that led back into the mountain's bones.

At the far end of the hallway, I found a chest.

Not locked.

Inside:

A sealed water flask

A blank journal

A folded letter with only two words:

["You're ready."]

No name. No signature. But I didn't need one.

The gloves, the training pit, the echoes of my father's movements—this wasn't just a relic from the past. It was built for me. A rite of passage, left behind like a code only blood could unlock.

And I had just cracked the first part of it.

---

When I emerged back into the open mountain air, the sun was almost up.

Mist rolled off the trees like quiet steam. The trail behind me had vanished.

Only dust on my boots and cuts on my arms proved the Hollow had ever been real.

I ran back down the mountain.

Faster than I ever had.

My legs weren't tired. They wanted the strain.

My body didn't ache. It craved the challenge.

At the bottom, Grandpa stood waiting. Same place as always—near the rusted gate, thermos in hand, watching the incline like it might speak to him.

He squinted as I approached.

"You're early," he muttered.

I said nothing.

He looked at my gloves.

Then his eyes darkened—not with fear. Not even surprise.

Recognition.

"You found it," he said quietly.

He didn't mean the gloves.

He meant the Hollow.

"I'm ready," I told him, my voice more certain than I expected.

Grandpa nodded, slow. The wind moved through the trees behind him like breath.

Then he turned and walked away without a word.

As I followed, I felt the mountain shift behind me.

It was watching.

Waiting.

The next step wasn't just mine.

It had been planned.