The Hollowing

Chapter 5

The whispers followed us long after we left the place where I fell. They grew bolder, curling around our words, mimicking them. I heard my own voice slip between the echoes, saying things I hadn’t spoken aloud.

"I shouldn’t be here."

"I wonder if Riven will leave me behind."

"What if I never wake up?"

None of them were mine. And yet, they were.

Riven walked ahead, sword drawn. He hadn’t spoken since we left the mist. He didn’t have to. I knew that look. He was searching for a way out, even if we both knew there wasn’t one.

The path narrowed. The trees—if they were trees—grew tighter together, their limbs stretching toward us like hungry hands. The air thickened, slowing our movements. Every step felt heavier than the last.

Then, the ground changed.

Beneath our feet, the reflections sharpened. No longer vague, rippling images, but clear. Too clear.

I looked down and saw not just my reflection—but another version of me.

She stared up, unblinking. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Her fingers curled against the surface, pressing upward, as if trying to break free.

I took a step back. She mirrored me, except—her expression twisted. A cruel smile that never touched my lips.

"Riven," I called, but he was already looking at his own reflection.

His face was pale. His reflection was different too. The mirrored Riven didn’t hold a sword. He stood empty-handed, watching.

Then—

He reached up and touched the surface.

The moment his fingers met the reflection, a crack splintered across the ground. A deep, shattering sound echoed through the Mirrorlands.

The reflections shifted. Our mirrored selves tilted their heads in unison. Their lips parted, whispering something we couldn’t hear.

Then they grabbed us.

Hands shot up from the surface, fingers curling around our wrists. Cold. Too solid for something that wasn’t real. I gasped, yanking back, but the grip was strong. Stronger than me.

Riven slashed down with his sword. The moment steel met reflection, the hands shattered like glass, and a scream ripped through the air.

Not from the reflections.

From the Mirrorlands itself.

Everything rippled. The trees twisted. The sky fractured like a broken window. And beneath us, the reflections began to climb.

We ran.

The ground cracked under our feet. Pieces of the Mirrorlands fell away, swallowed by endless darkness. The whispers turned to shrieks, voices we recognized and voices we didn’t.

And then—

A wall rose in front of us.

A massive mirror, flawless, stretching into the sky. A perfect reflection of the world behind us. And in it—I saw something impossible.

A door.

Riven skidded to a stop beside me. "That wasn’t there before."

I didn’t answer. My heart pounded. The door in the reflection didn’t exist in the real world.

But it did in the mirror.

The figures behind us were still coming. Clawing their way out of the ground, their fingers reaching, their lips moving in silent whispers.

"We go through," I said.

Riven hesitated.

I didn’t.

I reached out and touched the mirror.

And the world flipped inside out.