Chapter6
500 Words
Chapter 6 – “The Hollow’s Warning”
The Hollow lived under the Rivermouth Bridge.
Kael found him by following the smell of old paper and rain.
The man looked 50, but his eyes were ancient. He muttered constantly, voices overlapping, none of them his own. He wore layers of coats, even in summer. His hands shook.
“Give it back,” the Hollow said before Kael even spoke. “Before it gives you back.”
Kael sat across from him on the concrete. Water dripped from the bridge above. “What happens if I don’t?”
The Hollow laughed. It sounded like three people at once.
“You become me,” he said. “A jar with no lid. Everything in, nothing out. I had a wife once. I think. I had a name. I had a day at the beach. Now it’s all just noise.”
Kael waited. The Hollow talked in circles, but the truth was there if you listened.
“Three,” the Hollow said. “Three is the limit. I held four once. Thought I could handle it. Fourth one pushed the first out. Then the second. Now I don’t know what’s mine.”
Kael’s hands shook. He held one memory. One. And it was already changing him.
“What about the people you took from?” Kael asked.
The Hollow’s eyes focused for a second. “Some get it back. Most don’t. 24 hours is a long time for your brain to fill with nothing. It makes up stories. Lies. You wake up and you’re not sure what’s real.”
“Why do you tell me this?” Kael said.
“Because I remember being you,” the Hollow said. “Young. Stupid. Thinking you can control it. You can’t.”
Kael stood up. “I can give it back.”
The Hollow leaned forward. “Do it. Before it becomes you.”
Kael walked away, decision made.
He’d find Dorian. He’d give him the memory.
Even if it killed him to let it go.
He walked through the city at dawn. The streets were empty. The memory played on loop in his head. Salt air. Dorian’s voice. Mara’s laugh.
He practiced what he’d say. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. It’s yours.
He stood outside Dorian’s apartment at 6:03 AM. Hand raised to knock.
The door opened before he could.
Dorian stood there, unshaven, eyes red. “You took too long.”
Kael opened his mouth.
Dorian held up a hand. “I don’t want it.”
Kael froze. “What?”
“I want to remember her how she was at the end,” Dorian said. “Not frozen at 16. Not on a beach. I want the hard part too. That’s my sister.”
Kael lowered his hand.
The memory flared behind his eyes, sudden and painful.
He was stuck with it.
He decided to return the memory. But Dorian wasn’t ready to take it. Now Kael had nowhere to put it
- Writer
