The Hollowed

The first thing you notice about a Hollowed is the silence. No footsteps, no breathing, no rustle of clothing against skin � because there is no friction, no effort, no will behind the motion. They simply drift. Their feet find the ground without impact. The mist parts around them without resistance. They move like a thought unfinished. They walk toward light. Not sunlight � they are indifferent to the sun. Moon fragment light. A Hollowed in the Sunken Quarter will turn its face toward the drowned crater of Greyvast's central square, where the largest fragment lies submerged. It will walk into the water and keep walking until its head disappears beneath the surface. The body does not drown. It does not resurface. It simply continues, deeper, drawn by a pull that no longer requires lungs to obey. Proximity corruption is the true danger. A living human within twenty feet of a Hollowed will feel it � a humming in the bones, a thinning at the temples, the same Stage One symptoms that mark the beginning of the Pale-Touched transformation. The longer you stay, the faster the erosion. A Hollowed is not a predator. It is a leak. A wound in the world that spreads Yssara's touch to anyone who comes too close. The Oathbound Remnants have developed a ritual for dealing with them. When a Remnant finds a Hollowed, she names it. She does not know the name � she guesses, based on the shape of the face, the remnants of a scar, the way the fingers are curled. She says the name aloud. She says: I remember you. And then she drives her blade through the skull, where the light is brightest. The Hollowed does not react. The light does not fade immediately. But the Remnant has done her duty � the name was spoken, and Mourne will not take it. No one knows how many Hollowed walk the ruins of Northern Velkaris. The Sunken Quarter alone is estimated to hold hundreds. They drift past each other without acknowledgment, bodies that were once neighbors, friends, family � now strangers to everything except the light they follow.