The air inside the sublevel hummed with a low, metallic resonance, like the breath of something vast and dormant. Lena’s boots echoed against the steel floor as she moved past rows of sealed containment units, their surfaces slick with condensation. She’d been told to avoid this sector, but the data logs had whispered to her—patterns in the temperature fluctuations, anomalies in the oxygen readings. Something was wrong. Or perhaps, something was trying to be heard.
The first unit she approached was empty, its glass panel fogged with a fine layer of frost. Lena pressed her palm against it, feeling the cold seep through her gloves. Beyond the barrier, the walls of the chamber sloped inward, narrowing into a dark void. She stepped back, her pulse steady but her mind already racing. This wasn’t a standard containment unit. This was a trap for something that didn’t belong in the facility at all.
A voice crackled through her earpiece. “Lena, you shouldn’t be here.” It was Dr. Voss, his tone clipped, edged with something she couldn’t quite place. Curiosity? Fear?
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” she asked, her own voice calm, almost amused. She turned toward the far end of the corridor, where another unit stood alone, its surface unblemished. The light from the overhead fixtures cast long shadows across the floor, distorting the space in ways that felt deliberate.
“You don’t understand what you’re dealing with,” Voss said. “This isn’t a test anymore. It’s a mistake.”
Lena reached for the unit’s control panel, her fingers brushing against the cold metal. The screen flickered, then went dark. A warning message appeared: **ACCESS RESTRICTED**. She frowned. The facility’s systems were supposed to be foolproof. Unless someone had tampered with them.
A sudden shudder ran through the floor, and the lights above dimmed. Lena froze, her breath catching. The hum in the air shifted, becoming sharper, more insistent. She glanced back at the unit, now glowing faintly, as if something on the other side was trying to reach out.
“What’s happening?” she asked, but Voss didn’t answer. The silence that followed was heavier than the air itself.
The unit’s surface rippled, like water disturbed by an unseen hand. Lena stepped closer, her heart hammering. The cold wasn’t just physical anymore—it was a presence, a weight pressing against her thoughts. She could feel it now, a whisper at the edge of her mind, not words but impressions: *curious*, *hungry*, *waiting*.
“Lena,” Voss said again, this time softer, almost pleading. “Leave it alone.”
She didn’t. Instead, she reached out, her fingertips grazing the surface. The moment they made contact, the world around her fractured. The corridor dissolved into a cascade of light and sound, and Lena was no longer standing in the facility at all. She was in a place that defied logic—a vast, empty expanse where the sky was a shifting mosaic of colors she couldn’t name.
And something was watching her.
It didn’t have a form, not really. It was more like a presence, a pull at the edges of her perception. Lena felt it in her bones, in the marrow of her thoughts. It wasn’t hostile, not exactly. But it was *aware*, and it was *interested*.
“What are you?” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the rising hum in her skull.
The answer came without words. A memory, not her own: a man in a lab coat, his face obscured by shadow, standing before a similar unit. His eyes were wide, filled with something between wonder and terror. The memory dissolved before she could see more, leaving her breathless.
The expanse around her flickered, and suddenly she was back in the corridor, her hand still pressed against the unit. The lights had returned to their normal brightness, but the air still carried that strange, metallic tang. Lena pulled her hand away, her fingers trembling.
“You saw it,” Voss said, his voice now laced with something close to desperation. “You *felt* it. This isn’t just an experiment anymore. It’s a door. And you just opened it.”
Lena didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Her mind was still reeling, still trying to make sense of what she’d seen. The thing on the other side wasn’t just a phenomenon—it was *alive*, and it had been waiting.
She turned back to the unit, her resolve hardening. Whatever this was, whatever it had become, she wasn’t going to let it go unanswered. Not now. Not ever.
The door behind her creaked open, and a figure stepped into the corridor. Lena didn’t need to see their face to know who it was. The facility’s director, the one who had always kept his distance, who had never explained why they were here in the first place.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice low, measured. “This isn’t your responsibility.”
Lena met his gaze, her eyes steady. “It is now.”
The man hesitated, then nodded. “Then you’d better prepare yourself. Because whatever’s on the other side—it’s not just waiting. It’s *learning*.”
And with that, the corridor seemed to shrink, the walls pressing in as if the very air was holding its breath. Lena didn’t look away. She couldn’t. The thing on the other side was still watching, still *curious*. And so was she.
The Hollowing had begun.
