My Hollow System

Chapter Fourteen – Monsters, Mayhem, and a Seriously Bad Hair Day

If you’ve never sprinted through a collapsing skyscraper while half-mutated, half-naked, and being chased by genetically enhanced murder-beasts, I highly recommend not trying it.

"Left!" Adrian shouted.

I veered left.

"Right!"

I veered right.

"Up!"

I looked up.

"Seriously?" I muttered, ducking just in time.

"Nice dodge," Adrian said, panting.

"Thanks. "

We skidded to a halt in front of a massive chasm that had opened up in the street.

"Great," I said. "A pit of doom. Just what I needed."

Adrian looked at me. "You can jump that, right?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Do I look like a kangaroo to you?"

He shrugged. "You've got the beast thing going on. Maybe you've got hops."

I took a deep breath, backed up a few steps, and ran.

Adrian followed, less gracefully but successfully.

"See?" he said, brushing himself off. "Kangaroo."

I glared at him. "Don't push it."

We continued through the ruined city, the sounds of battle echoing around us.

Suddenly, a voice crackled in my ear. "Elias? Can you hear me?"

I tapped the communicator. "Dr. Voss? Is that you?"

"Yes. "

"On our way," I said.

We navigated the chaos, finally reaching the subway entrance.

Dr. Voss greeted us, her face etched with concern. "You're hurt."

I looked down.

"I've had worse," I said.

She led us to a makeshift infirmary, where a medic cleaned and bandaged my wound.

"Your transformation is progressing," Dr. Voss said. " "

I nodded. "I can feel it. "

"We need to find a way to control it," she said. " "

Adrian stepped forward. "We've been working on a serum that might help stabilize your condition."

Dr. Voss nodded. "It's experimental, but it could suppress the beast's influence."

I looked at them both. "Let's do it."

They prepared the serum, injecting it into my arm.

Suddenly, alarms blared.

"Intruders detected," a robotic voice announced.

Dr. Voss's eyes widened. " "

Adrian grabbed his weapon. "We need to defend the tunnel."

I stood, the beast within me roaring to life. "Let's show them what happens when you corner a monster."

Let me clarify one thing: when I said “Let’s show them what happens when you corner a monster,” I was being dramatic. Bold. Epic.

What I should’ve said was, “Let’s not die in the next five minutes,” because as it turns out, being epic doesn’t stop a ceiling from exploding.

BOOM!

Chunks of concrete rained from above like someone had ticked off a vengeful sky god. Adrian yanked me backward just in time as a support beam slammed where my head had been a second ago.

“You’re welcome!” he shouted over the chaos.

“Remind me to buy you a fruit basket later!” I shouted back, already morphing.

The serum coursed through my bloodstream like liquid lightning. My vision sharpened. Muscles tensed. Claws extended.

I felt the beast inside stir. Not in the usual bloodthirsty, ‘must destroy everything’ way but like it was waking up groggy and mildly annoyed.

Which, honestly, was a step up.

More explosions. The tunnel shook. Screams echoed down the corridor, and a wave of shadows swarmed the entrance.

No, not shadows,creatures.

Genetically enhanced, armor-skinned, neon-eyed nightmares.

They were the size of gorillas, but sleeker, faster. Like if a velociraptor went through a blender with a tank and landed in a vat of monster energy drink.

Adrian readied his rifle. “Target left!”

“Target right,” I said, and lunged.

We hit them like a tsunami.

Claws met claws. Teeth gnashed. I dodged a slash, raked a creature across its chest, and slammed it into a steel pillar. It howled, twitching in sparks. Bio-tech interface. Semi-cybernetic. Great.

Behind me, Adrian ducked, rolled, and fired a plasma burst into a beast’s mouth. It exploded in a shower of neon-green goo that smelled like radioactive seaweed.

Dr. Voss yelled over the intercom, “Seal the western corridor! They’re breaching the lower levels!”

“We’re a bit busy!” Adrian shouted.

I crushed a monster’s throat with one hand. “Buy us five minutes!”

More came. Always more.

This wasn’t a raid. It was a full-on invasion.

And somehow, they were tracking me.

The serum had stabilized me for now but the Hollow inside wasn’t happy. It growled in my head, coiled like a serpent under my skin, waiting.

The battle raged on. Fire, steel, bone. Every instinct screamed to let go to unleash the Hollow fully. But I held back.

Barely.

Adrian’s voice cut through the chaos. “Fall back! Emergency shaft forty meters east!”

I turned, only to find three creatures blocking the path. Their eyes glowed brighter, syncing. Coordinating.

Smart. Too smart.

One pounced.

Mid-air, time slowed. I twisted, grabbed its leg, and slammed it into its buddy like a demonic baseball bat. The third leapt, but Adrian intercepted it with a grenade launcher.

BOOM. Ceiling collapsed again.

This time, not from attack he’d done it on purpose. Cut us off from the horde.

Smart. Reckless. Classic Adrian.

“Tunnel’s closed,” he said, panting. “We gotta move before the whole place comes down.”

We sprinted through the emergency corridor, a narrow maintenance shaft barely wide enough for my now mutating shoulders. Lights flickered overhead, casting us in bursts of red and white.

I felt it then.

A pull.

Not physical, not pain.

Psychic.

Something,Someone was calling the Hollow.

And the Hollow was answering.

We burst into an underground chamber that looked like a cross between a mad scientist’s lab and a bomb shelter.

Steel walls. Glowing monitors. Cryo-pods. And in the center?

A glass sphere.

Pulsing with black energy.

I staggered back instinctively. The Hollow inside me screamed in delight.

“What is that?” Adrian whispered.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it wants me.”

Dr. Voss’s voice came through the communicator again. “Elias, listen carefully. That orb is the original Hollow core. It was recovered from Ground Zero five years ago. It’s… alive.”

“Alive?” Adrian asked. “Like, ‘shake hands and say hello’ alive or ‘consume your soul’ alive?”

“Both,” she replied. “It’s connected to all Hollow DNA. Including yours.”

Oh great. So now I had a psychic evil orb for a cousin.

“It’s calling to you,” she said. “You must resist.”

Yeah, that was going great.

The core pulsed again, and a wave of darkness radiated outward, crashing into me like a psychic freight train.

I dropped to my knees.

“Elias!” Adrian knelt beside me. “Talk to me!”

But I couldn’t.

I was falling.

I stood in a void.

Black. Endless. Silent.

Except for the whispering.

A thousand voices, all mine, not mine, echoing in unison.

"Come to us..."

"You are us..."

"Let go..."

The Hollow form emerged in front of me a shadow version of myself, taller, crueler, eyes like twin galaxies devouring light.

“Why do you resist?” it asked, voice smooth as silk over broken glass.

“Because I’m not your puppet.”

It chuckled. “You are already mine. The serum only delayed the truth.”

Behind it, I saw visions—futures—cities burning, people running, me standing atop a mountain of ash, roaring.

“I won’t let that happen.”

“You won’t have a choice.”

Then it lunged.

But I was ready.

I met the shadow with a roar of my own, clashing in midair as the void shattered

I gasped, jerking upright in the real world.

Adrian caught me. “You okay?!”

“No,” I said. “But I’m not dead, so there’s that.”

The orb had dimmed.

But the connection remained.

I could feel the Hollow’s awareness brushing mine like a predator in the tall grass.

Waiting.

Dr. Voss came running into the chamber, guards flanking her. “We have to destroy it.”

I looked at her. “Won’t that alert the others?”

“They already know,” she said grimly. “This attack was a distraction.”

“From what?”

She tapped the screen.

A new blip appeared.

No… not one.

Twelve.

Massive Hollow signals bigger than anything we’d faced heading straight for major cities.

New York. Tokyo. Lagos. London. Rio.

“World War Hollow,” Adrian muttered.

“We need to evacuate the base,” Dr. Voss said. “And you,” she looked at me, “have to decide who you’re going to be.”

I didn’t answer.

Because I didn’t know.

Two hours later, we were on a transport.

The base had been evacuated. The orb was sealed deep underground buried in concrete and steel. It wouldn't hold forever.

I stared out the window as the sun began to rise over the ruined city.

The serum was holding.

But the beast inside wasn’t gone.

It was… watching.

Waiting.

Dr. Voss handed me a folder. “These are the targets. Hollow Queens. The originals.”

Adrian leaned in. “You up for this?”

I looked at them both.

Then at the folder.

Twelve queens. Twelve cities. Twelve chances to stop the end.

“No,” I said, standing. “I’m not up for this.”

They looked confused.

I cracked my knuckles, the Hollow energy shimmering faintly around my fingers.

“I’m built for this.”

Adrian grinned. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

Dr. Voss didn’t smile. “Just remember, Elias every time you use the Hollow, it uses you back.”

“Noted.”

The transport roared forward, our destination blinking on the map.

First stop?

Berlin.

We landed at a German outpost under siege.

Buildings torn apart. Civilians screaming. Hollow beasts crawling the walls like nightmares dipped in steel.

Adrian, Voss, and I led the charge.

We fought through the wreckage,each step,a battle.

And then I saw her.

The Berlin Queen.

Seven feet tall. Wings of bone. A face like death carved from obsidian.

She turned to me and smiled.

“Ah,” she hissed. “The prodigal son.”

I didn’t reply.

Words were wasted on monsters.

I transformed fully this time. Not resisting. Not surrendering.

Merging.

We collided like gods at war.

The Queen was fast blindingly so. Her wings cut the air like razors, slicing stone, steel, flesh.

I bled.

She laughed.

“You are powerful,” she said. “But you are still mine.”

“No,” I snarled. “I belong to no one.”

She drove me back, talons raking across my chest. Pain exploded, but I embraced it.

Used it.

Adrian fired from the rooftops, covering me.

Dr. Voss transmitted power surges through the grid, frying her bio-armor.

And I leapt fangs, claws, rage.

We fell together through a skyscraper, smashing floor after floor until we hit the basement.

She tried to rise.

I pinned her.

Her eyes met mine.

“Finish it,” she whispered. “But know this every queen you slay makes the others stronger.”

“Good,” I growled.

And tore out her throat.

Later, as Berlin burned behind us and civilians began to return, Dr. Voss pulled me aside.

“You did well,” she said.

“Tell that to the three broken ribs,” I muttered.

Adrian handed me water. “One down, eleven to go.”

I looked at the horizon.

The Hollow inside me stirred again, but this time… quieter. Respectful.

Like it was learning.

Growing.

So was I.

But time was running out.

A war was coming.

And I was its front line.