My Hollow System

Chapter Sixteen – Shadow Games and Blood Vows

Let me just say this: if you ever find yourself in a smoke-choked, Hollow-infested city with a ragtag team of rebels, a half-activated apocalypse beast inside you, and a secret organization trying to shove you into their idea of salvation... just turn around. Go back. Pick another apocalypse.

Too late for me, though.

We were pinned down behind a half-destroyed tram station, the reinforced columns giving us just enough cover from the aerial drones patrolling above. Adrian crouched beside me, one eye scanning the skies and the other on the pulse scanner in his hand. The screen flickered with a flurry of red dots. Not good.

“How many?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.

He grimaced. “Too many. And they’re closing in.”

“Great,” I muttered. “Guess now’s not the time for a group hug and a sing-along.”

“I don’t suppose your inner monster wants to clock in for the night shift?”

I felt it like an itch in my veins, the beast just beneath the surface, watching, waiting. It wasn’t asleep. It was awake. Very awake. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to unleash it again, not after what happened in the last city.

“I need more control,” I said. “Last time... I lost myself. And people died.”

Adrian looked me dead in the eye. “And more people will die if we stay here. You’ve got the power, Elias. You’ve just got to own it before it owns you.”

Spoken like someone who wasn’t a ticking biological warhead.

Before I could argue further, a flash of movement to our left caught my eye. A trio of figures moved through the smoke tall, armored, and moving like they owned the place.

Viratech.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered.

Adrian ducked back behind the pillar. “They’re sweeping the sector. Black Sun’s likely backing them up. This is a full-on clampdown.”

I growled under my breath. “They want me. Fine. Let’s give them a warm welcome.”

“You sure?”

“No,” I said. “But if I don’t start fighting back, they’ll never stop coming.”

I let the change begin slowly like cracking open a pressure valve. My veins lit up with a faint bioluminescence, my senses sharpening until I could hear the rhythmic thud of enemy boots and smell the burning ozone from the drones above.

The beast stirred.

But this time, I didn’t let it take the wheel. This time, I stayed behind the controls.

“Let’s move,” I said, standing tall.

Adrian blinked at me. “You’re glowing.”

“Yeah, let’s hope it’s the ‘save-the-day’ kind of glow and not the ‘detonate-in-five-seconds’ kind.”

We moved like shadows through the tram station, using the terrain to our advantage. Every moment felt stretched, my mind processing details faster than ever. I saw the shimmer of cloaking fields before the ambushers moved. I heard the click of safeties being disengaged before their fingers touched the triggers.

We hit them hard and fast. Adrian took the left flank, dropping two soldiers with precise shots to the joints in their armor. I launched myself into the middle of the formation, fists and claws tearing through their lines.

One of the Viratech troopers tried to jab me with a neural disruptor.

Bad idea.

I caught his arm, twisted it, and hurled him into a steel column. He hit it with a crunch and slid to the ground, groaning.

The remaining soldier threw down his rifle and bolted. Smart guy.

I turned to Adrian. “Clear?”

“For now.”

But just as we caught our breath, the air shimmered with static, and a cold voice rang out from the station’s speaker grid.

“Elias Mercer. You’re adapting well. Faster than we projected.”

I froze. I knew that voice.

Sloane.

Adrian tensed beside me. “How the hell is he talking to us?”

I pointed to the old surveillance camera above the archway. “He’s watching.”

The voice continued. “Every choice you make brings you closer to us. You can’t fight what’s in your blood, Elias. You were made for this.”

“Yeah?” I snarled. “Then your experiment’s going rogue.”

He laughed a deep, cold sound that made my skin crawl. “Rogue or not, you’ll come to us. They always do. When the world turns against you, we’ll be the only ones who understand you.”

I resisted the urge to smash the camera. Instead, I looked straight at it. “I’ll find you, Sloane. And when I do, I’ll show you what your perfect evolution looks like.”

The transmission cut off with a soft pop.

Adrian and I exchanged a look. “We need to move,” he said. “Now.”

We slipped out of the tram station and into the underground service tunnels beneath the city. These were relics from the old world dark, forgotten, and very haunted-looking. But they were off grid, which meant no drones, no Viratech patrols.

Unfortunately, it also meant something else entirely.

“You feel that?” I asked as we crept deeper into the tunnels.

Adrian nodded. “Yeah. Like the air’s watching us.”

We weren’t alone.

At first, it was just distant scraping. Then a low hiss. Then the unmistakable howl of a Hollowed.

A big one.

A shape lunged from the darkness twisted, elongated, eyes glowing like embers. But this one wasn’t feral. It wore a makeshift cloak. Its limbs were too calculated, its gaze too intelligent.

“What the hell?” Adrian muttered.

It spoke.

“You reek of change, Elias Mercer. The virus sings in your blood.”

I took a step forward. “You can talk.”

It tilted its head. “You can too. That doesn’t mean you’re human.”

I stared at it. “What are you?”

“I am what comes after,” it said simply. “And you… you are the bridge.”

With that, it vanished into the darkness, its final words echoing in the silence.

“The Hollowed are evolving.”

We stood in stunned silence.

“Did we just get cryptically threatened by a sentient zombie?” Adrian asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Awesome. I’m gonna need ten showers and a therapy session.”

We pushed deeper into the tunnels until we reached an old maintenance hub. There, we regrouped with the remaining members of Adrian’s cell about a dozen, tired and beaten but alive. One of them, a wiry girl named Lex, handed me a datapad.

“We tapped into a partial Viratech broadcast,” she said. “You need to see this.”

I played the video.

It showed a new type of Hollowed. Bigger. Smarter. Organized. They were attacking survivor outposts in coordinated strikes.

“Black Sun,” I muttered.

Adrian looked grim. “They’re breeding them. Training them. Making an army.”

“Not just an army,” I said. “A new species.”

Lex pointed to the map overlay. “There’s a facility east of here. Deep in the quarantine zone. We think that’s where they’re doing it.”

A cold realization settled in my chest.

“That’s where I was born.”

Adrian raised an eyebrow. “You mean?”

I nodded. “That’s the lab where I was infected. Where the System activated.”

Lex looked between us. “Then that’s where we go.”

Everyone in the room turned to me. I felt the weight of their stares, of the moment. The fate of what was left of the world might lie in that place.

The beast inside me growled. It wanted to go. Needed to go.

I nodded. “We move at dawn.”

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I stood alone on a broken platform overlooking the city. Fires burned in the distance. The skyline was a skeleton of its former self.

“You’re getting stronger,” said a voice behind me.

It was her.

The woman from the facility,hooded, sharp-eyed, mysterious.

“You followed us?”

She shrugged. “You’re interesting. And reckless. A fun combo.”

I turned to her. “What do you want?”

She walked forward, her gaze piercing. “To see if you’re the one who can end this.”

“I don’t even know what I am.”

“You’re what they fear,” she said. “You’re what the world becomes if it survives.”

“That doesn’t sound reassuring.”

She reached into her coat and tossed me a small device. It projected a 3D scan of my DNA sequence, overlaid with something... not human.

“What is this?”

“Proof that you’re not alone. There are others. Like you.”

I stared at the projection. “Where?”

She smirked. “You’ll find them. Or they’ll find you.”

Before I could question her further, she turned and vanished into the shadows.

Typical.

By morning, we were ready. Gear loaded. Weapons prepped. The team was small, but we had purpose. And I had something else.

Clarity.

As we moved out, Adrian walked beside me. “You sure about this?”

“Nope,” I said. “But I’m done running. Time to finish what they started.”

“Just try not to explode mid-mission.”

“No promises.”

We set off toward the facility that started it all. Toward the birthplace of the Eclipse Strain. Toward the truth.

The beast within me stirred again.

This time, I didn’t fear it.

This time, I welcomed it.