The Hollow Beckons
The first scream came just before dawn.
It echoed across the high trees—long, wet, and wrong. Not human. Not animal. A sound that shook the crows from their perches and split the morning mist like bone.
By the time Cuco reached the Circle, the wards were already failing.
Dreamers sprinted across the grounds, trying to re-bind the sigils with trembling hands. Some shouted orders. Others whispered prayers. But none of them said what they were thinking:
> The Hollow Ones were no longer circling. They were coming.
---
Isabela met Cuco at the outer gate, her face pale beneath the blood-smear on her cheek.
"They breached the northern line. Two Dreamers are missing."
Her eyes flicked toward the weapon at his side—the root-blade, now fully awake, humming softly like a wasp nest.
"I didn't summon them," Cuco said quietly.
"I know."
But her voice held doubt.
---
That night, something stalked the Circle.
Something inside the perimeter.
Tariq found tracks near the eastern stones—long, clawed, but impossibly light. As if the creature had glided rather than walked.
"It wasn't Hollow," he whispered to Cuco. "Not entirely."
Cuco's gaze dropped to the bark creeping further up his ribs. "Then it was something else."
---
In the council chamber, panic boiled just beneath the surface.
"Containment is impossible now," said Echo, gesturing to the breached wards. "We need to evacuate before the next wave."
"And leave Cuco here to finish what they started?" Nox shot back. "He's the reason they're here in the first place."
Tariq rose. "That's not true."
"He's marked," Nox hissed. "He's not just a Rootbearer. He's a signal. A flag planted in the dirt that tells the dark where to land."
No one disagreed.
Cuco stood at the threshold, listening.
And for the first time—
He didn't feel wounded.
He felt ready.
---
Outside, the trees had gone silent again.
But not with fear.
With anticipation.
And in the far-off hollows of the forest, something breathed.
Not like lungs.
Like roots drawing closer.
> One word passed through Cuco's mind—carved not by thought, but by instinct.
> "Soon."