The hollow Verge

The Unraveling

The darkness was absolute. Elias couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t hear his thoughts. It was as if he had ceased to exist, a mere echo in the void. He had been pulled into something beyond comprehension, a place where time had no meaning, and reality was a fragile construct. For what felt like an eternity, he drifted, suspended in a state of nothingness, waiting for the next moment, for something to break the oppressive silence.

And then, a faint light flickered, distant and far away. It was like a spark in the night, a single flicker of hope or madness—Elias couldn’t decide. The light seemed to grow, spreading outward like the ripples in a pond, pushing back the darkness, forcing it to recede.

With a sharp breath, Elias felt his senses return. He was no longer suspended in the void. He was standing—no, he was kneeling—on solid ground. His hands pressed against the cold, smooth surface beneath him, and he blinked, trying to focus on the world around him.

It wasn’t the forest anymore.

The surroundings were unfamiliar, alien. The ground was made of stone, ancient and weathered, like the ruins of some lost civilization. Massive pillars rose from the earth, twisting and curling as though they were growing out of the very ground itself. Their surfaces were covered in strange symbols, glyphs that seemed to shift and pulse as he looked at them, impossible to decipher but impossible to ignore. The air was thick with the scent of something metallic, like the tang of iron, but it wasn’t blood. It was something else—something older.

Elias’s heart pounded in his chest as he tried to push himself up, his legs unsteady. The sensation of being here—of belonging here—gnawed at him, filling him with an unsettling sense of familiarity. As if this place had always been his true home, the place where he had always belonged.

But that was impossible, wasn’t it?

This wasn’t Graymere. This wasn’t even the forest.

No, this was something deeper, something beyond the village, beyond the curse. This was the true heart of it all.

And standing in the middle of the ruins, his eyes finally adjusted to the dim light, Elias saw it.

A door.

A massive stone archway, its surface adorned with the same shifting symbols as the pillars, loomed ahead of him. It was nothing like a normal door—it was a passage, a gateway to something else. The air around it shimmered, distorting like heat rising from the ground, as though it was a door between worlds.

He could hear the whispers again—faint, distant, but growing louder. The voice that had called him, that had led him down this path, was back. Only now, it wasn’t just a whisper. It was a chorus, a cacophony of voices, all echoing in his mind, speaking in unison.

“It’s time. It’s always been time.”

The weight of the words crashed down on him, settling in his bones. He could feel it now, in the deepest parts of his mind—the truth he had been running from, the truth he had been denying. Graymere wasn’t just a village. It wasn’t just a curse. It was a gateway, a door to something far more ancient, far more powerful than anything he had ever imagined.

And he was the key.

The realization hit him like a bolt of lightning. The figure, the voice, the visions—it had all been leading to this moment. He wasn’t a victim of Graymere. He was its creation. The forest, the village, the whispers—they had shaped him, molded him into the person he was supposed to be. He had always been a part of this place, a part of this cursed existence.

The door beckoned, and Elias felt a strange compulsion to move toward it. His feet shifted, his body responding without thought, without hesitation. He was walking toward the portal, his breath shallow, his pulse quickening with every step.

The whispers grew louder, more insistent.

“Come.”

It wasn’t just an invitation. It was a command, a demand. Elias had no choice now. He had always been meant to walk through that door, to fulfill whatever dark purpose had been laid out for him from the very beginning.

He reached the doorway, and the air around him crackled, the energy surrounding it like a living thing, vibrating with power. As his hand reached out, he could feel the pulse of the door beneath his fingertips, like a heartbeat. The moment his fingers made contact, the world seemed to shift. The ground beneath him trembled, the air growing thick with energy.

And then, in an instant, everything changed.

The door flung open, a blinding light pouring through the crack, overwhelming Elias’s senses. He could feel the pull, the force drawing him in, urging him to step through, to let go of everything he knew, to embrace whatever awaited him on the other side.

With one last breath, Elias stepped forward.

And the world collapsed around him.

---

He was falling.

Not into darkness. No, this wasn’t darkness. This was something else—something alive. The air around him was thick, charged with a strange, pulsing energy that vibrated in his bones. He felt it coursing through him, wrapping around him like tendrils of some unseen force, pulling him deeper, farther, into the unknown.

Elias couldn’t scream. He couldn’t move. He was trapped, suspended in a void where nothing existed except the pulsating energy around him.

Then, he hit the ground.

It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t painful. It was like landing on something soft, something welcoming. His vision blurred, and when it cleared, he found himself standing once more. But this time, he was not alone.

Around him stood figures, dark silhouettes against a backdrop of burning light. Their faces were obscured by shadows, their forms shifting and changing, like smoke swirling in the wind. But Elias knew who they were.

They were him. All of him.

The realization washed over him in a wave of terror and awe. These were his past selves—his true forms, the countless versions of him that had existed before, the ones that had been lost to time, to the curse, to Graymere. These were the echoes of his own soul, fragmented and scattered throughout the ages.

And now, they had come together.

“You are ready.”

The voice echoed, coming from everywhere and nowhere. It wasn’t the voice of the figure anymore. It was all of them. All the voices of his past, calling to him, beckoning him forward.

Elias took a step toward them, feeling the weight of his past selves surround him, the pull of their presence urging him to join them. They were the key, the final piece of the puzzle. And as he stepped forward, he understood.

Graymere had not been the end. It had been the beginning.

And now, Elias was complete.