Bren had been missing for four days.
Not a long time, not in Hollow territory—paths looped, rock textures mimicked each other, some caverns twisted enough to confuse even Kael's double-etched maps. But Bren was one of Riku's best. A third-badge hunter, one of the few allowed to scout solo. He left clean markings. Returned on schedule. Memorized the steps back.
Until now.
Riku stood near the mouth of the Hollow's western fork, arms crossed over a cracked thermal cloak, watching a small search party return. They moved in a tight triangle formation, torchlight flickering low against their boots. Their middle figure limped—barefoot, skin stretched, armor plates hanging in rusted tatters.
Kael spoke first. "That's… not how we sent him out."
Bren's eyes looked wrong. Wide, but dry. He blinked as if reacquainting himself with the act.
Riku stepped forward slowly. "Report."
Bren flinched at his voice, then slowly straightened. "Sovereign. I… I walked the line. I swear it. Mapped every corner. Marked the turns. Nothing changed."
Kael exchanged a glance with Sira, who hovered just out of torchlight, arms tense and ready.
"Nothing changed?" Riku asked.
Bren nodded, too quickly. "Except the air got… heavy. Like it didn't want me there."
"How far did you go?"
"Twenty-seven paces past the sulfur shelf. I reached the curve past the glass root wall."
"You didn't go deeper?"
"I didn't leave the corridor."
Riku studied him. Bren's face was leaner, his jaw shadowed by growth—not the stubble of days, but the patchy, erratic fuzz of weeks. His boots were missing, and his toes were wrapped in strips of moss.
Kael squatted beside him, tilting a broken vambrace to examine the edge. "This armor was new."
"It aged?" Sira asked, voice low.
Kael nodded. "It eroded. Heat-pitting, corrosion, even fiber decay. Months at least. Maybe years."
Riku turned back. "Bren. You said you walked the corridor?"
"Yes."
"Did you double back?"
"No. But… I saw someone."
The words landed with weight.
Bren's shoulders hunched. "It was me. I think. Same armor. Same walk. I saw him maybe… twenty meters ahead, on a parallel ledge. Heading toward camp."
Kael's brow furrowed. "You didn't follow?"
"I tried," Bren said. "But the corridor buckled. The path curved, but I didn't turn. I was walking straight, I swear—but it kept… bending."
Silence thickened in the air.
Sira stepped forward. "Did you see where he went?"
"No," Bren said, voice cracking. "He just… vanished."
Riku didn't speak for a long moment. Then he said, "Do you remember your map?"
Bren hesitated. "I think so. I drew one. Down there."
He reached into the pouch still clinging to his side. The leather strap snapped when he tugged it, dry as dead bark. Inside was a thin roll of parchment—damp at the edges but intact.
He handed it over.
Riku unrolled it, smoothing it across the flat of his thigh with gloved fingers. The ink had bled in a few places, but the lines were clear. It mirrored the existing Hollow-west map. But… not quite.
Kael stepped beside him, unfurling the official route.
The differences were subtle at first—minor detours, shifted curves—but then grew stranger. Near the lower quadrant, the route split into spirals. Some doubled back, others twisted without logical anchor. One spiral looped four times, thinning until it stopped in a tight curl… and then a final arrow pointed inward, labeled in Bren's careful script:
Throne Room.
Riku's eyes narrowed.
"How did you label that?"
"I didn't," Bren said.
The room stilled.
Kael read the word again, then handed it to Sira. "You mean you didn't write it?"
"I labeled that segment as 'South Wall Curve.' I swear it. I etched the shorthand myself."
"Same ink?"
"Same."
Riku rolled the map up slowly.
And handed it to Sira.
"Lock it in the vault. Not the main one. The forge-vault."
She nodded and moved out, clutching the scroll like it might burn her.
Kael turned to Bren. "Your other self—was he moving with purpose?"
Bren nodded. "Like he knew the way. Like he belonged there."
Riku turned toward the corridor. The western fork yawned open before them, innocent in its stillness. But something had changed. Bren wasn't hallucinating. The armor, the moss, the time-skip—all too precise. Too tactile.
They weren't dealing with a simple rift.
This was something worse.
The world had begun… looping.
He looked at the spot where Bren had returned.
And imagined what might return next time.