The door closed behind them with a sound like a scream being swallowed. One moment they were in the forest, feet crunching on pine needles and breath fogging in the night air, and the next they were inside something vast and wrong.
The sky was gone. Above them stretched nothing but black, deeper than shadow. It pressed down, silent and watching. The ground beneath their feet had changed too. Stone, old and slick with time, veined with veins of silver that pulsed faintly like heartbeat trails. The air stank of iron, dust, and memory.
Alex stood frozen, eyes wide, every part of him vibrating with something he couldn't name. It was like stepping into a memory that wasn't his. A cold familiarity washed over him—recognition without recollection.
Harper gripped the bat tighter in her hand.
"Don't speak unless spoken to," Liam said softly. "And don't look anyone directly in the eyes."
Alex turned to him. "Who exactly are we going to see?"
Liam didn't answer. He just started walking.
They followed, deeper into the impossible space. The walls here weren't made of stone but of bone, mortared with ash and soot. Skulls stared out from alcoves like silent judges. Whispering began to rise around them, low and indistinct, like voices behind walls.
"Are those real?" Harper asked.
"Yes," Liam said. "All of them."
They reached a hall that opened into a courtyard of thorns. Giant trees, black and bare, stretched into the skyless dark. Their branches twisted like claws, and the ground beneath them glimmered with shattered glass.
At the center stood a throne of silver and smoke.
Upon it sat the king.
He was not beautiful, not in the way Liam was. He was jagged, sharp in places the eye could not follow, tall and gaunt, and ancient beyond understanding. His skin was pale as the moon, his eyes darker than the void above them, and his mouth was a red line that never moved but always seemed to smile.
Liam dropped to one knee.
"Father."
The king's voice, when it came, was not spoken but felt. It bypassed ears entirely and echoed directly in the skull.
"Liam. The exile returns."
Liam kept his head down. "I come seeking your knowledge."
"You bring humans to my court. One reeks of iron and fear. The other..."
Alex felt the gaze settle on him. It felt like drowning.
"...smells of broken prophecy."
Harper stepped in front of Alex instinctively. The king did not move.
"You come uninvited, hybrid."
Alex stepped forward despite Harper's warning hand.
"I didn't know what I was until a few days ago. I still don't. But something is hunting me. It called itself Hollowborn. Liam said you might know what that means."
The king studied him for a long moment.
"The Hollowborn are not a thing. They are a curse. A remainder of a time when gods walked in skin. They should not exist. That one came for you means the old seals are breaking."
Alex's heart pounded. "What does that mean for me?"
"It means you are the lock. Or the key. Perhaps both."
Harper hissed. "That doesn't help."
The king ignored her.
**"Your blood is not singular. You are part human, part vampire... and something older still. Something we thought wiped out."
Alex staggered back. Liam caught him.
"What do we do?" he asked.
"You run. You hide. You pray. Or... you let me unmake him."
Harper lunged. "Like hell."
The king raised a single finger, and she froze mid-motion. Not paralyzed. Time around her had stopped.
Alex shouted. "Let her go!"
"She is safe. For now. I will not harm her. Yet. But you, boy... you must understand. You are a fracture in the veil. Every breath you take widens the crack between this world and what waits behind it. The Hollowborn are just the first. If you live, others will follow."
Liam stood, defiant. "Then we fight them."
"You are still young, my son. Still foolish. There is no fighting the sea. You only drown slower."
Alex stepped forward again. "But why me? What am I?"
The king rose.
He did not walk—he unfolded, each motion wrong and too long, like a shadow stretching in reverse.
He moved toward Alex until they were inches apart.
"You are a mistake. A forgotten page. You were never meant to exist. And now, existence is unraveling around you. That is what you are."
Liam pushed between them. "Enough. If you won't help us, then we leave."
"You cannot leave unless I allow it."
The court around them suddenly came alive. Eyes blinked open in the darkness. Dozens. Hundreds. Creatures that had been hidden now stirred. The walls pulsed. The air thickened.
And then the king smiled—truly smiled, wide and red.
"But I will allow it. Because I am curious to see what breaks first: the world or you."
With a wave of his hand, time snapped back into motion. Harper stumbled forward, gasping. The doors behind them reopened.
The king turned away.
"Go. And do not come again unless you come to die."
They didn't wait.
Liam grabbed Alex, Harper grabbed her bat, and together they fled through the opening.
When they crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind them. The sky was back. The world real again.
But everything felt changed.
Alex stood in the grass, breathing hard, heart slamming.
Liam looked at him. "Are you okay?"
"No," Alex whispered. "But I think I'm starting to understand."
Harper wiped sweat from her brow. "He wanted to break you."
Alex nodded. "He didn't."
Liam looked toward the woods. "We have to move again. If the Hollowborn are following you, they won't be far."
Alex looked at his hands. They were shaking again. But not from fear.
Something had changed in him.
The king had called him a mistake.
But mistakes could still rewrite stories.
He clenched his fists.
"Let them come. I'm done running."
And in the shadows, something stirred—not the Hollowborn, but something deeper. Watching. Waiting.
Because the king had been wrong about one thing.
Alex was not just a key.
He was a door.