Earth's night sky was no longer serene.
Above, the fractured Moon pulsed like a wounded god, leaking light and ash into the stars. Where Vorax had struck, something else now stirred—something born not of flesh, but of void and thought. The Hollow Moon was no longer just broken. It was becoming.
Within the Justice League's war room, the silence was heavier than steel. The remaining members gathered around a massive 3D model of the Moon, now crawling with unnatural heat signatures and gravitational spikes.
Superman hovered slightly off the ground, arms crossed tightly across his chest. "We've confirmed it," he said. "There's something inside. Something alive."
"It's not Vorax," Wonder Woman added. "It doesn't match his energy signature."
"No," Martian Manhunter murmured. "It's worse. It's raw. Not a god. Not a demon. Not even a mind. It's a question—and the longer it remains unanswered, the more dangerous it becomes."
Raven stood in a corner, eyes black as pitch, a cold sweat tracing down her temple. "It's feeding," she said. "On trauma. Memory. Belief. Every broken oath and dying prayer—every nightmare spoken aloud since Vorax arrived—it's listening."
Green Lantern's ring flared instinctively. "Then we hit it now, before it grows teeth."
"No," Raven snapped. "That's what it wants. The Hollow One… it doesn't want to destroy the world. It wants to understand it—by taking it apart."
A holographic wave pulsed from the fractured Moon in the projection—resonating deep bass notes that made everyone's bones rattle. Flash leaned forward. "What the hell was that?"
"An awakening," Raven said softly. "The Moon just spoke for the first time."
---
In orbit, a stealth satellite array launched by ARGUS flickered with data overload. Inside one of the control pods, Amanda Waller scowled as screens burst with red static.
"The thing in the Moon just tapped into the emotional spectrum," one tech shouted. "Yellow spikes. Then blue. Now… black?"
"No known spectrum fits what we're reading," another muttered. "It's like it's forming a new one. Something unnatural."
Waller didn't blink. "It's learning how to feel," she said flatly. "Prep every asset. I want Suicide Squad Black, the Spectre dampener array, and Constantine locked in a room by midnight."
She stared at the screen as it flickered to the Moon's surface—where a crater shifted… no, breathed.
Something inside the Moon was pushing outward, cracking the remaining shell like an egg.
---
Far above, Vorax watched.
He had returned to his perch upon the edge of space, the tatters of broken time and dark gravity cloaking him like a second skin. The creature within the Moon was not of his design. It was an aberration—a bastard offspring of ruin and suffering, coalesced by the collapse of order.
He did not fear it.
But it intrigued him.
It had no name. No flesh. No creed. And yet it grew—drawing substance from fear, from silence, from the resonance of meaning lost. Where Vorax had destroyed, this thing gathered. It scavenged the leftovers of divinity.
A parasite of aftermath.
Vorax extended a hand toward the fractured Moon, feeling its thrum. For a brief instant, it responded.
"Who am I?" the presence whispered—not in words, but in the quivering of the void.
Vorax retracted his hand.
Let it crawl, he thought. Let it seek purpose. The beast born of nothing would find no cradle among gods.
He turned away.
Let it descend.
---
Gotham City fell into full blackout. Every screen flashed the same message—three flickering glyphs, pulsing in a strange cadence. Batwoman Who Laughs stood atop Wayne Tower, black ichor bleeding from the corners of her grin.
She stared at the fractured Moon like a proud mother watching her child walk for the first time.
"Oh yes," she cooed. "Sing to me, my beautiful mistake."
Behind her, her followers—twisted parodies of the Bat Family—began to chant, low and rhythmic, mimicking the pulse from the Moon. A corrupted Robin trembled as he opened a book bound in skin and nails.
"We called it 'The Hollow One,'" he muttered, teeth chattering. "But it calls itself… nothing. Because it doesn't know what it is."
"That's the point," Batwoman said, spinning. "It was born from our question marks. From the cracks. From the discarded."
She leaned close to him, whispering like a mother telling a bedtime story.
"Vorax broke the world open. Now the Hollow One will wear its skin and ask… why does it hurt?"
---
Back on Earth, in the Tower of Fate, Zatanna and Doctor Fate channeled ritual containment spells. The air reeked of burning myrrh and old sins.
"We must bind it before it finds its form," Zatanna said, her voice shaking.
"It's too late," Fate replied grimly. "It already has."
Zatanna froze. "What?"
Doctor Fate lifted his hand. From the center of the room, a swirling void coalesced into a rough shape—humanoid, but shifting. Bones that weren't bones. A heart that beat like a thunderclap. Hollow sockets that stared into everything and saw nothing.
And in its chest—a mirror. Cracked. Empty. Waiting.
"Each of us," Fate whispered, "has seen it before. In dreams. In moments of despair. In the second before death. This creature is us, inverted. Not evil. Not divine. Just… unsorted."
The Hollow One twitched. Then it spoke.
Not in a scream.
But in a question.
"What is purpose?"