As I shut my radio silent, I began to take in deep breaths to calm myself.
In the Hollow, everything felt real yet warped, as if I was being submerged beneath a mirage of dissonant memories.
Familiar voices overlapped with the phantom tastes of meals I barely remembered as the smell of petricore filled my nostrils eventually collapsing and synchronizing into an endless cycle of sensations bleeding into each other.
Every time I synchronized with my Hollow, it felt like the world was opening its doors for me for the first time. But no matter how real these memories felt, I'd grown used to ground myself back to reality by closing my eyes and inhaling deeply.
But today, something was wrong.
Even as the crisp morning air filled my lungs, a faint ringing threaded within my ears.
It was barely noticeable at first, yet with every exhale, it grew louder, as if it were hiding behind the rhythm of my breaths.
Something about it made me start to imagine—or remember—an oddly familiar hallway.
Within the darkness of my mind, I began to see black-and-white checkered tiles that looked freshly polished. The surrounding floral yellow wallpaper peeled in long strips, exposing dark stains beneath, like something had seeped through from the other side of the walls.
It reminded me of a condominium... or a- a house... or some place I had been dragged through in a dream that died a long time ago.
At the end of the hallway sat a small round stool. A bright red telephone rested on it, as if it had been placed there just moments before I arrived. It rang softly at first. But as I approached it, the ringing bled into unintelligible whispers; the voices kept trying to form words that never quite made sense.
The sensation was unbearable. It felt as if someone were licking the inside of my skull while hammering it from the outside. With each step I took, the voices clawed for space in my head as if they were prying my ears open with their fingers and rubbing their lips directly against raw nerve endings.
However, When I picked up the receiver, everything fell completely silent.
"Hello?" I mouthed the word, but heard nothing. It felt as if a voice was overlapping until they felt like my own thoughts… rehearsing something I was supposed to say.
A pause. Then a single dry voice spoke.
"Mr. Faust… your appointment is nearly here. How are you feeling today?"
A shiver crawled up my spine. I didn't like going to that damn hospital.
"I… could be better. The medications still seem to be working." The line crackled; my voice sounded delayed, as if someone else was repeating after me a half-second late.
My fingers stiffened around the receiver. Who the hell was speaking? Why am I-?
A sudden terror spread through my arms, from within me, an instinct screaming that I shouldn't be holding the phone, that I should set it down before something bad happens.
The old man's voice flattened.
"Mr. Faust, please don't put down the phone…you need this."
I wanted to reply but then a second voice whispered behind the first, overlapping with it perfectly.
"WAKE UP."
"You need to stop poking around memories that aren't yours."
My own voice scolded me, but it was deeper and disconnected, as if it were transmitted through a cheap radio with each word dragging static in its wake. I couldn't tell whether he was speaking through my memories or if the memories were speaking through him.
"I wasn't trying to" I whisper in my mind, hoping for a response within its void.
Whenever he spoke to me, it was like I was remembering the voice of someone who shouldn't exist. I checked my radio again. No incoming signals. No chatter from my unit or high command.
Whatever I was hearing, it wasn't human or Noctian. The most plausible explanations I came up with was that my Hollow was speaking to me somehow or that I was becoming delusional. I wasn't sure which was worse.
"It's dangerous here; relocate quickly...or do you want to die?" He always tinged with a stupidly sarcastic tone whenever he spoke.
It's strange, really; sometimes, I think I know him. Sometimes something in me reaches out to him, as if I'm ready to call him by a name I don't know.
But that recognition is wrong. Manufactured. Implanted. Manipulated. I know this is true because the only individuals I should know are my fellow Noctian squad mates and the human officials assigned to our unit.
My Hollow is not supposed to speak. He is not supposed to remember. He is not supposed to warn me
Yet somehow he does.
"What are we standing here for? We need to move!" his words fractured as static tore through them.
I completely ignored him and opened my fourth eye to sweep through my weapon's diagnostics. A turquoise display flickered down from the upper right of my vision, humming softly:
WEAPONS
>> MK.3 WL MISSILE — LOAD: 0
>> DREADRIFLE — AMMO: 20
>> WEAVEBLADE — STABILITY: 45%
>> FLARES — LOAD: 1
"Oh yes, what a brilliant idea, check the weapon systems you checked thirty minutes ago. It's not like I can move without you, you know!"
A sudden sharp sensation of irritation bubbled within me and it was absolutely not my own. It pressed into my mind like someone else's sigh settling into my lungs. His annoyance or whatever frustration he was feeling was bleeding into me.
"Can you stop that?" I said.
The static tightened. His voice dropped into a low, vibrating growl:
"A Mage is coming. We've got bigger problems than my tone."
Normally, I wouldn't give much weight to such cryptic warnings but despite his attitude he's never been wrong before.
I know this isn't protocol, it shouldn't even be technically possible. If I were as sane as the other riders, I'd have my M.T.'s core cracked open and its rune-bindings rewritten by the scripters before sunrise. But despite being an annoying thorn, whatever this thing was kept me alive longer than any rider has a right to expect.
Besides, it would feel like betrayal to silence him now… not that I would know what betrayal feels like.
It's useless to ponder about all the specifics, especially when his guidance might be the only thing standing between me and whatever dangers are coming. What matters right now is the mission and the warnings of a "mage."
Which I'm guessing is what they called "callers" in the past.
"Say...what was that memory I saw about?"
"None of your business" He replied quicker than usual.
"It is my business. Besides, you've got no one to talk to except me… Mr. Faust."
Whatever mouth he had was sewn shut whenever the topic shifted to his past. I've tried to probe a response from him, to at least explain how he ended up all the way inside my head…or to at least prove he existed and reassure myself that I wasn't defective.
However it seems like he's as adamant as ever in keeping his identity a secret from me.
"...Fine then stay silent."
By opening my third eye, I open my HUD, its interface overlapped my vision in the middle, with another faint turquoise hologram before my eyes.
Small pulses of Weave readings were dispersed throughout the battlefield, Weave was an energy that emanated from rune-scripted equipment like my M.T. or most likely callers, however there was a single point where it gathered most along the Northeastern Ridge.
He was right, it was a Caller, a high class one at that.
I needed to inform my unit about this quickly, I flicked my eyes to the upper-left corner of my HUD and confirmed communication with the only squad that remained.
"Do you copy, Myers?"