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The last thing I remember is pain. Pain happens along all across my soul, I scream, but my voice feels somewhere else, I feel like I’m fading, like myself and I are falling and I don’t know how to stop it. I feel these unfamiliar strings around my soul, I feel them shatter and fall. The little sparks that make me fall to the floor, pieces I didn’t even know I had and didn’t even knew I needed. And now they are gone.
For one moment, I feel free, the pain stops, and then shackles bind me, and they take me underwater, take my heart and consciousness and drown it, until I do not know who I am anymore, just their beautiful pet.
My life then is dealt in half-breaths, barely lucid, there’s nothing left, I am but a soul floundering in the endless sea. This sea used to be my home, used to be what I am. Every ripple an event that happened and changed me, but now there’s nothing left. This water is my salvation, and this water is my drowning.
Every now and then, when they aren’t watching, I try to pull myself to the surface, I stop drowning and start struggling against the water that is my soul. But then they wake up, and then I fall again.
At one time, I met a person that felt familiar, they looked at me with such an aggrieved expression and I didn’t know who they were, I saw as they screamed and screamed fighting a thousand of my brethren, my fellow Hollowed.
They take you away, and I don’t feel a thing. You scream, “Remember me! Don’t you remember me?” I don’t react, this is who I am, this is who I forever will be. They bring you away, and I never see you again.
An unknowing child approaches me once, and I don’t speak, they ask, “What is your name?” They hold a cone of treat cream in their hand, and they ask again. I cannot answer, I wish to scream, I want to say my name, but my body doesn’t react. I am empty, I am a husk. I am Hollowed.
Your parents come to bring you away, knowing what I am, and knowing that I am something that should not be near, they call me Hollowed, they call me a piece of skeleton filth, they say all the things when I did nothing that I remember. I stand lifelessly, looking at the boy as his parents scold him for getting close to a Hollow.
I wish to say something, but despite my efforts, my throat does not work, its magic no longer reverberates and I stand lifelessly as those who do not know tell lies to the ear of that child. I cannot grieve, I cannot feel, my emotions are gone, I stand lifelessly.
I am still a husk. I am a Hollow. I try to move my head, call for my magic, but the feeling comes out with nothing. I stare lifelessly as I protect a skeleton I do not care for, and I stare into the lifeless eyes of one of my brethren.
I wonder if this is how I look like, empty, eye-lights filled with nothing but lifeless screams, the slight colorations of my eyes gone, left with nothing but a spiritless white.
A boy comes again, he feels familiar, but I do not remember him. I try to search my memories, but they fall through my skeletal fingers like sand.
“They say you are a bad skeleton, they say that you hurt a lot of people and now you’re good,” the boy speaks to me. Nobody is here, nobody to hear, but I know if I am Commanded I will have to report this boy to them. I just wish that I do not remember enough to incriminate him.
“I don’t believe that, they say soul cracks are good, but it always hurts so much,” he speaks again. I feel nothing for this boy, but for a moment, and only for a moment, shorter than the plank constant, I feel like I should have felt something.
I stare lifelessly into his eye-lights and I do not know what he sees to look at me with that kind smile. “I don’t believe them. You’re good, I can see it in your eyes. I just don’t know, you treat me better than anyone else does.” And isn’t that a heartbreaking thought, if I had a heart anymore. Instead, I continue staring lifelessly into his eye-lights.
He pats me, and then he says, “I will save you, skeleton friend. You’re my friend now, don’t forget that.” And I just watch him leave, as I cannot speak, I cannot move, I cannot feel.
The day after, they Command me to give them a report, and I muster enough power to flow to the surface and hide the secret of the boy. That he will come to Save me.
I spend the day watching lifelessly as the people around me do things that I think I used to do, and I should feel grief, but I still don’t feel anything. I am a Hollow, a husk. I will obey the Council.
A ruckus begins in the Skeleton District, and I am Commanded to help, it’s a small resistance movement, a family who had one of their relatives Hollowed. I spend my time as I attack them, I use magic for the first time in a long time, and it feels like it’s being torn out of me, I move as fluidly as the wind, as the waters grow more restless, I feel like drowning but I cannot stop, they push my limits, and I feel myself drown.
I fade in that moment and when I awoken again, I am in a meeting room, rest does not come easy, we do not rest. We stand like statues and stare lifelessly.
I look as the battle is finished and they are here. They order us to take them to Glimmerstone, and despite not knowing where that is, I bring them there. I am to stand guard at the doors, and I hear the screams.
I feel like I know those screams, but I stare lifelessly, I cannot feel, I stand as these people, these skeletons become like me, and they are Hollowed.
They stare at me when they are done, lifeless in their stare, they look more dead than anything, and I wonder if anyone else is like me, stuck in a fate worse than hell, stuck underneath perpetual life. Never to be heard, but cast underwater.
Do they scream too in their heads, fighting the waves that used to be theirs and now betray them?
But before I can finish the thought, I am Commanded and I follow, lifelessly following those who own me. I am a Hollow, I feel no guilt, and I am a loyal servant of the Skeleton Council.
My friend comes once more, he looks older, I do not remember the years as they past. The first one I lied for. And then he says, “I lost one of my relatives to someone like you,” and I stare lifelessly into his eyes.
I cannot say anything, and I try to summon an old magic to comfort, but my magic isn’t there anymore, gone, stolen from my very hands. “I know it’s not your fault, skeleton friend. And I think I’m gonna fight today, I’m gonna fight for you. For the people they killed and the people they Hollowed.” They call me Hollowed, and I finally know what it means.
But before I can hold onto it, scribe it into my own soul, it falls underneath the water, and I don’t feel anything again.
I want to say don’t. I want them to stop this, I know how this ends. And one is far better than the other. This fate is worse than death. And I would wish it on no one.
But I stay there, lifeless, as another falls to the tyranny.
A ruckus begins once more and I am called to action, but this time is different. This isn’t a riot for riot’s sake. This is a rescue mission. They strike and destroy all the non-Hollowed, and take me with them. The only one left. I think I should feel bad, and I see the person I saw who screamed for me. Who knew me, and she stares at me with my friend.
They bring me along, and I follow, lifelessly. I haven’t been commanded, and so I am able to move my skeleton albeit as it protests against moving, the magic flowing in the air commanding me to stop.
But it’s weak now, and I come to a place underneath, hidden and forgotten.
“My dear, do you remember me?” And I still stare lifelessly into her eyes. Who was she to me? Was she someone I loved? Someone I cared deeply for? I stare and nothing happens. I do not remember.
She pulls my fingers and my friend watches, she looks scarred, more hurt, I wonder how she’d escaped, anyone we’ve taken were Hollowed or killed.
She escaped, and I should feel happy that a person I knew escaped carefree. I know I haven’t. But I still feel nothing. I stare from the bottom of my well of life, and I look as she tries to put healing magic into me.
It creaks at my bones, but the magic isn’t around me. I try to reach for her, for her magic hoping that it can pull me out and Save me. But it is fruitless.
And then I hear it, marching, a formation of my fellow Hollowed and I know what is to happen. My friend is here and my.. someone, I call for them, I reach for myself and drag myself up to the surface, and for a moment, I summon something to attack them before they can attack me.
I shouldn’t have done that. They know where we are now. Both of them drag me with them, they drag me, and I feel adrenaline for the first time in forever.
I feel alive, for a moment. But I realize as the magical attacks, a litany of bones and a marching army of skeletons come after us.
I was always living on borrowed time. And now I’ve dragged all of them with me. They drag me alone, seeing a fragment of life. They are exhilarated, and my only moment of life is being afraid. We can’t win. We already lost.
I don’t even know who she is to me, I don’t know who he is to me.
But before I can find out more, a litany of bones come and impale us all. We’re dying. We’re all dying, I feel the smell of dust in the air. And I know that we’re dead already.
And the magic fades, the magic that kept me captive, and I remember. I remember who she is to me. I remember her. My beloved, my dear, my starlight. And my friend, my child. A child she hid from the rest of them.
I remember, the magic lets me go. And I look into her eyes and we cry. My child dies on my side, crying and tearing out. And I look at her, my starlight, and I simply say, “You shouldn’t have come back for me.”
She looks at me and cries as we’re dying, fading. She pushes healing magic into me. She tries to save me, and I don’t know why she’s still trying. I don’t know why we’re still alive. But I say something to her with the severed bonds, I pick them back up from the floor, and I simply say to her.
You can fight to keep me alive, but I already died a long time ago.
And with that, she stops giving me her healing magic, and we die in each other’s arms, as I hear one of the generals of the Skeleton District say, “defective skeleton.”