The Hollow One stood a hundred yards from the wall, unnaturally still amid the desolation. Unlike the mindless, shambling horrors Arashi had glimpsed from afar during previous incursions, this one stood upright, almost human in its posture. It was larger than any he'd heard described, nearly twice the height of a man, with ash-gray skin stretched taut over an emaciated frame. But what truly set it apart were the malformed appendages protruding from its back, twisted, vestigial structures that in some terrible way resembled wings.
Arashi found himself unconsciously reaching for his pocket journal, a habit formed from years of scholarly observation, before remembering he'd left it in the archive. He silently catalogued every detail instead, committing the creature's appearance to memory with the same precision he used when transcribing ancient texts.
"It's just watching," whispered a voice beside him.
Arashi started, nearly losing his balance. Kira crouched next to him, her eyes fixed on the creature beyond the wall. Her presence shouldn't have surprised him, they'd been finding each other in forbidden places since childhood.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed.
"Same as you," she replied without looking at him, the breeze playing with strands of her copper hair that had escaped her practical braid. "Being where we're told not to be."
Despite the situation, Arashi felt a smile tug at his lips. Kira had always been the one person in the village who understood his restlessness, his need to push boundaries. Where he sought knowledge, she sought experience, they were different sides of the same coin, both chafing under the village's protective constraints.
"Shouldn't you be helping your father secure the forge?" he asked, knowing the blacksmith would be frantically distributing weapons.
Kira shrugged, a gesture that managed to convey both dismissal and slight guilt. "He has apprentices for that. Besides, I'm more useful as a scout." She tapped the hunting knife at her belt, a blade she'd forged herself, with a distinctive curve that marked it as uniquely hers. "Someone needs to report back what's really happening, not just what the Elders decide to tell us."
His attention returned to the Hollow One. The creature hadn't moved, but now he noticed something else, a faint, distorted aura surrounding it, visible only when he didn't look directly at it. The same kind of shimmer he'd begun seeing around people in the village, but twisted somehow, wrong. It was like seeing a reflection in a shattered mirror, familiar elements arranged in a way that violated some fundamental principle.
"There's something different about this one," Kira murmured, leaning forward slightly. "The way it's just standing there... it's almost like it's waiting for something."
Arashi nodded, noting how she'd observed the same unusual behavior he had. Most Hollow Ones were driven by mindless hunger, attacking anything with life energy. This calculated patience was unprecedented in his reading of village records.
"Or someone," he whispered, the words slipping out before he could consider them.
As if hearing his words, the Hollow One suddenly tilted its misshapen head upward, seeming to sniff the air. Then, with deliberate slowness, it turned its featureless face directly toward where Arashi and Kira crouched on the wall.
The pressure behind Arashi's eyes exploded into blinding pain. A flood of images crashed through his mind: six burning wings, a great library filled with secrets, a voice thundering in a language both foreign and intimately familiar. He bit back a cry, clutching his head as the visions came faster, a fractured mosaic of moments he couldn't possibly have experienced. The taste of ozone filled his mouth, and his skin prickled with electricity.
"Arashi?" Kira's concerned voice seemed to come from very far away, muffled as though he were underwater. Her hand gripped his forearm, warm and solid, an anchor to reality. "What's wrong?"
He wanted to answer, to explain the impossible knowledge flooding his consciousness, but no words would come. How could he describe colors that existed beyond vision, or sounds that resonated not in the ear but in the soul?
Before he could try, a commotion erupted among the guards. Elder Takuma had arrived on the wallwalk, accompanied by the village's other two Resonants, Shen and Mei, the healer. The Elder carried no visible weapon, but something about his stance suggested readiness for combat.
Shen, tall and rail-thin with a perpetual stoop from years bent over scrolls, looked decidedly uncomfortable with the sword belted at his waist. As the village's record-keeper, he rarely left his small office adjacent to the archive. His hands, ink-stained and trembling slightly, kept adjusting his spectacles, a nervous habit Arashi had often noticed during council meetings.
Mei, by contrast, moved with confident grace, her healing staff held loosely in practiced hands. Her silver-streaked dark hair was pulled back in a severe bun, emphasizing the sharp angles of her face. Unlike many healers who avoided conflict, Mei had earned her skills on battlefields in her youth. The village whispered that she had once been a member of the Resonant Guard in a major city before some scandal had driven her to seek the quiet life of a village healer.
"It's probing for weaknesses," Takuma was saying to Captain Hiro, his voice carrying on the wind. The Elder's usual ceremonial robes had been replaced by simpler attire that allowed for movement, revealing the wiry strength of a man who had never allowed age to diminish his physical discipline. "This is no ordinary Hollow One. It has purpose."
Hiro glanced back at the village behind them, jaw tight with concern. "What would you have us do?" he asked, the blue glow of his spear reflecting in his eyes. "Our barriers won't hold against something that size if it chooses to attack."
Arashi followed the captain's gaze, seeing Meirōmura as though for the first time. The collection of stone and wooden buildings, the network of narrow streets, the central plaza with its ancient well, all of it suddenly seemed fragile, vulnerable. This was his home, the only place he'd ever known, filled with people who had raised him, taught him, shaped him. The thought of it being violated by the horror beyond the wall made his stomach clench.