The Pit Of The Fallen

Zeke — victim of a cursed alignment of stars — plummets from the edge of the known world into a place only whispered of in tones too hushed to echo: the Hollowgrave. This is no mere chasm. It is a wound in the world’s flesh — deep, ancient, still weeping darkness. Its origin? Forgotten by mortals. Remembered only by gods. And even they do not speak of it. Something stirs at the bottom. Something that remembers before time. Something that hungers in silence. The fall should have killed him. Bones should have shattered. Flesh should have split. But Zeke lives. He breathes. And he sees. And what he sees… should never have been seen. The darkness here is not absence — it is presence. It clings to the skin, oozes into thought, and drips into the soul. It whispers in a language no one learns, yet everyone understands. There are no corpses here. Only those who survived death and returned — grotesque, shuddering, reborn in forms the world above would not recognize. They have no names. Only hunger. Even the god of death avoids this place. The dead themselves whisper upward, afraid of what lurks below. So what hope does a boy of flesh and fear have — one who doesn’t even know what door he’s opened? All he carries is a sword — barely more than a toothpick — and a shield, if it can be called that: a warped disc of wood and scrap, more mockery than defense. Darkness laps at the edge of his vision, slithering and shifting no matter which way he turns — if directions even exist here anymore. For here, they do not drink blood. They drink soul — slowly, sweetly, while the body still watches. Zeke has no allies. Only a mind cracking at the seams, a body trembling with cold, and a single choice: to stand and face what even death has abandoned. To remain Zeke — for as long as something of him remains. Because now, the question is no longer if he can escape. The question is: what will be left of him if he does?