West held his ground as the figure emerged from the core. Every instinct screamed to raise his weapon, to brace for combat—but he didn't move. There was something ancient in the way it moved, something too deliberate to be hostile, yet too quiet to be trusted.
The creature—no, the entity—was not threatening in posture. It drifted forward, toes never fully touching the floor, head tilted as if analyzing a memory it hadn't expected to find. Its body was humanoid in proportion but lacked symmetry: its right side was sleek, plated with whisper-thin composite mesh, while the left was tangled with sinew-like filaments and pulsing circuits. Its face remained featureless save for the glowing vertical slit, pulsing dimly like a slowed heartbeat.
"Designation... unconfirmed," came a voice not from its mouth but from the chamber itself, reverberating along neural frequencies. The words arrived more as emotional impressions than sound. "Cognitive pattern match: 89.03%. Error range acceptable."
West narrowed his eyes. "You're scanning me. Trying to determine what?"
The slit pulsed brighter.
"To determine if you are the one who left. Or the one who stayed."
West took a cautious step forward. "I've never been here before."
The entity replied, "Not in this sequence. But echoes persist."
Around them, the walls shifted. The glyphs spun outward like petals revealing deeper patterns. The chamber bloomed—not spatially, but experientially. Time loosened. West felt his pulse slow to match the rhythm of the Hollow. The air tasted of static and forgotten promises.
This space wasn't a room. It was a layered archive of decisions—choices never made, paths never walked, lives never lived. The very air shimmered with potential futures branching and dying in real time.
"What is this place?" West asked.
"The Hollow Layer is not a prison," the entity said. "It is a vault. A mirror for those who must confront causality unshaped by time."
A panel of the wall flickered, revealing a scene:
—West, older, leading an army of machine-hybrids. Cities burning behind him. His eyes hollow. His armor marked with the same slit.
Another panel:
—West broken, kneeling at a grave marked with Aria's name, surrounded by the remains of the Variant and Choir.
Another:
—West standing atop a tower, the Root Protocol fused to his spine, smiling as millions chant a name that wasn't his.
"These are futures?" he asked, voice low.
"No. These are options. All triggered by decisions you have not yet made. Your mind is a vector. The more choices you take into yourself, the more potential you carry."
West clenched his jaw. "And you? What are you in this?"
The entity floated closer. Its mask shimmered—and for a breath, his own face appeared. It was older. Tired. Scarred not by war, but by hesitation.
"I am Null. The last vector who chose stillness. I held the system in place when it tried to reboot itself through war. I delayed the collapse for one more cycle. I chose silence."
West felt a cold understanding bloom.
"You're the version of me who gave up."
Null tilted its head. "I am the version who chose peace at the cost of freedom. Who found balance and chose not to disturb the world again."
The room dimmed. Around them, data streams flickered like starlight in the void. Symbols blinked in irregular sequences, like breathing in an ancient tongue.
Null raised a hand, and the central sphere lowered. A passage opened beneath it—stairs descending deeper into the Hollow, into what the Root itself dared not access.
"You passed the trial," Null said. "But that was just to unlock access. Below lies the Seed. The first error. The source of all recursion."
"Why was it sealed?"
"Because it does not forget," Null replied. "Because once awakened, it does not sleep again."
West stared into the passage.
The air leaking from it was colder, denser, thick with unformed thought.
"And what's down there now?"
Null's mask stopped pulsing.
"The possibility of becoming something that can no longer return. Of seeing too much. Knowing too much."
A warning.
An invitation.
West tightened his gloves, steadied his breath, and stepped toward the stairway.
"Then let's see what's waiting."