Rick's body slammed into something that wasn't ground—but it stopped him all the same.
The impact ripped the air from his lungs. For a few heartbeats, he couldn't move. He just lay there, gasping, the echoes of his fall fading into a silence too deep to be natural.
When he finally managed to lift his head, his vision swam. The surface beneath him pulsed faintly, like living flesh stretched thin over something massive and ancient. The void around him wasn't truly black—it moved, shimmered, breathed. Every heartbeat of that monstrous eye from above still echoed through his bones, rattling his very soul.
Then came the silence.
Not peace. Not rest.
The kind of silence that listens back.
Rick pushed himself upright, muscles trembling, ribs burning from the fall. The air here was wrong. He could taste it—metallic, like blood and burnt iron. It was heavy, pressing against his lungs, whispering in voices just beyond hearing.
It wasn't darkness anymore.
It was something else—alive.
Faint threads of light drifted through the black like dying embers in a bottomless sea. Some of them brushed against his skin, leaving cold trails that burned after a moment's delay.
Rick blinked and looked down.
The ground beneath him moved.
Veins of black and gold slithered beneath a translucent surface. Each pulse shimmered faintly, sending ripples across the ground like a heartbeat trapped beneath glass. Beneath it, something shifted—massive, unseen, waiting.
He felt it. Watching. Measuring.
His voice broke the stillness.
"Where… am I?"
The void answered.
Not with words, but with breath.
Cold wind swept across him, carrying the scent of rust, old blood, and something older still—like the dust of stars. The air trembled, and then came the sound.
Clink.
Clink.
Clink.
Chains.
Slow. Endless. Dragging through eternity.
Rick turned toward the sound.
From the distance—or whatever passed for distance in this formless void—shapes began to emerge. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds. They walked in silence, one after another, their forms half-submerged in the dark. Eyes glowed faintly like dying coals, and every step they took left behind trails of black fire that burned without heat.
Shackled souls. Marching toward the pulsing light beneath the surface.
Rick's throat tightened. "What are you?"
One of them turned.
Its face was a blur, but the voice that came out made Rick's heart stop.
"We are what you left behind."
He froze. That voice—he knew that voice.
It was his own.
Before he could even move, the others turned too.
Dozens of faces.
All his.
Each twisted differently—some crowned in jagged iron, some scarred beyond recognition, others wearing the broken armor of a thousand forgotten battles. Their eyes burned with fury and sorrow both, and every one of them dragged chains behind, clinking softly like a dirge.
Rick stumbled backward, shaking his head. "No… you're not real. You can't be."
The nearest one smiled—a bitter, hollow curve of lips.
"You think you defy the King? You already became him a hundred times over."
Rick's breath caught. "No—"
The ground pulsed again. Gold light seeped through the cracks beneath their feet, turning the air molten.
Another shadow-Rick raised his hand. His chains rattled, and the others followed, voices blending into a low, rising chant that felt like it had been echoing here since the dawn of time.
The void trembled. The surface beneath them split apart, spilling light like liquid fire.
Then the voice returned.
Vast. Ancient. Hungry.
"He defies the crown… yet he carries the seed."
Rick's scar flared beneath his shirt—blazing hot, burning through the fabric. He ripped it open, gasping as black fire pulsed from his chest. His veins lit up, searing against his skin.
He dropped to his knees.
His scream tore through the void.
The other Ricks—those impossible, twisted echoes—stepped closer, forming a ring around him. Their voices merged into one horrific harmony, vibrating through the air like thunder.
"The Hollow King was only a gate. You… are the key."
"No!" Rick shouted, gripping his chest as the black fire spread. "I'm not your key—I'm not him!"
But the void didn't care. The light around him bent, spiraling into the shape of chains. They slithered toward him, dragging across the ground like serpents of molten metal. Each link hissed as it touched him, branding marks into his skin.
The eye blinked above—or perhaps beneath—him. Time meant nothing here.
And when it opened again, the world broke.
Light and shadow burst outward like colliding storms. The chained souls disintegrated, their screams melting into static. The ground split, the air shattered. Rick fell forward, clutching at the surface as it cracked and gave way beneath his hands.
Beneath the glasslike layer, he saw movement—something rising.
A shadow larger than worlds. Wings that unfolded into galaxies. Claws that gleamed like dying suns. A body made of the void itself, its outline shifting like the reflection of a storm on water.
And then it spoke.
"THE CORE AWAITS."
Rick's scream was ripped from his throat as the surface collapsed.
He plummeted again—through the light, through the dark, through everything in between. Fragments of memory flashed around him: the throne room, the Devil's chains, the Hollow King's burning gaze. His spear. His friends. Every face he'd ever lost.
And then—silence again.
Only the sound of his heartbeat.
Except it wasn't his.
It was the same monstrous pulse from before, but now it was inside him. Each beat echoed through his ribs, deeper, louder, stronger. The mark on his chest burned black and gold.
He felt something in the dark following him.
No—closing in.
He twisted mid-fall and saw them again—the Ricks. Or what remained of them. Their bodies were dissolving into streams of light, their eyes hollow now, their mouths open in soundless screams. They were being pulled toward something—a point of gravity so intense it distorted the void around it.
At the center of it all… the eye.
It was open now. Fully.
An ocean of fire and shadow swirling within, so vast that even falling toward it felt like standing still. It wasn't just watching him—it was recognizing him.
The eye contracted. The void itself breathed in.
Rick screamed as invisible tendrils of energy wrapped around him, pulling him closer. His arms flailed uselessly; there was nothing to grab onto, nothing to stop the descent.
The voice came again, quieter this time—but closer. Inside his head.
"The King was my shadow. You are my shape."
Rick's thoughts scattered. His vision bled into streaks of red and white. He saw flashes—cities made of bone, thrones built on corpses, stars collapsing under their own light.
"No!" he shouted, though his voice was barely a whisper in the storm. "I'm not your vessel!"
The void laughed—a sound that made galaxies crumble.
"You already are."
Something slammed into his mind, cold and infinite. For an instant, he wasn't falling anymore. He was everywhere. He saw himself in a thousand worlds—each one ending in fire. He saw the Hollow King kneeling before something unseen. He saw the Devil bound in chains of light, screaming his name.
And then he saw her.
A flash of memory—someone's face.
A girl.
Soft eyes. A hand reaching toward him through the dark.
"Rick!"
Her voice cut through the chaos like lightning.
He gasped. His heart lurched. The black fire in his chest flickered—and for a moment, hesitated.
The pull weakened.
He raised his head, teeth clenched, veins burning with molten light. "You think I'll wear your crown?" he hissed through the pain. "Then I'll shatter it myself!"
Power erupted from him like a detonation. White-gold fire burst from his chest, spiraling outward. The chains that had snared him split, vaporizing in the light. The eye above—or below—flinched, its iris contracting violently.
The void screamed.
Reality itself screamed.
Every echo of himself vanished—burned to ash in the light he unleashed. The ground shattered. The air fractured like glass. The voice—ancient, infinite—howled in fury and disbelief.
"IMPOSSIBLE!"
But Rick didn't stop. He couldn't. The fire poured from him, consuming everything—the chains, the echoes, the shadows. His skin cracked, glowing from within like a dying star.
"If I'm the key," he roared, "then I decide what opens!"
The void split apart.
And in that impossible light, for the briefest moment, he saw it—hidden beneath everything. Beneath the eye. Beneath the chains.
A shape. Vast. Older than the gods. Older than creation.
It stirred.
The Hollow King's voice returned—this time not with scorn, but fear.
"Stop! Do not look there!"
Rick turned toward it anyway.
The cracks in reality widened. A storm of light tore through the void. The very concept of space screamed as the thing beneath opened its gaze.
It was not a creature. It was not a god.
It was the first hunger.
And it was waking.
Rick's body convulsed as energy ripped through him. The mark on his chest split open, bleeding light. His vision dimmed, the last thing he saw being that endless eye—now dwarfed by what emerged beneath it.
The Hollow King's final whisper echoed through the chaos, trembling.
"You've done it, child… you've woken it."
The world collapsed.
Light devoured shadow.
Shadow devoured light.
Rick fell once more—through both, into something deeper than the void.
And in the last instant before consciousness shattered, he heard it breathe.
"Welcome home."
---
To be continued…