The corridor past the mask room was too quiet. No drips, no creaks, no whispers. Just the sound of their boots on stone.
Kael kept his hood low. He could still feel the cracked mask's weight in his hand even though he'd left it behind. His name burned in his chest.
Riven broke the silence first. "So… just to be clear, if my reflection tries to steal my spot again, we kill him, right? Like, no questions asked."
Kael rasped, voice raw. "Depends. Might be an upgrade."
Riven groaned, clutching his chest. "Ouch. First, he almost loses me; now he roasts me. Cold, Kael. Real cold."
Seren scribbled without breaking stride. Wouldn't be a big loss. She slapped the note into Riven's hand and kept walking.
"Hmph." Riven shoved the note in his pocket like it didn't sting. "You two are the worst teammates."
The corridor bent, then opened into another chamber. This one was round, walls smooth, and every inch covered in handprints. Hundreds, maybe thousands. Some small, some huge. All pressed into the stone like the wall had swallowed them.
Kael's skin crawled.
The system spoke:
[Room Detected: Chamber of Faces] Rule: Speak your name. Fail: Wall speaks for you.
Riven made a face. "Yeah, that's not ominous at all."
Seren's pencil snapped. She dug another out fast and wrote: Don't. Trap.
Kael agreed. He kept his mouth shut. His throat already burned too much to waste words.
But the walls started whispering anyway. The handprints moved faintly, pressing deeper, and voices slipped out of the cracks.
"Kael.""Riven.""Seren."
Riven flinched. "It knows our names."
The Ledger wrote everything. Why wouldn't it know? Kael thought of the wall behind them with his name cut in deep. This was the same hand, just speaking now.
A deep sound rolled through the chamber.
BOOOONG.
The handprints shivered. More voices rose, layered and wrong.
"Hollow."Hollow walks again."
Kael's teeth clenched. His fists shook.
Seren grabbed his sleeve, hard. She scribbled, shoved the scrap into his palm. Don't answer. Not once.
The voices pushed harder. The wall groaned, and one handprint stretched forward, forming a shallow mask. It mouthed the word again: "Hollow."
Riven spat. "Fuck this. I'm not saying it." He drew his sword, ready to cut stone if he had to.
Kael closed his eyes. He forced the word out through his throat, low and rough: "Kael."
The wall paused. For a breath, the whispers eased.
Then the system whispered back:
[Identity Confirmed: Kael] [Mark Retained: Hollow]
Kael's stomach sank. Even when he spoke his truth, the Ledger twisted it.
The chamber's far wall cracked open, light spilling through.
"Done already?" Riven muttered, still tense. "I was ready to stab a wall."
Seren wrote: Don't tempt it. She folded the paper and tucked it in his pocket herself.
They stepped through the crack. The stone sealed behind them with a sound like a page closing.
Another gong tolled, faint but heavy.
BOOOONG.
Kael pressed the scrap Seren had given him tightly in his fist. He had spoken his name, but the Ledger still called him Hollow. And the worst part — he was starting to wonder if maybe it wasn't wrong.