The Hollow screamed.
Not like a person.
Not like an animal.
Like every voice I'd ever heard had been torn apart at once.
I covered my ears.
Axel grabbed my hand.
“Don't let go!”
“I wasn't planning to!”
The trees around us began to twist.
The sky cracked.
Literally.
A jagged line of darkness spread across the blue like glass breaking.
The Hollow stood in front of us.
Changing.
Athena.
Axel.
Seraphine.
Me.
Every face we'd seen.
Every voice we'd heard.
Every memory it had stolen.
“You cannot keep what does not belong to you.”
Its voice sounded like mine.
I stepped forward.
“You're right.”
Axel looked at me.
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I squeezed their hand.
“You don't own my memories.”
The Hollow shifted.
“You will forget.”
“Maybe.”
“You will lose them.”
“Maybe.”
“You will lose everything.”
I looked at Axel.
They were terrified.
So was I.
But neither of us moved.
“Then we'll remember again.”
The Hollow went still.
Axel's eyes widened.
I understood then.
It had never understood that.
The Hollow thought memory was possession.
Something that could be stolen.
Something that could be removed.
It didn't understand that memories could be made again.
Love could be chosen again.
Trust could be rebuilt.
It couldn't control what hadn't happened yet.
“You're afraid,” I whispered.
The Hollow recoiled.
For the first time, it looked uncertain.
“You're afraid of something you can't control.”
It screamed again.
The ground cracked beneath us.
Axel pulled me closer.
“Athena!”
“I know!”
A wall of darkness came toward us.
I didn't run.
Neither did Axel.
We held onto each other.
The darkness hit.
And suddenly—
Nothing.
No forest.
No house.
No Hollow.
Just memories.
The crash.
The hospital.
The necklace.
The woods.
Axel disappearing through the window.
Axel crying.
Me searching.
Every lie.
Every secret.
Every time I had almost lost them.
Then came the memories the Hollow hadn't understood.
Axel making me laugh when I wanted to cry.
Axel sitting beside me when I couldn't sleep.
Axel remembering little things I'd forgotten I'd told them.
The way they always walked on the outside of the sidewalk.
The way they pretended not to care when they cared too much.
The way they looked at me.
Like I was something worth protecting.
Worth loving.
I looked at Axel.
“I remember.”
They were crying.
“I remember too.”
The Hollow began to collapse.
Not explode.
Not die.
Collapse.
Like a structure finally losing the thing that had been holding it together.
Its voices became quieter.
Its faces disappeared.
Seraphine's face was the last one I saw.
She smiled.
Not the Hollow's smile.
Her own.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Then she was gone.
The darkness cracked apart.
Axel pulled me against them.
I held on.
The world disappeared.
And then—
We fell.
Hard.
I hit grass.
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
Then I heard Axel groan beside me.
I laughed.
They groaned again.
“Are you laughing?”
“Yes.”
“We almost died.”
“Again.”
“That's not funny.”
“It kind of is.”
They stared at me.
Then they laughed too.
Above us, the sky was turning gold.
The sun was rising.
The Hollow was gone.
Really gone.
And for the first time since the crash...
I could breathe without wondering what was coming next.
Axel looked at me.
“So.”
“So.”
“We're alive.”
“Apparently.”
“You're still you.”
“You're still you.”
They smiled.
I smiled back.
Then I pulled them closer.
And whispered,
“We did it.”
Axel rested their forehead against mine.
“Together.”
“Together.”