Chapter 14: Hollow Maw
The obsidian plinth still hummed with the echo of Jack's name burning itself into the first rank. Around him, the surviving students stared—some with open hostility, others with the hollow-eyed look of those who had seen too much in a single night. This was what it meant to be a gifted of the Lorian Academy.
The silver-masked proctor stepped forward, crow feathers rustling. "The Hollow Maw begins at midnight. Prepare yourselves."
No explanation. No rules.
Just a death sentence wrapped in four words. Others wanted to weep but they knew that no one would care about their fears and tears.
The students were herded out, some limping, others carried. Jack lingered, studying the plinth. His blood had dried black against the stone, but the name *JACK - #1* pulsed like a fresh wound.
A hand grabbed his arm.
Elara.
Her gloves were stained with something that wasn't her blood. "You shouldn't have taken first rank," she hissed.
Jack peeled her fingers off one by one. "Why not?"
"Because now the Maw will come for you first."
He grinned. "Good."
---
Elara dragged him to the academy's refectory—a cavernous hall where the scent of charred meat clung to the air. Students huddled over their meals, eating with the frantic desperation of men who knew it might be their last.
Jack took a seat at the farthest table. A plate of something vaguely resembling pork slid toward him. He poked it. The meat *moved*. He did not really care about what was being eaten , the only thing he wanted to know is what's going on in this place.
Ever since entered the gates , his encounter with the registrar as if knowing something about Emage village and being stunned at Jack being from that place.
Elara ignored hers. "The Hollow Maw isn't a test. It's a culling." She looked at him trying to get a shocked look out of him.
"I figured."Jack tore off a strip of meat with his teeth. It writhed on his tongue before dissolving into ash. "Demons?"
"Worse."Her voice dropped. "The academy's failures. Students who swallowed too much, too fast. The ones the Abyss hollowed out but didn't bother reclaiming."
Jack swallowed the last of the ash. "So we're fighting half-demons."
"No." Elara's knuckles whitened. "We're fighting what's *left* of them."
A bell tolled.
Midnight.
---
They were marched to the arena—a sunken pit lined with teeth. Not stone. *Actual teeth*, yellowed and jagged, rising from the earth like the maw of some long-dead beast.
The proctors lined the rim, silver masks glinting.
"Rules are simple," one called. "Survive till dawn."
A student near the front laughed nervously. "That's it?"
The ground *split* beneath him.
Something *pulled* him down.
His scream lasted exactly three seconds before it was cut off with a wet *pop*.
Silence.
Then—
"Begin."
---
They came from below.
Figures—or what used to be figures—clawed their way out of the earth. Their skin sagged off their bones like melted wax, mouths stretched too wide, eyes nothing but hollow pits.
*Hollowed Ones.*
Jack didn't wait.
He moved like a shadow, fists cracking into the nearest creature's jaw. Bone shattered, but the thing didn't stop. Its head lolled to the side, black ichor dripping, and it *laughed*.
"Smell that?"Jack shouted to the others.He was still pretending to sense demon locations via smell "Rot and copper—left side!"
A lie. He could *see* them perfectly. But the act had to hold.
A student with a dagger lunged where Jack pointed, driving the blade into the Hollowed One's ribs. It screeched, collapsing.
"They're weak at the joints!" Jack barked.
The students rallied, fighting in ragged clusters. Elara stayed close, her gloves now slick with ichor. "You're enjoying this," she accused.
Jack snapped a Hollowed One's knee backward. "I'm adaptable."
---
By the third hour, the pit was slick with blood and worse. Half the students were gone—dragged under, torn apart.
'This place is strange' , Jack could sense in the Hollow Maw time was a lot slower than the outside.
The remaining Hollowed Ones were *smarter*.
They moved in packs, herding survivors into corners. One—a twisted thing with too many arms—grabbed a girl by the hair and *bit* her shoulder clean off.
Jack watched, calculating.
Then—
A whisper in his ear.
"We see you."
He turned.
A Hollowed One stood inches away, its mouth unhinged. Not attacking. *Speaking.*
"You don't belong here," it rasped.
"The Abyss knows. The Abyss remembers."
Jack's fist went through its throat.
The creature gurgled, but its lips kept moving. "It's coming for you, thief."
Then it *exploded*.
---
Dawn was close.
Only a handful of students remained. The Hollowed Ones had stopped attacking.
They were *watching*.
The ground trembled.
A hand—larger than a man—burst from the earth. Then another.
Something was climbing out.
Elara shouted to Jack. "Run."
He didn't.
The thing that emerged was *massive*, its body stitched together from the remains of Hollowed Ones, its mouth a gaping chasm.
The Maw's champion.
It *looked* at Jack.
"Liar," it hissed.
Jack cracked his knuckles.
"Prove it."
---
He let it hit him first.
The blow sent him skidding back, ribs screaming. He spat blood, grinning.
"Again."
The creature lunged.
Jack *pretended* to dodge late, letting its claws graze his side. He staggered, feigning disorientation.
"Smelled it— on the left side !" he yelled to the others.
A student hurled a spear. It lodged in the creature's eye.
The thing roared, swiping blindly. Jack stumbled into its reach—then drove his fist into its throat.
Black bile erupted.
The creature collapsed, twitching.
Silence.
Then—
Sunlight.
---
The surviving students were bloody, broken. But alive.
The proctors descended, their masks unreadable.
"Five survivors," one noted.
"Adequate."
They didn't look at Jack.
Not directly.
As the others were led away, Elara lingered. "It spoke to you."
Jack wiped ichor from his face. "They all do, eventually."
She hesitated. "What did it say?"
He looked at the rising sun, then at the pit—already smoothing over, as if nothing had happened.
"Nothing important."
But the Abyss remembered.
And it was *hungry.*
---