I can’t say it wasn’t startling. The light suddenly pouring into my eyes after so long in darkness jolted the mind awake. It let me feel how vulnerable I was, wet, cold and exposed before the set of blurry forms. After the sudden jolt, my vision cleared up a bit, and I started to make out the veins around me. One of them with long white hair was holding me, while another one with darker brown hair was looking at me with an expression I could only equate to happiness. A few more people stood beside them, dressed in matching outfits. I couldn’t do anything for now, but at least I had a family.

So began three years of hell.

My life as a human infant wasn’t physically painful by any means. All of my needs were taken care of, from feeding, to my sanitary means (I’ll let you expand on that yourself), to my entertainment. The primary objective of my life at that point was to wait and let my body grow to a size where I could do… something. That was where the torture lied. 

Every day I could do nothing but wait in the gaze of the white-haired woman, powerless as she pampered me practically to death. I couldn’t walk, only crawl. I couldn’t talk except by screaming for attention. For one such as me, it was naught but pure humiliation. 

The only thing I could do was learn about my immediate surroundings. So I did. The house we lived in was relatively large, enough to sustain about six or seven people comfortably. The few times I managed to look out the window I saw a village surrounding the house, which stood on a hill above the hamlet. The two women who wore the same outfit seemed to be our servants, as they spent much of their time cooking or cleaning the house.

Significantly more important than these discoveries was my grasping at language. Learning what different words meant wasn’t terribly difficult, but acquiring the grammar portion of our tongue was a different hurdle. I am ashamed to say it took me about a year and a half to figure it out. In the Hollow we have no use for such brutish vocal constructs, but alas, humans do. Only one of us could manage mind-to-mind communication.

Once I learned a few of these words I gained even more insight into my surroundings. The first thing I learned was my mortal name: Eleanor. Obviously, it was different than my real name, so I figured I would keep both. My body would be named Eleanor, and my mind Gelzimas. Simple. 

Among my family, the white-haired woman was my mother, named Anastasia. The dark-haired man was my father, named Jacob. The two similarly dressed women were maids named Elisa and Anna. 

By the time I was one I realized I could perhaps begin walking. I had been sitting up and stumbling around while clinging to Anastasia for a while, so my legs were likely developed enough for me to walk. With a month of practice, I could… Stumble, I suppose. I’d work on my poise once I could eat with my own hands.

One morning, I was reading a fairy tale book with Anastasia. She was reading it to me, and I was pretending not to read it by myself. We often did this in the mornings after Jacob went out to attend to his business and the maids were washing the dishes and such. I expected another dreamy tale of valor today. 

Anastasia began. “Once upon a time, in a land near this one, there was a great nation named Irye. It was a very peaceful country, and all within it spread fields filled with grain. It had beautiful mountains, and all of its forests were filled with friendly animals. Somewhere in this nation lived two great mages, and great friends. Reab and Mas. They lived in their towers all day and learned the magics of their fathers and grandfathers. 

Mas was greater than Reab at first, though they remained good friends. Reab was very loyal to his friend, and Mas looked after Reab like a brother. Over time, though, Reab grew far stronger and wiser. Mas had grown vain and greedy. He lied and stole his way to his place, while Reab studied hard every day. In the end, Mas could never compare to Reab.

So Mas grew envious and vain. He wiggled in his boots every night, hating Reab more and more every day. He lived this way for years, seething and nurturing his hate and evil, until one morning he found a goat laying on the side of the road. 

‘Young man, you seem like you’re in such a bad mood! What happened?’ The goat asked.

‘Firstly I am not young. I am sixty,’ Mas said.” Anastasia looked over at me expectantly, and I feigned a slight giggle. “‘And secondly, I am. My friend is so much stronger than me now, and I cannot even compare to him. It was far better when he was weaker than I.’

The goat chuckled. ‘I believe I have a solution for you. Reab cannot be weaker than you if he is dead, hm?’

Mas went home and thought about it well into the night, then back into morning again. He thought about it for two nights, then three, then four, then five. When morning came on the sixth night, Mas decided. He was going to kill Reab. 

That night Mas snuck into Reab’s room and stabbed him to death before stealing everything he had. Then, he locked himself in his room for another five nights. How many nights will it be after that?” Anastasia looked over to me. What an odd place to throw a math question in.

I put up all of my fingers on my hands after a few feigned moments of thought. Ten was a reasonable answer for a child my age. I doubted two-year-olds were good at those things. Anastasia seemed to think so too, as she patted my head and corrected me.

“You’re very, very close, sweetie. It’s twelve. Now, on the twelfth night, Mas came out from his bedroom with his eyes ablaze. He had stolen so much power from Reab that he thought he was a king. Some say he even started a temple to himself. So he shouted out to all the world:

‘Every person on this earth is mine! It’s all my kingdom! All mine!’ 

So for a hundred years he ruled over all the land with an iron fist. People called him the Ash-stained King, the Tyrant, the Bloody-handed One. He could kill people with a sideways look and summon an army with a snap of the fingers. Nobody could oppose him.

But they couldn’t do anything else. The people were suffering, and in the end, they rebelled. It took the seven greatest mages in all the land- besides Mas himself, of course- to seal the Ash-stained King away. He was thrown into a pit of black and shadow forever.

‘Your heart is hollow and ridden with holes, Mas. You are the hollow of the soul, and so the only fitting prison for you is the Hollow of Space. You are Mas no more, tyrant. You shall be Gelzimas, the Hollowed King. Now begone from our homes forever!”

…

Huh?