CHAPTER 459: CHAPTER 459: I WANT TO KILL THEM

The thing at the cave mouth was wrong in every way a body could be wrong.

It moved like something stitched from nightmares—two-legged, hunched, pale fur clinging to ribs, a face too long for its skull, and a grin that stretched where a mouth should not. Its eyes were glassy, pinpricks that reflected the bioluminescent pond like dead stars. Every time it tried to push against the cave’s threshold, its shoulders bowed as if invisible hands shoved it back. It snarled, a sound like a child wailing and a blade scraping stone at the same time.

Isabella stared, stomach dipping. Her heart beat hard enough to rattle her teeth. For a second she thought of every choice that had led her here—greed for more resources, running away from the village because she wanted ’space’, trusting a system called Bubu—and she wanted to laugh or cry and punch a tree. Preferably all three.

"Is that—what the hell is that thing?" Glimora quivered in her arms, little hands clamping to the fabric of Isabella’s dress like a lifeline. The tiny beast’s whiskers trembled.

One more silhouettes slipped into view behind the first, and she realized there were two of them, both slamming at the cave mouth in a frantic, jerking rhythm. The little inhabitants—those soft, shy creatures that had been poking around the pond—went silent. One by one, they flitted away like frightened moths, their glow dwindling into the cave’s ribbed darkness. Even the glowing fish in the shallows darted for deeper water.

Isabella’s jaw clenched. "Okay," she said, aloud but to herself—because what else did people do when confronted by stick like crew at midnight?—"this is officially the worst thing that’s happened today."

She pressed two fingers to her temple and sent the thought into Bubu’s invisible channel.

Bubu’s face flickered into view again, its glowing eyes calm and analytical, voice perfectly level.

Scanning complete.

The system’s tone carried no fear—just cool curiosity, like a scholar watching a particularly violent experiment unfold.

Creatures detected: classification — "Hollow Stalkers."

Isabella’s brow furrowed. "Hollow what?"

Hollow Stalkers, Bubu repeated. They are remnants of a forgotten species born during the first eclipse of the Lunareen age. When the moon vanished for seven nights, the shadows gained hunger but no form. These things— it zoomed slightly closer, the glowing lines of its mouth curling faintly— stole the bones of dying giants to walk among the living.

Isabella’s throat went dry. Outside, one of the creatures dragged its elongated limb across the ground, the sound of it scraping rock like nails against her skull.

They are blind, Bubu continued calmly, but they sense vibration and body heat. They feed on motion. Their skulls are hollow—literally empty—resonating with the echo of the last thing they killed. The more they devour, the louder they hum inside. That’s the sound you hear now.

A faint humming did fill the air—a trembling note that wavered between a moan and a whistle. Isabella’s skin crawled.

"They look like nightmares on stilts," she muttered.

Accurate, Bubu said cheerfully. They are also drawn to items that carry human essence. For example—your rag.

"My what?"

The one you used to wipe your hands after eating.

Isabella felt bile rise. The rag. She shoved a hand into her small pouch frantically—fingers scrabbling—then froze. The pouch was empty. The memory of the earlier scrape in the clearing flashed: a tiny, pale snatcher darting away, rag clutched like treasure. She swallowed. Of course it has the rag, she muttered. Of course.

Bubu’s glowing face tilted knowingly. One of the Hollow Stalkers has it. That is why it followed you here. It knows your scent now.

The hideous creature nosed the cave entrance again, its face flattening as if listening to a song only it could hear. It tried to push; something like a pressure caught it at the throat and pushed it down. The thing made a distressing high sound—half-bark, half-laugh—then resumed its frantic battering.

Isabella’s blood turned to stone for a heartbeat. Then anger came up behind the fear, hot and animal. She pressed Glimora to her chest, feeling the little heart thud against her own, and her eyes found the phoenix man.

He crouched by the pond, half-wet fallen feathers slicking dark, features wild. He looked like a god who’d been robbed of color: shell-shocked, lashes rimmed with salt, but his golden eyes flicked everywhere, sharp and panicked.

He had no clue Bubu existed. He watched Isabella speak to the air—his head tilted, jaw working. That look of bewilderment—like he’d woken in someone else’s nightmare—made something cold crawl up Isabella’s spine.

"Did my scream bring them?" she growled through her teeth, glaring at him. "You made a racket like a damn alarm bell."

He flinched like she’d slapped him. "I—I didn’t mean to," he said hoarsely. "Where—who are you talking to? Are you—are you insane? There’s no one there."

Isabella didn’t answer. She could say that he couldn’t sense Bubu, that the system existed in a plane between breaths and bytes, but what good would that do? He needed answers, but he needed them later. Right now, claws were tapping at stone and the cave’s mouth was a tooth.

She turned back to Bubu inside her head. Are they here for me?

Affirmative. Bubu’s voice was blunt. They sense human scent, maternal pheromones, and the trail your rag carries. Their behavior indicates fixation: reclaim the scent, consume shadow—feed on what you fear to be true.

Isabella felt her lips go hard. "I want to kill them," she said before she could talk herself down. The fury that had boiled under her skin since the palace—Cyrus’s pleading, Kian’s cold rejection, the mark burning like an accusation, her pregnancy—rolled up in a sudden surge of protective ferocity. The things had her cloth. They were trying to scrape into the cave. She imagined them burrowing into Glimora’s fur, into her belly. The thought was a spike.

Are you sure, host? Bubu’s question, for once, had weight. It didn’t sound like taunt or tally. It sounded like calculation.