A Proxy's Whisper: Navigating the Hollows of a Shattered World

I remember the sky before the Hollows. It was a canvas of soft blues and wispy clouds. Now, my world is framed by the looming, silent spheres they call Hollows. They hang there, these giant, mysterious orbs, like celestial bruises on the skin of my city, New Eridu. They swallowed the old world whole, you know? Civilization just... folded. But we, the stubborn remnants, we learned to live in their shadow, to even profit from their eerie glow. As a Proxy, my reality is split: the bustling, neon-lit streets of the last city, and the silent, chaotic dreams of the Hollows I navigate.

What Is A Hollow, You Ask?

To put it simply, they're disaster zones. Catastrophes made spherical. When I first synced with the Hollow Deep Dive System—the H.D.D.—and saw their true scale, it took my breath away. They're not just there; they are the landscape now. Imagine a pearl, but one that devoured a district. Inside, the air hums with a strange energy, and the laws of our world... well, they take a coffee break. The city administration, clever as ever, saw gold in the gloom. They send teams to extract resources from these places—materials that power our lives and line their pockets. It's a dangerous harvest, but it keeps the lights on in New Eridu. Talk about making lemonade, right?

The Residents: The Ethereal and Their Kin

Now, you don't just waltz into a Hollow for a picnic. They have tenants. We call them the Ethereal. They are the main reason my job exists—phantoms of corrupted data and twisted matter. But they're not static. Oh no. They mutate, evolve, grow stronger. It's like they're learning from every encounter.

One of the first true horrors I guided an Agent through was in the Dead End Hollow. We called it the Dead End Butcher. It wasn't just an enemy; it was a lesson. A brutal, screaming lesson that the Hollows are alive in the worst way. Seeing that thing shift and change mid-fight... it sticks with you.

My Role: The Proxy in the Machine

Not everyone can step into a Hollow. Physically going in? That's a one-way ticket to becoming part of the scenery—corrupted, mutated, lost. I have a resistance, a... affinity. But I don't go in my flesh and blood. I go as a Bangboo. A little robotic avatar that's my eyes, ears, and voice in that chaos.

My real work is guiding the Agents. They're the brave—or foolish—souls with enough Ether resistance to venture in physically. I see the world through their senses, chart paths through the instability, and call out threats they might miss. We're a team. I'm the ghost in the machine, and they are the sword in the darkness. Without a Proxy, an Agent is just a tourist in a nightmare.

The Heart of the Mystery: Hollow Zero

We talk about the Hollows as if they're random. They're not. They all have a mother. A source. We call it Hollow Zero, though some whispers in the darker corners of the city use another name: Limbo.

This is where it all began. The first sphere that bloomed over old Eridu. It didn't just appear; it replaced. The old city is gone, and Hollow Zero now pulsates around its skeletal remains. New Eridu exists in its shadow because of it. Every other Hollow, every Ethereal, every shiver of wrongness in the air... it all flows from this one, original wound in the world.

The city's brightest—and most desperate—minds are working on a project to neutralize it. To heal the wound. But some wounds... some wounds become part of you. I sometimes wonder if neutralizing Hollow Zero would save us or erase us. We've built so much on its aftermath.

A Day in My (Un)Life

Let me walk you through a typical commission. It's 2026, and the work never stops.

1. The Briefing: A client needs a rare data-core from the "Straywood" Hollow. The payout is good. The risk is... typical.

2. The Dive: I link up with the H.D.D. My consciousness winks out of my body and into the Bangboo unit. The world becomes a stream of code and vague, architectural memories.

3. The Link: My Agent for this run, a veteran named Kael, syncs in. I feel the familiar hum of their resistance—a steady, warm pulse against the Hollow's cold static. "Ready when you are, Proxy," their voice filters through.

4. The Descent: We move. I highlight pathways, tag resource nodes for later extraction, and keep a scanner on full sweep. The Ethereals here are skittish, low-level. But you never let your guard down. Never.

5. The Harvest: We find the core, glowing like a captive star. Kael secures it. My job is to find the cleanest exit vector, avoiding the deeper zones where the signal gets... hungry.

6. The Return: Disconnection is always a jolt. One moment, I'm a ghost in a machine. The next, I'm back in my chair, the neon of New Eridu glaring through my window. The silence afterward is the loudest sound.

It's a strange life. I'm a guide for heroes, a ghost in the machine, a salvager of nightmares. The Hollows took our past, but they gave us this present—a fragile, buzzing, dangerous existence. And as long as they loom outside my window, I'll keep diving in. Not for glory, not for the city's profit. But because someone has to map the darkness. Someone has to remember what's in the silence between the static.

And honestly? After all this time... I think the Hollows are starting to remember me, too.