Chapter 57 – The Hollowing Sky (Part 4)

The storm did not let up. It leaned in, its focus, as if it listened for Yusuf to break. The winds wailed with the cries of lost souls, and the Tree's roots writhed and slithered like snakes upon him, battering the rock, tearing furrows in the face of the world. His breath was fire in his chest with every gasp of ash and dust. Yet he held on.

The Hollowing Sky above swirled like a raw wound. Its colors blurred together—violets melting into sickly greens, blacks devouring grays. Splinters of memory blazed across the heavens, outlines of bodies Yusuf could almost recognize: Rae's form, then his mother's hands, then the child's faceless countenance, always watching. The storm twisted the splinters until they fragmented, curling them into lightning slashes of light. Every image asked this question: What will you do when none of us remain?

Yusuf tightened his fist on the Codex. His arm shook, not only from fatigue, but from the burden of supporting a book swollen with other lives. It thudded in his fist like an imploring heart. "Not yet," he growled through gritted teeth. His words were about to be drowned out by the yell of the tempest, so he bellowed again: "Not yet."

A branch came crashing down, nearly flattening him. He leaped out of the way, rolling onto his knees. Pain lanced through his side, but he pushed to his feet. Another lash came down, harder, and this one cut into his shoulder. The world faded to white, but he forced his eyes open, refusing to fall. The Tree wanted to wear him down until he was unable to stand any longer, until he bent like all other memories. But Yusuf remembered the last half-adjacent words of his father: Memory without love is a list of names. He wasn't here to collect names. He was here to cling to them, even as they fell through his hands.

Lightning blazed in the Hollowing Sky, and the battlefield was illuminated. In the brief flash, Yusuf saw the scope of the Tree's corruption: roots that had buried themselves in the world's bones, veins of night crawling over the shattered earth. No longer a protector but a vampire of loss, feeding and devouring every unspoken grief. To fight it was to fight despair itself.

The Codex pulsed again. Yusuf opened it with trembling fingers. Pages whizzed by, emanating with splintered memory shards, as if the book was terrified. "Listen," Yusuf said to it. "Show me where to strike." The words rewove themselves, strands unspooling into one map of light. It pointed not upwards, not down, but inwards—towards the center of the Tree, its heart.

"I cannot reach it," Yusuf complained. "Not when you guard it."

As a response, in a way, the roots came up high and entwined around him in a cage. They dropped, one after the next, like a mad heartbeat. Yusuf dodged left, rolled, leapt through spaces that thinned, each action subtracting from his strength. He kept going, because to remain was to be interred alive in despair.

"Rae…" he gasped, and for an instant he believed he heard the whisper of her voice, a murmur of wind around stone. Do not stop here. The sound almost broke him. It was slight—more recalled than present—yet it cut the stifling storm. Yusuf gripped his grief and let that spark of her voice drive him on.

He struck. Raising the Codex, he pounded it against one of the roots of sheathing. Pages ignited, burning white fire that pierced bark and darkness. The root screamed, pulling back like a burned animal. Ash fell in snow. A second root whipped back, but Yusuf moved and drove the Codex into it as well. More shreds of remembrance released with every blow, sparks of what had been whole lives.

The Hollowing Sky screamed back. The wind hit him, shoving him to the ground. Shadows crept up his legs like chains, chewing, pulling. His vision went out. The Tree was furious now, and its fury had no end.

He roared at it, throat raw. "You don't get to choose who's forgotten!"

The words torn from him, part plea, part defiance. They were not poetry, but they were true. Each syllable shattered the stillness the storm demanded.

Roots crashed down again, harder and faster. Yusuf's body protested. His knees threatened to buckle, but he thrust himself upright. He held the Codex aloft one last time, each muscle quivering as if the book weighed as much as the world.

The Hollowing Sky exploded overhead. It pulsated forward in a moment, as if to consume him whole. Yusuf planted his feet, breathed from the shards of strength remaining to him, and plunged the Codex forward. The pages tore open halfway through the swing, light flowing outward in an arc so intense it stilled the storm.

The impact landed. Not with a root anymore but with the very heart of the Tree's shadow. The world rang out like pounded metal. The Hollowing Sky tore itself asunder, lines of light shredding through darkness. The storm screamed—not as wind but as countless superimposed voices, each one dissolving into nothing.

Yusuf dropped to one knee, gasping. His frame shook, ash and perspiration dusting his face, yet he supported the Codex still. He had created the ouch. He had pierced the endless storm, if only just by an inch.

Above, the Hollowing Sky reeled, its wound widening. The storm did not vanish, but it faltered, pulling back like a tide uncertain of its return. For the first time in what felt like forever, Yusuf could see stars—faint, trembling, but still there—shining through the cracks.

He lifted his eyes to them, whispering hoarsely, “I’m still here.”

And although Rae's voice was gone, although silence enveloped him, Yusuf clung to that fragile truth as if to a blade more keen than any sword.