DEAD INSIDE, HOLLOW AND HEARTLESS—Swishy experienced all of these ills and more.

The scarecrow could add durability to that list as well. There wasn’t much of Swishy left, truth be told, a stick figure of a boy shoved inside a parka and Timbs.

Swishy didn’t look like he should’ve been able to move. In fact, he leaned against his rake for balance. He wobbled in the wind and watched the blue marbles float by, slowly polluting with the E-squad’s blackness.

He, too, had been changed by the dark, depleted and damned and straw-less. There was nothing to reconstruct from. Sling’s straw was the last of his resources. He couldn’t take any more hits; he couldn’t allow himself to get eaten.

With no heart and a brittle soul, Swishy didn’t have anything to reconstruct from.

Is this what being human is like? No re-dos? Scary…

E-squad knew of their great advantage. They sized Swishy up—or down, rather—and revealed four massive smiles. Together, their evil grins resembled a family of crescent moons, beautiful and natural. But they were scythes to Swishy—and scythes to those captured within those blue marbles, knocking against those boundaries for the scarecrow’s help.

We believe you called us thin…that you said we deserved our hunger. But look at you now. Do you have any regrets? Any apologies to make before we capture you? Poor, brittle boy. Have you tried water? Ruby will nurse you back to health. She knows quite well what to do with the—as you put it—STARVED.

“I said what I said and you’re not proving any different.”

Okay, Heartless, have it your way.

Now that Swishy had presented them with a strange sight, the E-squad ceased their bickering.

They were well-dressed, well-refined, a top hat and Victorian gown kind of family. Dapper silhouettes shouldn’t fight amongst themselves—or so they decided.

And as such, the four proceeded onward with their family meal. Who was going to stop them?

The world stopped, waiting for them, the blue marbles frozen in the air, slowly corrupting from the E-squad’s presence. Now that there was no suction at the moment, they were suspended in time. The fear-stricken faces of the captured souls were pressed against their orbs, hoping for salvation but facing nothing but the white scythes of their captors’ smiles.

Every motion was deliberate. They’d straightened their postures, kept their hands in plain view, and maintained partial smiles—no cheek twinge to betray the intention to jump the gun and inhale the whole heart.

Meanwhile, Swishy’s brittle hands were full at least: two weapons, two paths to a future.

The boy juggled the two halves to his whole, the rake and the chasm. These things weren’t free. These things shaved him down to wicker-wiring and boundless ennui.

Within his right hand, Swishy clutched a gold-tipped rake, a lighthouse of power and joy. As he lost himself in its light, the images of autumn filled his mind, piles of crunchy red-orange leaves for him to jump in. He imagined Trey using the rake to gather all the flying leaves, the scratching sounds of the tines against the crinkly textures of flora soothed him so. Sling was there, too, the [Sanctuary] talismans floating within the flame-colored trees. Swishy’s spirit shivered through the corded hay he called a spine.

The boy, heartless, still had something of a heart left, something of the light to hold fast to even if…the other hand existed.

[Chasm] swirled in his left hand, howling and cold. The scarecrow couldn’t feel coldness, but frost chips glistened throughout that spherical void. The embodiment of everything he wanted, and everything that he, a decayed boy, didn’t have. It was full of bad, bad words. Anything that’d harmed him in this world, now hurricane’d within the palm of his frayed hand.

It was a black hole, kind of.

Calling it a black hole would be an oversimplification—any descriptor was, truth be told. He didn’t know what he’d pulled from his body. Soul? Abyss? Pain? Everything? He wasn’t the expert, only the perpetual test subject.

Holding the [Chasm] should’ve made him feel powerful, but he was his magic liked to run free on its own.

This time, though, he couldn’t let that happen.

Swishy had it under control, more or less, because darkness tended to gravitate toward him these days. But he strained every part of his body to keep the vigorous sphere in check. Especially because it was alive—and vocal. The [Chasm] inhabitants had a lot of hope in their host scarecrow, and therefore a lot of demands as well.

Is this our father? Is this our guardian? Look how dark he is! He is just like us—but stronger. Leader! We have a dark leader! One that doesn’t want to eat us! We’ve never been held before! Or looked at like this! I think he likes us…I think this time we’ve found a real dark master to serve.

The curses were so cheerful that Swishy had a hard time believing that DOOM and RUIN were among its most common words. LOSS, though, was everywhere as well, and their own jolly words seemed to confirm this much at least.

Swishy closed his eyes, processing his abundant feelings. First, annoyance from the same neediness that characterized Straw City, the cultish craving of Swishy’s straw, soul, and heart. But then came the responsibility for these new strangers. They were members of his village now, helpful dark dwellers who searched forever-and-a-half for a guide like Swishy.

Tell us your name! Serving is more fun when we know whose praises we’re singing.

“I’m Swishy…nice to meet you—or you all, I should say.” Against every lesson he’d learned from the Straw City curses, he opened himself to his obliging fans. If Swishy treated them right, they might do him and his friends some good.

Oooh, sounds like wind! Sounds like us! Swisssh—just like that. Hell yeah! Who are we killing, Lord Swissshhh?

“Now guys, kill is a strong word.”

The [Chasm] spun with ease and grace, each breeze of shadow wearing one word or another. The curses flowed in dark ribbons as HOLLOW and MISERY flickered in and out of Swishy’s sight.

But Master Swish, they finally said. We are strong.

“That you are. Carry on then…”

Swishy had eaten others. He’d put an end to his enemies, but aiming for that made him nervous.

He hoped this latest kindness wouldn’t bite him again. But scarecrows were open arms type of beings. Hugs, stabbings—scarecrow-kind was open to it all.

“How mature of you…” Myst giggled in his head, the theatre of his struggles serving as her favorite show.

“Life is hard, and this is just another hard thing…”

”See? Mature. You’re aging like a wizard, my sweet little sibling.”

“I…well I’ve heard sisters give brothers a hard time.”

“Now you’re getting it, fufufu…”

And the [Chasm] whorled on, lashing against Swishy’s palm, eager to be unleashed upon the E-squad.

Swishy floated before the E-squad’s eyes, straining to contain the [Chasm] in his bristling hand.

Is that also something to eat?

“You’ll see.”

Sounds like a threat.

“I said you’ll see.”

Emi, Emilio, Eren, and Emily summoned their knives of choice—cake knife, steak knife, bread knife, and cleaver—and simultaneously swung at Swishy’s face.

“[Chasm],” Swishy held the dark orb up, and the blade spells were all canceled, their origami folds unraveling until the dark papers were returned to wrinkled looseleaf pages.

Confused, the E-squad repeated their attacks.

Again, the dark sphere reached out and undid their efforts, returning the knives to flat, floating papers.

The E-squad launched blades again and again, emptying their kitchen drawer so to speak.

But Swishy’s dark servants unfastened the paper knives with their hexed gusts.

“You can’t have my heart!”

It’s already ours!

The deflected papers were frozen in the air, controlled by the E-squad. The wrinkled pages were brought around in a cage, surrounding the boy.

Swishy pivoted around on his palette of [Voodoo], looking for a way out. Finding none, he chose any direction—he didn’t know which—and shot forward with the [Chasm] in his hand, deciding to force his way through.

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[Flock], the E-squad said.

The drifting looseleaf split apart and folded into an army of papery shadowclaws, the sharp edges of their beaks and wings gleaming with knife-edge violence. But once they’d arrived at Swishy and the [Chasm], they dissolved into a debris of white dust. All that remained were the shadows that controlled the pages—which were then integrated into the [Chasm]. Objects were repelled by the spherical abyss but curses were welcome.

The dark orb swirled and called out, Send the next one!

E-squad trembled from nerves and embarrassment. The quality of their shadows was uncertain—yet they obliged Swishy’s darkness and deployed a barrage of shadowclaws.

Upon the [Voodoo] ride, he flew around, lighting the path with his rake, chasing after his drifting heart.

But the paper birds overtook him, obscuring his vision with cursed darkness. The souls in the shadowclaws screeched in a dreadfully familiar cacophony of Quit! Submit! Serve!

Others asked for help.

And a good portion more simply cried.

The soft caws of an actual shadowclaw soul bothered Swishy the most, slackening the boy’s reflexes as paper birds affixed themselves to his body—clutching, pecking, and the desperate among them hugging.

The boy swung with the rake but the origami flock didn’t feel a thing. The golden light had dimmed, and there was little left to dispel the paper-bound curses. Swishy, thin as he was, couldn’t break free from the winged embrace. He tried to lift the [Chasm] for an attack but the flock stacked in layers upon his arms, birds turned manacles, afraid of the HOLLOW and HORROR intents of his left hand.

The [Heart Armor] bobbed along the E-squad’s face with its tantalizing glitter.

With Swishy now restrained, the E-squad continued with their family meal.

They summoned their blades: [Cake Knife], [Steak Knife], [Bread Knife], and [Cleaver].

The silhouettes sliced them into the [Heart Armor]—simultaneously—quartering it like a lemon. The white auras flashed through the heart—then pushed the four pieces outward.

Then they politely put their knives away, reverting them to a foggy smoke.

The pieces floated toward their E-silhouette. Their white eyes narrowed to suspicious slits, inspecting their respective slices. Perhaps one or the other felt they’d gotten cheated, but they didn’t portray that notion.

This was an important moment for them, a civilized one.

A heart, a quarter of one anyway, something they wanted with their whole papery being.

They held their wedge-shaped hands outward, waiting for their due to come to them.

The crinkling of their paper-doll sounds was minimal, their discipline and unity restored.

Their four pairs of hands gathered around the heart, hovering over its aura. Their once rounded and human-like fingers now sharpened into claws, manicured and murderous.

“No!” Swishy released his left hand and smashed the [Chasm] into the birds—which absorbed the souls in its whirlwind while repelling the folded papers.

But it was too late.

The ravenous silhouettes—instead of grabbing the quartered heart—mashed their faces into the pieces with wolf-pack voracity. Then they raised their crazed faces from their short meal, crumbs dotting the corners of their mouths. They inhaled, exhaled, and waited to feel something.

Swishy flew up to a silhouette’s face, raising the dark sphere in his rail of an arm—and was grabbed from behind.

A wedged hand crinkled over his torso and yanked him backward. The sudden movement was like reversing through a tunnel of darkness, the night sky receding until…whiteness.

Everything white, everything of paper.

A silhouette had eaten Swishy, [Chasm] and all.

(…)

White. A celestial white. A heavenly white. Everything was bleached and disorientating.

And large, so large, at least a few acres in width and bottomless below—yet the E-silhouettes were located in the approximate locations that they occupied in the outside world.

Swishy tumbled through the realm and righted himself upon the [Voodoo] rider. He did a brief inventory of himself: his body was undamaged, the rake only had a few waning embers, and the [Chasm] remained in his hand despite his loosening grip.

The dark sphere wouldn’t leave him so easily—and he didn’t know whether to be glad about it or not. But an ally was an ally, and he needed them now more than ever.

“Thank you, friends,” Swishy said. “You guys held on for that rough ride.”

That was nothing—we welcome the travels! This is more feeling than we’ve had in…in ever!

HOLLOW multiplied in the orb, the words interlocking with each other in condensing chains.

Swishy nodded and focused on the tasks at hand: retrieving his heart and avoiding the silhouette’s version of digestion.

It was an urgent mission. Swishy, as he floated on the [Voodoo] rider, was compacted downward by an invisible force.

For all intents and purposes, Swishy was dropped into a boundless gorge. The E-squad was paper-thin on the outside but cavernous within. Within their origami bodies, they were hopelessly empty. The silhouette’s insides glowed from the profound absence.

Within the E-squad, the gravity was doubled, and a waterfall of air pushed Swishy toward its bowels—or lack thereof. There were no organs. No food. No framework of souls. Nothing the E-squad had consumed lasted long here.

Meanwhile, Swishy spotted his heart pieces. They’d originated from different directions—four different beings had eaten them, after all. The boy was relieved to find that their insides were a shared realm. He’d collect his pieces again, killing four birds with one stone.

A feat made more convenient by another fact: that as the heart fractals were pulled downward, they converged upon a central location.

The whiter nebula below. E-squad hosted a chasm of their own, a translucent abyss.

Swishy searched for a sign of something—anything. But there were no complicated systems present—no veins or roots or twisting and winding straw weaves—only an emptiness in the belly region that demanded for each entity to pay themselves as tribute.

So how were the contents processed? What did the E-squad do with everything they siphoned and swallowed?

The scarecrow ruminated on the mystery and pressed onward.

All the recent arrivals were there with Swishy. Blue-and-black marbles cracked with corruption were now drawn down toward the core, or what Swishy regarded as the bleaching area.

Bleached because that’s when things started to disappear.

Countless souls circled an invisible drain—then were gone.

Swishy could tell it was slightly different, extra glowy, extra white. The core snatched the debris, the everyfruits, and the souls.

The boy watched his far-off heart pieces and worried.

If each of the E-squad ate a piece, then how did they all end up within this same realm? The E-squad shared a void, unity in siblinghood and unity in hunger.

Swishy had sensed their profound fusion: Emi, Emilio, Eren, and Emily were paper dolls cut from the same sheet, a conjoined silhouette family—so of course their voids were the same. They were empty together—that was the Stormcellar way.

The shards drifted downward in their peaceable glow, the [Heart Armor] still intact. After the heart was split, Trey’s spell had sealed over the remains, dutiful in its mission to guard Swishy from every darkness.

The heart pieces just rapidly descended as if they were any other items, as if it weren’t the whole reason for this fight. They were headed straight into the white core and their impending obliteration.

And that was the exact problem: no shadows or organs or conjured spells that grabbed for the quartered heart and fixed it in place.

There was no solid structure or ground within the E-squad for the heart to do its natural work.

The fractured heart uselessly drifted…

Dead inside didn’t begin to describe the phenomenon.

Swishy remembered when his heart was eaten and when the E-squad paused and waited for a change, a meaningful effect to sweep through them. He remembered their nothingness, their mundanity. And now he heard those complaints from inside their shared form.

It’s not enough…their voices boomed, much louder now that Swishy was inside their body. This heart is a failure, it’s not working—why, why, why?

But they couldn’t see what Swishy saw. There was no stomach here. No mechanism to keep these paper dolls full and satisfied.

Meanwhile, the white core spun and spun and spun, erasing everything, and the heart shards were getting dangerously close.

“Want me to get it for you?” Myst teased, floating as a legless torso again, convinced that the E-squad wouldn’t perceive her.

“You’re not hiding anymore? Don’t you think they’ll find you?”

“Who? Me? Do you think they feel anything of what’s going on in here. Take a look around. This is the most scraped dimension I’ve ever, ever seen. Poor things.”

“You say poor things yet you’re hiding from them.

“Discretion is the better part of valor.”

“You mean letting me do all the work.”

“I mean, you’re valiant, are you not?”

Swishy rolled his eyes. He didn’t have time for this. He couldn’t hear his own thoughts. After a couple more moments of descent, he couldn’t hear anything.

The turbulence below roared and roared. The emptiness was loud, too, a tornado, a hurricane. Through their pristine vacuum core, the Emi-Emilio-Eren-Emily gathered and used spirits with ease, flexing great power. But they were never allowed to have it past the moment of consumption. Once something was eaten, their bodies stripped the satisfaction away.

The E-squad contained a Stormcellar of their own, the double-edged sword of white abyss.

Swishy heard an echo—louder, bolder—because he was now inside the enemy.

It’s not enough…

“What, not full yet?”

It’s never enough…the E-squad said amongst themselves. The food…this heart…it’s insufficient. Maybe we should get more. Let’s go after the others. Trey ran off with all that wheat. We can do something with that. What a relief…food is the most wonderful invention there ever was.

“Any answers to this, Mysty? You seemed to have had a good time, so why not them?”

“Sometimes a girl is just better,” she said, hands on hips, lips full of pout.

“You’re annoying...” Sling’s voice, a sleepy gasp, her soul recovering from within her straw.

“Oh, but it’s true. I am who I am.”

“There’s no time…” Swishy pointed to his heart parts and sped up, propelled by the vicious gravity.

“You can do it…” Sling was affirmative as ever, her straw rumbling through Swishy’s body.

“I can and I will. We already got eaten but death by digestion would be the worst.”

“I’m…I’m too much of a lady for such an insult. Dearest, Swishy, make us whole—sooner than later, please.”

“Yes, ma’am. I know we can do this. Look!”

Multiple sheets of paper landed on Swishy’s face and shoulders. The whiteness made them nearly invisible but for the slight magical aura along its fluttering edges. The pages were 8.5 but 11, industry standard. They were even lined, college-ruled just like Trey’s notebooks, and filled the whole airspace. Upon contact, the magic flowed into Swishy, identifying itself.

[Looseleaf].

[Looseleaf] everywhere. Like snitchtalons in the city. And shadowclaws in the woods. The papers were as numerous as the Cearth’s clouds and birds, and they blew turbulently from the realm’s continuous wind.

“We can break through this, Slingy. We can break through them.”

I put my faith in you always, sorry I couldn’t be more help.

“This is your straw. That’s sooo much help. I’ll build you back. I promise.”

I’m reassured, dear child.

Overhead, there was a sudden influx of souls, a surge of blue-black marbles pouring down after Swishy. The boy lowered his riding pose, pushing the pace. He had to outspeed the wave of recent prey. The E-squad were gorging themselves on a miserable feast. Their compulsion to consume overwhelmed them.

Why isn’t it enough? Where have we gone wrong? They choked up. Swishy could hear their paper hands smash into their cardstock faces. Their self-soothing caresses sent scratching noises throughout the realm.

The souls fought for their lives, resisting the abdominal magnetism—but to no avail. Down they went, plunging past Swishy who, in his skeletal state, was still made of stronger stuff.

The boy dipped the [Chasm] into his [Voodoo] rider, feeding it curse-spun ribbons of DOOM and GLOOM. The dark transport surged in speed, blasting after the heart pieces.

He was close, right within the glittering wake of the [Heart Armor] encasements.

Swishy lunged toward one of the heart pieces—but from the white void, the sounds of balled-up paper appeared in his general location. The cacophony occurred right above his head, and he sped away from the invisible force—until the attack happened, space itself rippling in a general ball-like shape, as if a fist tightly squeezed over the paper-textured atmosphere.

Myst subsumed into vapor and concealed herself within the [Chasm].

"Coward," Swishy said.

Myst made kissy noises from the dark sphere.

[CRUMPLE], the E-squad boomed, the papery dimension collapsing around Swishy’s head.