Chapter 1: Hungry


Thanks for clicking this story, I'm sure that if you're into Hollows, Arrancar, and lore, I'm sure you'll love this story. Also, to anybody coming from any of my other stories, sorry for starting another new story, I just got the urge to write this and came out with this chapter rather quickly. This whole story has been stewing in my mind for years, and it feels good to get it out there.


It was cold, so very cold, and painful, so very painful too. Why was it like this? Why was he feeling this way? Or was he hot? Was he actually too hot? He couldn't tell, everything just hurt way too much for him to tell. He tried to look around, maybe see if he was too hot or too cold, but no matter how wide he opened his eyes, no matter how much he strained them, he couldn't see anything beyond a complete and utter darkness. No, he was wrong, there was a slit of light coming slowly towards him. Then another one right beside it. He tried to reach out to the slits of light, moving ever closer and closer, but he couldn't feel any part of him at all. No, he was in pain, right? Yes, that was definitely pain, but it began to dull the closer those lights got to him. He supposed he'd just have to wait for them to approach, after all, he had no urge to get away from this pain, the usual instinct to flee from it gone from his mind.

It felt like an eternity before the lights were right before him, or it could have been but a moment, he really couldn't tell. In any case, they were right there and the pain that he couldn't tell whether was hot or cold was gone.

Now that the lights were there, he could feel the edges of his body, he could feel something course and rough sticking into his back, he could feel the tips of his fingers and toes. They were warm somehow. Now he could look through the light, right into the world. It was then that he realised that these weren't just slits of light in front of him, these were his own eyes, they had just taken their time to open up. Or maybe it was just a blink? What had he been feeling before now, before he opened his eyes? Had he been in pain, he couldn't quite recall.

None of that mattered now anyway, not when he was so hungry.

He stood, opening his eyes completely, trying and failing to force himself to his feet. Whenever he thought he'd gotten his bearings he just collapsed to the ground again. He decided that standing wasn't worth it right now and decided to crawl. Where to? He had no idea, he just knew he needed to move, he needed to find food.

The ground in front of him was so derelict, so dusty and grey. He didn't realise until now, but his vision was blurry, so very blurry and indistinct. He sat back on his haunches, brought his hands to his face and tried to rub his eyes, only there was something in the way, something hard and thick that he could feel, something that was part of him. It ended up not being an issue however, since his vision soon cleared up.

What he saw before him should've been more surprising, but it wasn't, it was just a vast, silvery desert, with nothing but a horizon and sand. He knew he wouldn't get any food here, so he kept crawling, eventually finding the strength to properly walk. Now he was covering some actual distance. At least, he thought he was, the horizon seemed to go on infinitely. The only thing that seemed to change was the moon. It was slowly but surely going from crescent, to full, to crescent, to disappearing for a bit, to becoming crescent once more, repeating the process again and again, each cycle fuelling the hunger that raged inside of him.

He didn't know how, it had taken a few full-moons, but somehow, he knew that if he swung one of his arms out in front of him, putting only a bit of energy into it, something would tear open. He tried, and he was partially correct, something did tear open, but he needed to grab it, grab it and pull. Something black and grey opened that he could walk into, and he did, leaving the desert, the horizon and the moon behind without a second's thought.

The walk to the end of this empty tunnel was wonderfully brief compared to a single moon-cycle, it seemed like no time at all. He knew when he reached the end, that he'd need to tear open his way out. This time he knew, and this time it was so much easier.

Immediately, it was bright, his field of vision was bombarded with blues above and greens all around him, and something wonderfully gold up above where the moon would usually be. For a second, he almost forgot about his hunger.

Almost.

He could smell it, he didn't know what it was, but he could definitely smell it. It was so close, not even a tenth of a moon-cycle's walk away from where he was at that very moment. He walked, the gold in the sky disappearing in shades of orange and pink below the horizon, but unlike the silver horizon below the moon, this one got bigger the more he walked.

So close, it was so very close. Whatever he could smell was painfully close to him, so close that he could hardly stand it. He was running now, his hunger making him feel as empty as the desert, his mouth as dry as the sand and his eyes as sharp as the point of the crescent moon!

Then it was there, right in front of him, so small and pale, with something as dully-coloured as the sand sticking out of its chest. He knew what this was, somehow, he just couldn't think of the name of it. This thing tried to run from him, but he couldn't let that happen, of course he couldn't, not when he was so hungry.

He grabbed the human, yes, human was the correct word, in his hand, it struggled and beat at his fingers with its own fists. It was no use at all, it was so small compared to him, its entire body only slightly longer than the width of his palm.

He lifted the human up over his head and, for the first time in a very long time, opened his mouth. He opened his mouth wide and broad, his black tongue sticking out for the human to slide down. It screamed as he closed his mouth again, silenced with his chews and was no more when he gulped. It felt wonderful, for the first time he could remember, his hunger was sated, for the first time he wasn't getting hungrier.

Something on the ground caught his eye. It was that sand-coloured thing that had been sticking out of the human's chest, part of it had broken off when he'd bitten down. He picked it up and held it close to his eye, only he didn't use his hand to do it. All he needed to do was want it to get closer to him, and it did. It hovered right in front of his eyes, shrinking. Piece by piece it got smaller, little mouths from this chain eating itself. Yes, chain was the right word for this. He dropped it, not caring about it anymore when he smelled more humans nearby.

They weren't far at all, he needed only walk for a moment and they were there, these ones with no chains sticking out from them, gathered around a blazing fire, chanting and yelling at the flames. None of them seemed to notice when he strolled towards them, at least not until he picked up a plump one by the head. Its pained yells alerted the others and they began screaming, some running at him, into him, bouncing off his body. It was almost as if they couldn't see him. He didn't pay them much mind, they'd all get their turns in his mouth.

This plump one exploded when he chewed it, its blood splashing around his mouth. It was such a satisfying sensation, this chainless one tasted so much better than the one with a chain. He grabbed another two humans, one in each hand, and swallowed them too. At this point the rest seemed to realise that he was to be feared and backed away. Some of the larger ones were holding sharply pointed spears, yelling for the others to retreat while they threw their weapons at him. They bounced off his skin, doing practically nothing. Still, they were getting in the way of his eating.

Like he did with the chain, he picked up the spears by only thinking about it, but he could tell it was only the tips of the spears he was picking up, the shiny parts that glistened in the flames. With a thought he sent the pointed tips back to the ones who threw them, keeping them in place for when he wanted them.

He ate more and more, they seemed adamant to keep coming at him, poking him with more pointy things and throwing other hard things at him. Anything that was shiny he sent away with a thought, anything that wasn't shiny didn't even phase him.

When he was out of humans coming to him, he turned his attention to all the ones he had pinned to keep in place, only now they smelled different from before, now they smelled like the one with the chain. In fact, many of them now had chains coming from them, some from the stomach, others from the chest, one from the eye. Still, they satisfied his hunger as they went down his throat, only they didn't splash with blood.

Before long, there were no more humans to eat. Still, he'd managed to eat a few dozen, he'd lost count after a while. Now his hunger was properly satisfied, now he didn't have the urge to keep walking. So, he sat, he sat as the roaring flames died down, as the sky darkened completely and lightened again, and then darkened again before lighting once more. It seemed that no matter where he went the sky was always going through cycles.

After walking some more and finding more humans to sate his slowly growing hunger, he tore open another hole in the air, walking until he needed to tear open another hole and like that, he was back in the desert.

He walked for a few more moon cycles and didn't stop until he felt something strange, something familiar yet completely foreign at the same time. He saw something walking towards him, something that wasn't at all human, something that was his size, something whose existence he could feel much more than a human's, and it seemed to sense him too.

They got closer and closer to each other until he could make out the features of this creature, this Hollow. Yes! Another word he remembered. He, and this being approaching him, was a Hollow. But was this Hollow a friend, or was it a foe?

This Hollow didn't seem to want to attack him, it merely approached him, walking around on four clawed legs. Its white mask had a long, fanged snout and three yellow eyes to peer at him with. It also had three tails trailing behind to sway and swing.

It roared at him, sending sand up in a cloud. He was taken by surprise when the other Hollow leapt at him with a roar from the cloud, sinking its teeth into his arm. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to the hunger he once felt. He wrapped his pointed fingers around the Hollow's neck and pulled it off, its four sets of claws trying to scratch his thick skin. Instinctually he held out a single finger, and from that finger sent a thin, white and blue light at the Hollow, and the second it connected the Hollow howled in pain and writhed, thrashed and trembled. He only stopped torturing it when it was lying in the sand, barely moving. He jumped on it, sinking his teeth into its neck and tearing out a chunk. It tasted nowhere near as nice as an unchained human, but it was filling, as if there were a dozen humans packed into a single, tasteless package.

He devoured the entire thing, feeling quite full but with a bad taste in his mouth. Still, there were probably many more hollows out there, ones that would satiate his hunger in between the trips to the human world.

For many moon cycles, that was how he lived, journeying to the human world, devouring a group of the tasty things, coming back home and feasting on another Hollow or two. Everything was great, he was never too hungry, and it seemed that nobody could get in his way, not a Hollow and especially not a human.

This was the day that notion of absolute invincibility was to be shattered.

It was an unextraordinary day for the most part, the humans were delicious, and it had been raining, a phenomenon where droplets of water fell from the sky in the human world. He found it very intriguing and would often sit there for many cycles of the sky while it fell on him. He'd often be so quiet and still that the lesser creatures that occupied the human world, the ones he had no desire to eat, would come to him as if he were just another tree. The birds sat on him and the ones that scurried on the ground took shelter from the gale winds by hiding behind him.

"There you are, scum!"

A voice had yelled at him. He turned his head to look for the source. It was another human, only this one had a very different scent than the chained and unchained humans he was familiar with. This one smelled…powerful? Delicious? He couldn't quite put his finger on it, the only thing he knew for certain was that this human, clad in black and aiming a blade at him, needed to be in his mouth.

Not thinking much of this human, he stood and walked over to it. It didn't move away, despite looking him directly in the eye. Odd, he was so much bigger, and thus so much stronger than this creature. If it could see him it should at least try to flee, the others who acted like they couldn't see him often fled after seeing what he did to their kin.

He raised his hand and slammed it down on the human, cracking the hard ground beneath. He raised his hand again, expecting to find stains of red splattered on his palm, only there was nothing there, only the fissures in the rock.

He felt something sharp slice into his back. Turning quickly, he saw that this human was behind him, its blade reddened by his own blood. He narrowed his eyes, and for the first time in his life, he was excited, he wanted to fight this human, who with one move had intrigued him more than any Hollow ever had. The feeling, the energy that emanated from this human was almost at a level with his own, so much so that he doubted that this human was human at all.

Wait, there was a word for this, a word that once existed in the mind of one of the many hollows he devoured.

"Shinigami!" He growled, the first word he could remember speaking aloud.

It seemed startled to hear its title be spoken by him. Good, that gave him the opportunity to dash forward, his white, sparking light enveloping his hand as he smashed his fist into the Shinigami, sending it flying back, crashing into and smashing many trees.

A feeling of disappointment washed over him, he thought that the Shinigami would be able to put up a good fight, yet there it was, slumped down, defeated, its front seared by his power. He stalked towards it, seeing that it had some life left in it as it coughed up blood. That was a consolation at least, an unchained meal was always more satisfying than a chained one. It cried out for mercy as he swallowed it, just as others had done. He never gave it, why should he? They were his meals, they staved away his hunger, they couldn't compare to his might, no more than the other Hollows could. They should earn his mercy if they want it so bad.

That Shinigami was the best thing he had ever tasted in all the cycles he had existed. The energy it filled him with, the power that surged through him as it slid down his throat. It was orgasmic, so much so that he couldn't help but let out a long, drawn-out, victorious roar!

Then he sensed more of them, more Shinigami were coming. For the first time, he felt glee, pure excitement and anticipation for what was to come. One mere Shinigami couldn't stand up to him, but maybe the four, five, six, that were coming would be able to. He grinned when they surrounded him, blades of their own drawn, one of them holding a spear with a long, sharp looking tip.

One of them yelled out, two dashed at him, but he grabbed one in each hand and burned them with his sparking-white light. As he tossed the right one into his mouth, he could feel the one with the spear behind him, just mere inches away from skewering his neck. He did something new, he used his light from his back, sending a broad wave of it out to throw the Shinigami off. By the yell he heard he could tell that it worked, though the spear had drawn a bit of blood. It wasn't an issue, the wound closed quickly as the energy from his third Shinigami cascaded through him.

The ones with the regular blades didn't last long at all, one attack with his light had them dead to rights, but the one with the spear was a different creature altogether, it bounced back and weaved through his attacks, even when all of its comrades were either in his stomach or on the ground. It even managed to scratch his face when it threw its weapon, but he was largely unharmed. He found that he was able to lift all six of the fallen Shinigami's blades just by thinking about it. They were effective, managing to scratch and wound the spear-wielder when it dodged his light.

The fight was pretty much over when he caught the spear-wielder by the leg and knocked its weapon away. It started to chant something and aimed its hand at him. A dim yellow light surrounded its arm, but he wasn't interested in that right now, so he swallowed the Shinigami in one bite. The energy it gave him was worth more than all the rest of the Shinigami put together, worth more than dozens of humans and Hollows. This must've been what ecstasy felt like.

Now he knew though, there were beings out there that could challenge him, that could maybe kill him. The thought made him laugh, not out of arrogance or conceit, but out of excitement! A challenge was what he needed to add something to this existence of killing and eating.

He hoped he'd meet another Shinigami sooner rather than later.


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