Hollowpath Collector

Field account

The Collector knew the trail crew before we introduced ourselves. Copper tags knocked together beneath its fog-wet coat, each stamped with a name someone had stopped answering to. Satchels dragged from its crooked shoulders, heavy with ribbons, charms, map corners, and the small proofs by which a person remains known. It reached for Ellis and plucked his surname from the air. I watched recognition leave the faces around him. Even Ellis looked uncertain when we shouted. Then the old path divided into six ghost trails, and a different Ellis ran down each. We kept the real man by tying his wrist to mine and reciting the day we met, details too ordinary to have been written on any tag. The Hollowpath Collector does not steal souls. It steals the handles by which the living hold one another, then waits for the unsupported person to disappear on his own.

Observed behavior

The Collector approaches under a pretense of accounting, asking a destination or offering to return a lost token. Any answer gives it a detail to take. It marks a chosen identity, splits the trail into doubles, and strips away protections tied to rank, kinship, or sworn name. It prefers witnesses, since their forgetting completes the theft. Private memories spoken aloud can anchor a victim, especially sensory details never recorded. The Collector grows violent when its satchels are cut or tags returned. If deprived of trophies, it retreats into thick fog by following any path no living person currently names.