CRACK—!
Her vision blurred.
Suddenly, flashes poured in—
Her childhood. Her death. Her rebirth. Her training. Her loneliness.
Then memories—
"You idiot!"
Her voice.
Her hand—slapping her brother across the cheek.
What…?
That never happened.
"Stop crying. Get up."
Her voice again. Hollow. Cold.
More visions spiraled into her skull—countless lives, twisted memories that weren't real. Pasts she never lived.
"I hate you."
"Please don't go."
"I'll protect you—always."
Whose memories are these?
She clutched her head. Her thoughts were fraying.
HSSSSSSKKKKK—!!!
The world roared.
Colors bled into one another.
her sense of Time collapsed.
How long had it been?
A minute?
A year?
A decade?
Perhaps even a century?
She couldn't tell.
She forgot where she was.
Forgot who she was.
Her name, her purpose, her past—all dissolving.
The deeper she followed, the more it consumed her.
Her thoughts blurred. Her mind screamed.
Her identity, her sense of self—it all started to unravel.
Was she still alive? Was she dreaming? Dead?
She didn't know.
She couldn't think.
She could only follow.
The thread reached her navel—then passed through, out of her body.
And still, she followed.
It soared past the room.
Past the earth.
Past the sky.
Past heaven itself.
Her mind shattered.
Pain flooded in—so intense, her brain couldn't even register it anymore.
She became nothing but thread.
And beyond everything she'd known…
Then she saw it a thread just like her…
Similar yet so different.
Soon she saw more.
Millions. Billions of threads.
All spiraling into one blinding point.
Intertwined like a web, all reaching toward a single shining core.
Fate.
She felt its pull. Its weight. The chains that bound every soul to it.
It loomed before her, massive and eternal.
A nexus where all things were tied, all paths predetermined.
With all the will she had left—
With a soul on the brink of collapse—
She pulled.
SNAP—!
The thread ripped free from Fate's grasp.
KRSSHHHHHH—!!!
A sound like a universe being torn apart echoed through her mind.
Something cracked inside her.
Something ancient.
Something forbidden.
Something corrupted.
Then—
She fell.
The thread she had torn—no longer tethered to the heavens—dragged her down with it.
Falling.
From beyond the stars to above the clouds.
From the sky… to the earth…
And finally—
Back to her room.
To her body.
Her heart screamed as energy surged into it. The corrupted mana exploded, bursting from every pore like wildfire.
A burning mark carved itself over her chest, veins lighting up like constellations, stretching from her navel to her collarbone. The veins weren't veins anymore—they pulsed, moved, breathed. Living wires. A corrupted network of soul and will.
Twisting. Merging. Changing.
In such chaos her body was lifelessly laying down in the pool of blood
She all those thing as she falls with thread
And yet… she ignored it.
Her mind was fog.
She didn't know what she was anymore.
She cannot think anymore…
It was all happing on instinct.
And then The thread—
The one she tore free—
Began to dissolve.
Like a snake shedding its skin, it unraveled… sliding back into her body, retracing every path it once took.
Through her limbs.
Her stomach.
Her lungs.
Her mind.
And then—she saw it.
Her soul.
Still there.
Still trembling, curled like a dying child.
The thread pierced the soul.
SKRRRRCH—!!
Then it ripped itself away from it.
Before dissolving.
Just like that it was gone
The soul screamed.
"AAAAAHHHH—!!!"
A scream from the core of her very being.
Her mind black out.
But the scream—
The scream didn't stop.
Inside that void,
It kept howling.
Wailing.
Cracking every thought she ever had.
And the veins on her chest—
Those cursed black vines—
DUG DEEPER.
CRSHHHK—!
They pierced into her chest.
Into her heart.
They reached, grasping.
Wrapping around the soul's hands. Its legs. Its throat.
It tried to run.
To cry.
To fight.
But there was no escape.
The veins curled tighter, like serpents in the dark,
Wrapping and weaving around the fragile soul—
Forming a cocoon.
Then they spread.
Outward.
Everywhere.
To her legs.
Her stomach.
Her chest.
Her lungs.
Her brain.
Her hands.
Her eyes.
Her ears.
Even her tongue.
The corruption consumed her— Body and soul.
SLLLLK—SLLLLK—SLLLLK—!!!
The sound of living threads creeping across every part of her body
And then—
As the final thread slithered toward her right ear—
DING—!
A clear, crystalline chime echoed—
Soft.
Ethereal.
It came from the small black cross earring on her ear.
DING—!!
Again, the chime rang out.
The corruption—hissed.
SSSSSAAAAAARRRRHHH—!!!
And like shadows before sunlight,
The veins trembled.
Then hissed.
They slithered back—
Withdrawing.
Retreating into her chest, where they stayed, coiled and dormant.
The light in the earring slowly dimmed.
And there… in that breathless stillness…
All that can be heard was….
Hhhhhh… hhhhhh…
The sound of breathing.