"I thought I was being aimed.But now I see—I'm just the next thing to be sewn."
The thought didn't leave him.
It settled behind his eyes, folded itself neatly into the ridges of his mind like a needle placed back into cloth. He sat still for minutes—maybe more—watching the ceiling above his cot. The threads no longer hovered gently.
They circled now.Tight.Measured.
As if mapping something.
As if marking him.
He slipped the glove back onto his hand.
The spiral on his palm tingled against the fabric, as if resisting containment.
He walked in silence.
The manor had grown narrower. Not literally. The halls were the same dimensions. The doors stood where they always had.
But something beneath the stone had tightened.
The seams in the world felt stretched.
Darian followed a pull that wasn't physical. Not like before.
It came from deeper.Lower.
The third sub-level.Where no steps echoed.
Where dust didn't settle.
Where no one was supposed to go.
He had to push aside two barred grates and slip through a cracked section of stonework—something long neglected.
The walls were no longer carved.
They were stitched.
Thread ran like veins across the stone, pulsing faintly with dim light—blue, red, silver. As he descended, the walls began to hum.
Not loudly.
But constantly.
The sound of something held together by force, not balance.
At the base of the corridor, he found a door.
Not like the others.
This one was round.
Seamless.
Made of blackened cloth, stretched tight and impossibly solid.
There was no handle.
No keyhole.
Just a sigil in the center:
A spiral being pulled apart by two needles.
He placed his palm against it.
It accepted him.
The cloth unraveled.
And behind it—
Darkness.
He stepped through.
There was no sound.
Not even breath.
The room was wide, spherical, endless in feel.
In its center hovered a single thread.
Vertical.Silent.Perfect.
Around it, concentric circles of symbols were etched into the floor—like the inside of a giant eye staring upward.
The walls pulsed with threadlines.
And hanging from them—
Forms.
Human.
Almost.
Bodies—stitched in standing positions, heads tilted forward, eyes closed. Each one wore a garment of woven black. Each one bore a single thread embedded in the center of the chest, leading into the vertical thread that anchored the space.
He stepped closer.
And the thread responded.
It bent.
Not toward him.
Into him.
He staggered, breath stolen.
Images flooded him.
Not visions.
Not dreams.
Instructions.
Thread pulled across spine.
Needles dipped into muscle.
Patterns running behind the eyes.
He gripped his chest—felt warmth seeping from inside.
His body wasn't breaking.
It was being measured.
Aligned.
He gasped.
Fell to his knees.
And the vertical thread hovered above his head like a pendulum.
Waiting.
Then—
A voice.
Not loud.
Not sharp.
But close.
"Not all seams are meant to be closed."
He turned.
One of the standing figures had opened its eyes.
Threadlines hung from its eyelids like tears.
Its voice came not from its mouth—but through the floor. Through the thread itself.
"You are not whole."
Darian tried to speak.
But his voice cracked—unthreaded.
"You came too early," the voice said. "Your pattern is not ready. But you've already begun pulling."
The figure stepped forward. Its joints creaked like wood too long forgotten.
"You must choose:Patch the design—Or tear it open."
A thread descended from the ceiling.Not white.Not red.
Black.
It hovered between them.
The voice pulsed through it:
"If you bind it, you will not return unchanged.If you cut it, you may not return at all."
Darian looked to the standing bodies around the room.
None moved.
None breathed.
But each had chosen.
He felt it in the thread.
One had patched.
One had torn.
Each carried a weight.
He stood.
Raised his gloved hand.
The black thread vibrated.
Waited.
He did not cut.
He did not sew.
He threaded it through his own spiral.
Let it settle.
Let it twist.
And with that—
A seam in him closed.
And a different one opened.
Not in flesh.
In time.
The room vanished.
No collapse.
No darkness.
Just absence.
And when he blinked—
He was standing in the upper corridor.
Daylight through stained glass.
People walking past.
No one looked twice.
But the thread—
The one inside him—
Still hummed.
Quiet.
Present.
Anchored.
That night, when he stared into the mirror—
He saw the seam.
In his chest.
Running diagonally.
Not physical.
Not visible.
But there.
A stitch beneath the surface.
Still fresh.
Still raw.
But his.
"Some choose to see.Some choose to pull.But I—I chose to thread myself into the fabric.And now the pattern is mine to shape."