The eye opened.
It wasn't a metaphor, nor a vision, nor some forest's deception. Blinking, red, wet real it was then.
Slit like a serpent's. The space had width more than that of the woman's body. Into the flesh of the mountain, directly it was embedded.
It was looking through her.
She froze.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
This was not the Spiral.
The Spiral had buried a thing such as this one.
Something older than it. It is older than all of them.
She rose up as her hand did shake. For her speech, steady enough still, her voice cracked, both dry and choked.
"…You should not have woken from your slumber."
A heartbeat passed.
Then the eye smiled.
Not with lips. But with an unmistakable narrowing of something gleeful, cruel, that had waited a long, long time to be seen again.
Its core released breath but it wasn't air.
It was memory.
Her lungs inflated.
Suddenly she was beginning to remember some things. She had never lived those things.
Crimson cradles contained children burned alive.
Mouths made a cathedral.
A boy with white eyes called out to his mother but it wasn't her.
A deal.
A lone string gold does bind.
One that had perpetually grown up.
She dropped back to her knees. She was gasping.
Now louder, the mountain's voice again echoed in her blood.
"What is a belonging for me you cannot give protection to."
And far above
Asto's threads stopped moving.
Mid-air.
They trembled.
The star vanished.
The wind died.
Slowly, the threads began to twist, one by one.
Turn.
Reverse.
Like something was calling them back.
Asto floated lifelessly eyes closed now, lips pale but the thread that cocooned him had changed. It no longer shimmered with protection. It tightened like rope.
The woman screamed.
"No!"
She scrambled up, blood running from her ears, stumbling toward the glowing eye. "You can't take him, he's still his own! He still
But the mountain rumbled beneath her.
And the voice cut her down with a whisper:
"Not anymore."
Far below, in the darkest chambers of the Spiral, a boy awoke.
Eyes wide.
Breathing hard.
His voice was hoarse.
But the name he whispered was sharp and clear:
"Asto?"
Eli sat up in the dark.
His hands were shaking.
Because he had heard it
That name.
The thread.
And somewhere inside his chest…
Something just snapped.
He didn't know the woman's face. Not her name.
But his heart had known her.
And when the mountain called Asto away, Eli felt it.
A severing.
Like someone had stolen something he couldn't remember but would die trying to find.
Eli's Awakening
Far below the mountain, where no light had touched for what felt like years, Eli's eyes snapped open.
Pitch black surrounded him the Spiral's prison, stitched together with silence and broken memory. But now, something was different.
His chest burned. His breath caught. His hands clawed at the stone floor beneath him like an animal just waking from a long coma.
He felt it.
Something had shifted torn.
He sat up sharply, breath ragged. His heart thundered in his ears, a wild drumbeat of panic and confusion.
Then
A name almost left his lips.
Almost.
But it wouldn't come.
His jaw clenched. His throat worked like he was trying to vomit out the syllables, but they dissolved on his tongue like ash.
Frustration cracked across his face teeth grinding, fists shaking, his nails biting into the skin of his palms.
"I know him," he muttered, the words barely escaping, hoarse and wounded.
"…Why won't it come? Why—?!"
He slammed his fists into the floor.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Blood bloomed across his knuckles. Still, he didn't stop.
"WHY WON'T YOU LET ME REMEMBER!"
The walls didn't answer.
But something else did.
A flicker.
A ripple of red light along the stone, like a vein pulsing. It darted across the prison wall and vanished but not before Eli saw something in it:
A boy suspended mid-air. Unmoving. Unbreathing. Surrounded by threads tightening like chains.
Eli froze.
His chest rose and fell too fast.
His lips parted slightly, eyebrows twitching into a pained, angry scowl. His whole face twisted with something deeper than rage grief buried beneath forgetting.
And then… his jaw locked.
His breath shook. His voice dropped, trembling with urgency.
"…He's in danger."
He didn't know the name.
He didn't remember the promise.
But his body did.
His soul did.
And the Spiral the cursed, rotting womb of this place shivered.
Because something inside Eli had just snapped.
The boy who'd been passive. Quiet. Waiting for rescue
Was gone.
And what remained now was someone who would burn the walls down with his bare hands just to get to the truth.
He stood.
Blood dripping from his knuckles. Eyes wide, glowing faint with something not human.
He faced the wall.
And he screamed.
Not in fear.
But in war.
The night above was a graveyard of stars.
The moon hung torn behind drifting clouds, its pale light bleeding silver across the twisted woods of the Spiral. Trees loomed like black skeletons, swaying even without wind branches clawed at each other in silence, as if the forest itself was afraid to breathe. The ground pulsed underfoot, damp and hot, a living flesh that whispered in groans and cracks.
Then Eli broke through the dark.
He stumbled out from a wound in the earth, gasping, bloodied, bare-chested, night steam curling off his sweat-drenched skin. A slash bled down his cheek. His eyes blazed with something unnatural. Glowing veins shimmered beneath his skin not red, but faintly blue as if fire had replaced his blood.
He stood barefoot on cursed soil, each breath visible in the cold air. Behind him, a trail of torn trees, scorched roots, and clawed vines told the story of his escape.
In front of him the beast.
A monstrous thing of ash and bone, half-shadow, half-rotted flesh. No face just a shifting, howling mask. Its limbs were too long. Its spine crooked. It breathed with the rattle of a buried corpse. Blue fire glowed faintly from its chest same as Eli's veins. Same as something ancient.
And still he ran.
The trees bent toward him, trying to stop him. Bark split and bled. Thorns tore into his arms, ripping ribbons of flesh. But Eli didn't slow. He screamed and charged like a flame desperate to burn.
The beast lifted its head.
Too late.
Eli's body slammed into it like lightning. His fist collided with the creature's jaw if it had one snapping its head sideways. A blast of blue fire erupted, splitting the forest in two, bathing the night in unholy light.
Far behind, the woman staggered at the first wave of heat.
She stood barefoot on damp earth. Silver strands of hair caught firelight. Her dark cloak twisted in the windless night. Her eyes were wide. Her face pale. Her heart racing.
She had heard the beast scream.
But she hadn't seen who struck it.
She dropped to her knees, brushing her fingertips across the soil.
"Thank you," she whispered to something she couldn't name.
Then his voice came distant, broken by flame and fury:
"I'm not done yet."
Eli fought like a man possessed.
He swung at the air like wringing soaked cloth fist after fist each hit cracking bone and silence.
He dragged a massive rock through the flames and slammed it onto the beast's chest.
A tooth flew loose.
He caught it.
It burned his hand.
Without hesitation, he ripped it free and hurled it into the night but it exploded on his skin. Blue fire bloomed over his shoulders, down his spine. His pants caught flame. His boots melted. His skin blistered.
Still, he stood.
Naked. Burned. Bleeding.
He turned smirking. Voice low. Mocking.
"Hey, beautiful. You've already seen me now, haven't you?"
The woman's mouth opened.
No sound.
The fire cast shadows over Eli's body a warrior sculpted from ash and pain. Veins glowing. Eyes cracked with too much knowing. His hair damp with blood and sweat, clinging to his face.
Still he grinned like death was just another trick.
The beast snarled.
It turned toward Asto.
The boy lay unconscious behind the woman, shivering in the cold. Red threads twitched beneath him.
The beast lunged.
Eli shouted, "HEY! You gonna enjoy the view or help me?!"
Then he threw himself forward back into battle.
The stone beneath him cracked as he launched. But the beast was faster now.
It caught him.
And smashed him backward.
He slammed into a boulder hard. His vision swam. Blue blood splattered across the stone.
His eyes widened.
He was bleeding blue.
He blinked.
And for a moment froze.
Across the clearing, Asto lay in the woman's arms. Her cloak wrapped around him. She looked up at Eli.
"Eli…" she called.
He didn't respond.
Until she moved.
Until she stepped in front of the beast.
Her back turned.
Her arms shielding the boy.
And then the beast tore her open.
Her body flew in pieces.
Blood. Flesh. Bone.
No scream. No time.
Just her face.
Smiling.
Even as her pieces fell, even as her blood painted the night, she smiled at Eli through broken lips.
"Save him," she said. "He'll save you, too."
Then her eyes closed.
Forever.
The world stopped.
Eli trembled.
He dropped to his knees naked, burned, broken. He crawled to her. Gathered what was left. His hands shook. His chest cracked with silent sobs.
Around him, the flames rose higher.
The beast stepped back—watching.
But Eli…
He was no longer the same.
Not anymore.
Eli couldn't breathe.
The forest stood still around him, as if the Spiral itself was holding its breath. No more wind. No more screams. Only the sound of his shaking hands scooping what remained of her into his arms.
His body was slick with blood—hers, not his warm, thick, too much. Too wrong. Pieces of her cloak still burned quietly beside him, curling like dead leaves. Her hair was tangled in his fingers. Her smile was still there frozen in death, carved like something sacred.
"...No."
The word fell from his mouth, soft. Almost like a whimper.
Then louder.
"NO."
The forest shuddered.
Blue light cracked from his shoulders, his arms, his spine. His veins pulsed, swelling beneath skin that no longer seemed human. His jaw clenched. His teeth bared. He pressed her torn body against his chest naked, burned, trembling and let out a sound not meant for human throats.
A scream.
Not of pain.
Of becoming.
The Spiral stirred.
From above, shadows recoiled from him. The trees bent backward, their branches snapping like brittle arms. The stars blinked out. The moon vanished behind choking clouds. Something ancient shifted beneath the soil frightened.
The beast growled and took a step forward.
But Eli didn't flinch.
He rose slowly, almost reverently lifting the woman's broken body into the flames that curled around him. His fingers shook. His jaw trembled.
"I'll remember your smile," he whispered. "But they'll remember your scream."
Then he placed her down. Gently. Carefully. Like she was holy.
He turned to face the beast.
And his eyes
They were burning holes of blue.
No pupils. No whites. Just fire. Fire, and the echo of everything the Spiral had taken from him.
He stepped forward. The ground hissed under his feet.
Each breath from Eli now burned cold. His body pulsed with new blood, no longer human, but something carved from rage and grief and the stolen will of the Spiral itself. The threads of the forest the cursed red strings buried deep beneath the roots rose like serpents around him.
They bowed.
To him.
The beast finally hesitated.
Eli laughed. Quietly.
"Now you back down?" His voice was deeper. Sharper. Cruel.
The flames curled tighter around him, not burning but feeding. His wounds closed. His skin cracked into dark stone lines that glowed underneath with violent blue.
"You took her. You tore her apart." He raised one hand. Blue light danced across his palm. "So tell me how much of you should I leave behind?"
The beast lunged with a scream sharp, metallic, inhuman.
But Eli didn't move.
Not until the last second.
Then he vanished.
Appeared above it.
His fist fell like a falling star.
Impact.
The ground split. The flames exploded. The forest howled.
The beast was thrown backward, its mask cracking, body smoking. It slid across the clearing, hitting stone, snapping its spine against a tree trunk with a sickening crunch. It wailed flailing, screeching.
But Eli was already there again.
He dragged it back.
By the throat.
The fire wrapped around both of them, a cyclone of blue and black. Above them, the sky churned, threads of red lightning striking down as if the Spiral itself wanted to intervene but couldn't. Not now. Not against him.
Eli's voice shook the trees.
"I told you… you don't get to take people from me anymore."
He slammed the beast's head into the earth again.
And again.
And again.
Blood sprayed upward black and steaming.
The trees twisted away. The ground tried to swallow them both. But Eli held on, blue light flashing from his eyes, cracks spreading across his shoulders, his chest, his soul.
He wasn't just fighting anymore.
He was changing.
Not losing himself.
Becoming what the Spiral was too afraid to create.
And then from somewhere deep in the dark behind him he heard a whisper. Soft. Barely a breath.
"...Eli…"
He froze.
His chest heaved.
The voice was not hers.
It was Asto's.
Alive.
Barely.
Bleeding.
Eli stood at the precipice of something vast and terrible an abyss of power and fury that threatened to devour him whole. The forest, once a sanctuary of whispers and wind, now lay in smoldering ruin, a graveyard for the innocent and the lost. The air around him crackled with energy, thick and electric, as if the Spiral itself held its breath.
His body trembled not from fear, but from the weight of grief clawing its way out of his chest.
Then
"Eli…"
The voice sliced through the storm. Familiar. Fractured. Full of desperation.
Asto.
Eli froze. The flames curled tighter around his form. His eyes snapped toward the sound, blinking through the smoke.
There at the edge of the clearing, barely conscious was Asto, half-covered in blood and thread, struggling to sit upright. His body shook with effort, and yet his eyes… they were still defiant. Still alive.
"Eli…" he rasped again, a painful breath breaking the word in half. "You were losing yourself…"
The fire dimmed around Eli's shoulders, flickering uncertainly. For a moment, he was no longer a creature of wrath just a boy staring at the only friend he had left.
"I lost her," Eli said, voice cracking like brittle glass. "I could've saved her. I"
His throat locked. His fists curled. The flames flared again.
Asto reached for him, hand trembling, blood-soaked. "You can't let it take you. That's what it wants. That's what she died trying to stop."
Eli stared at him. Then down at his own hands glowing veins pulsing like they had a heartbeat of their own. The Spiral throbbed beneath his skin, its hunger whispering through the marrow of his bones.
More. Burn. Become.
"I can't let it happen again," Eli breathed, his voice shaking. "Not to you. Not to anyone."
"But at what cost?" Asto whispered. "You're becoming something it fears. That means it wants to twist you. It'll call itself your strength. It'll wear your grief like armor. But it's still it."
Eli's eyes fluttered shut for a moment, breath ragged. He saw her again the woman's torn body, her smile, the blood, the final whisper that still echoed inside him:
Save him… He'll save you too.
When his eyes opened, the fire was controlled no longer wild, but focused. Wrapping around him like a living will.
"I know who I am," Eli said, louder now. "I'm not Spiral-born. I'm not some puppet. I'm the one who walks into the dark and comes back with blood on my hands but it's mine, not theirs."
A growl rumbled behind him low and guttural.
The beast hadn't died.
It had waited.
It rose now from the shadows, taller than before, its flesh re-knitting with smoke. Its chest glowed blue like Eli's veins, mirroring him. Its face twisted with cruel mockery, shifting into a thousand familiar shapes the woman, Asto, even Eli himself smiling, bleeding, burning.
Asto's face blanched. "Eli… that's not just a beast."
Eli turned slowly, locking eyes with it.
"I know," he said. "It's me if I lose."
The ground cracked beneath him. The Spiral howled, reacting. Threads erupted from the soil, twitching like veins beneath torn skin.
"I'll end it," Eli whispered, raising his arm. "Before it ends us."
The fire surged once more violent, divine, absolute.
And then
The beast moved.
Not toward Eli.
Toward Asto.
Too fast. Too sudden. A blur of smoke and bone.
"Asto!" Eli screamed, his body twisting in mid-leap, flames trailing from his limbs.
But it was too late.
A claw struck the ground where Asto had been
And he was gone.
Vanished. No scream. No blood. No flash.
Just absence.
A quiet, gaping silence.
The Spiral stilled.
Eli landed, too late to catch him. His hands closed around nothing. The air where Asto had been was cold. Wrong.
His chest heaved. Eyes wide. Flames flickering erratically.
"No…" he whispered.
The forest darkened. The beast stepped back… grinning.
And then Asto's voice came.
Not from the clearing.
Not from above.
But deep below.
Far beneath the roots. Beneath the Spiral. Beneath everything.
A scream.
Choked. Echoing. Distant.
"ELI!!"
The ground buckled beneath his feet.
And Eli turned eyes burning, grief splitting into something unholy.
"I'm coming," he growled, stepping toward the place Asto vanished, his hands glowing, his bones humming.
"I don't care what's down there. I'm tearing it apart."
The Spiral laughed.
And opened.