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"Threads cannot lie. But they can be rewoven."
Unknown Stitchborne proverb
1. The Book Unfolds
The candle flickered once. That was the only warning Elric received before the world began to fold.
He had turned the final page of The Seventh Spindle's Lament, expecting nothing. The book was strange, yes — its ink glimmered unnaturally, its spine stitched like skin — but he thought it was just another cryptic relic from the university archives.
Until the letters bled.
They untangled like threads from a loom, curling off the page and into the air. The margins widened. The book yawned.
And swallowed him whole.
There was no scream, no falling sensation. Just the feeling of being unwritten. As if he were a sentence trimmed from a story mid-thought.
Then: darkness.
2. The Forest Breathes
Elric woke with bark in his mouth.
His eyes snapped open to a canopy of black trees—enormous things with roots like ribs, bark etched with pulsating silver threads. The forest pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. Or maybe… it was the other way around.
The air smelled of ink and rusted needles.
He sat up, coughing. Dirt clung to his skin like ash. Beside him, the book—still whole—lay closed. But its surface was warm. Breathing.
When he touched it, the pages flipped open on their own. Lines formed where none had been before:
Layer 0: Gutterloom
Region: Whispering Forest
Thread Rank: STITCH
Soul Signature: UNRECORDED
You do not belong.
A cold spike of silence entered his chest.
"To climb, first weave. To weave, first listen."
The words pulsed, then dimmed.
He stood on trembling legs. Nothing around him moved—but something watched. Not with eyes. With intent.
He was not alone.
3. The Forest Speaks First
At first, the sounds were soft. A shuffle. A hush.
Then the whispers began.
"You were never enough."
"They all saw through you."
"You think this is new? You were already unraveling."
The voices came from the trees. Not around him — within them. The bark trembled when they spoke.
He spun around, clutching the book like a shield.
"Shut up," he muttered. His voice sounded wrong. Too thin.
"Shut up," the forest echoed, mocking him in his own tone.
He ran.
Branches reached. Roots writhed. The ground pulsed like a lung. Every step forward led nowhere — the path behind him curled back ahead.
Time fractured. Had it been minutes? Hours?
4. The Book Opens Again
Elric collapsed by a crooked tree that oozed thread from a knothole like drool.
His hands shook as he opened the book. New writing had appeared:
Essentia flows through all. Even the forgotten.
Your thread is hidden. Find it before you are rewritten.
Thread Rank: STITCH – the weakest weave.
Can only sense what is already unraveling.
No active weaving permitted. Survival is not expected.
He stared at those last words.
Survival is not expected.
He almost laughed. Or cried. He wasn't sure which.
But then—he felt something. A flicker.
In his chest, beneath the skin.
A pull.
5. A Single Strand
He held his breath.
Focused.
"To weave, first listen."
Elric sat still. Not moving. Not thinking. Just… listening.
The trees hissed and murmured. But deeper beneath that noise—beneath the guilt and the grief—he heard something else.
A hum.
Inside him.
He reached inward. Not with hands. With will.
And a thread unspooled.
So thin it was nearly invisible. It hovered above his palm like a strand of breath. It pulsed once—weakly—then began to fray.
He panicked, tried to grab it—and it vanished.
But it had been there. Real.
His thread.
"I am… here," he whispered. "I still exist."
6. The Forest Presses In
The whispering returned. Louder now. Angrier.
"You heard it."
"You don't deserve it."
"Give it back."
The trees twisted toward him. Roots curled like fingers. Bark split into gaping mouths.
Elric backed away, clutching the book to his chest. The thread hadn't saved him. It had called them.
He turned and fled again—blind through the dark.
A clearing.
He collapsed at its center, breath ragged, body raw.
The book pulsed faintly beside him, its cover glowing with a stitched sigil.
Endure. If you cannot weave, then listen. If you cannot listen, then survive.
He curled into himself as the trees closed in.
7. A Stitch in the Dark
The chapter ends not with victory—
Not with escape—
But with a single thread.
Thin. Faint.
Floating just above his heart.
The forest watches. Waiting.
But Elric is still breathing.
Still… here.
End of Chapter 1: The Whispering Thread