The Severed path wound deeper into the Hollowed Realm like a scar dug into reality. The threads beneath Ahri's feet weren't golden or violet—they were grey, brittle, and trembling. They recoiled from her presence, snapping away like cobwebs from flame.
Even the thread on her wrist dimmed, uneasy in this part of the world.
This was where broken threads gathered.
Not to be mended.
But to be forgotten.
The tunnel was narrow, carved not by hands or tools, but by choices. Every twist in the passage echoed a different kind of memory—rejection, fear, guilt, silence. Whispers clung to the walls.
Ahri pressed forward.
The deeper she went, the more she felt it: a pulse beneath the threadless ground. Not a heartbeat. A warning.
And then she saw it.
A door.
Woven entirely from thread—but none Ahri recognized. It pulsed in shifting, unnatural colors: black, blood-red, violet, and something older. A thread that didn't shimmer. It absorbed light.
Sol had once said: "The Loom only remembers what it chooses. But some things choose to be remembered against its will."
This thread had done just that.
There was no lock on the door.
Only a seal—an ancient sigil burned into the weave.
Ahri stepped forward and placed her hand on the symbol.
Her wrist flared. The golden-violet thread burned hot. Then cold.
The seal broke.
Inside was a chamber like no other.
Not a shrine. Not an archive.
A womb of story.
Thread spindles floated midair, each one wound with a single thread, knotted at the ends and sealed with bone clasps. The room pulsed like it was alive—breathing in silence, exhaling fate.
In the center stood a man.
No older than thirty. Eyes shut. Hands bound behind his back with black thread. His body flickered—between boy and man, between real and spectral.
A figure caught between stories.
Ahri stepped closer. The name came to her unbidden.
"Rin."
The man stirred.
His eyes opened.
They were pure white—no pupils, no threads. Just raw, unwoven possibility.
"You shouldn't be here," he said softly.
Ahri steadied her breath. "Who are you?"
"I'm what the Loom forgot to destroy."
His threads—the ones bound around him—twitched. They weren't connected to the world. They weren't connected to anything. And yet… they pulsed.
"Were you Severed?" Ahri asked.
He laughed—a hollow sound. "No. I was never allowed to exist at all. My thread was stillborn. I'm a thread that should not be."
He turned toward her slowly.
"The Weftborn protect me. But they fear me too. Because if I'm remembered… the story changes."
Ahri stared at him, something dark coiling in her stomach.
"You're… a forgotten fate."
"I'm the Loom's first mistake."
The chamber trembled.
A voice rose from the walls—not the Loom this time.
The fox.
Its voice was louder now. Clearer.
"Do not touch him."
Ahri flinched. "Why?"
"Because if you give him shape……you become the stitch that unravels the rest."
Rin stepped forward, the threads around his wrists tightening. "But isn't that what you want, Threadseer? To choose your own fate? To unweave the prison of prophecy?"
Ahri's wrist burned. The golden thread tried to pull her back.
Rin held out his hand.
"You've already seen what's wrong with the Loom. Now I'm giving you the chance to fix it."
The room dimmed.
The threads quivered.
Ahri took one trembling step forward…