The path narrowed.
Not with thorns or walls — but with absence.
As if the world had stopped being interested in what lay ahead.
Rin walked anyway.
She had the note in her pocket. She hadn't read it again.
She didn't need to. The words were echoing with each heartbeat.
You weren't supposed to remember this way. But you did anyway.
A hill rose gently before her. The soil looked untouched — no footprints, no grass.
At the top, nestled between silver pillars that shimmered slightly wrong, was a glass cube.
Cracked.
The air around it pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat learning how to beat again.
Inside was a mirror.
It didn't show her face.
It showed something else.
[The Mirror]
At first glance: an empty chair, a half-worn coat, a pair of shoes at the threshold.
But the more Rin stared, the more it refused to stay still.
Her reflection shifted:
In one flicker, she was younger — running through halls she couldn't name.
In another, she wore a crown that felt too heavy, too early.
And then… she saw a version of herself smiling at someone not in frame. Laughing, actually.
"I've never laughed like that," she whispered.
And then the image fractured — not broken, but overwritten.
A hand reached up in the mirror.
It looked like hers — almost — but paler, and trailing threads where veins should be.
It touched the inside of the mirror.
Rin stepped back instinctively.
"Is it me?" she asked.
A second voice echoed — not in the world, but in the cube.
No.
It's the one who remembered you first.
She froze.
Then who—
[Enter Weaver]
A soft chime. No footfall.
But she felt it.
Rin turned.
The Weaver stood at the edge of the clearing, arms behind their back, their eyes downcast — not out of guilt, but reverence.
They said nothing.
Just watched.
Their presence didn't distort the air. It corrected it.
The sky seemed to exhale.
"You knew this would happen," Rin said.
The Weaver tilted their head slightly, like a child listening to rain.
No nod. No denial.
The mirror's surface started to ripple again, faster now — reflections blending, spiraling.
The coat inside the box was gone.
So was the chair.
Only the mirror remained.
And on its glass surface, one word surfaced like condensation from a held breath:
"Thread."
Rin turned back to the Weaver.
"Is that what I was?"
"Or what I broke?"
Still, no reply.
But behind them, a thousand stitched lines began forming in the sky — silent, weaving themselves into something vast, soft, and watching.
Scene setup:
Rin confronts the memory box — but instead of it opening directly, she's intercepted by two Weavers who were quietly stationed nearby, believing she wasn't ready yet. What follows is a tense, grounded conversation — no riddles, just layered truths.
[Inside the observatory chamber, near the sealed memory box]
Rin:
"Step aside. I know what's in there belongs to me."
The two figures turn slowly. Not guards —
Weavers, in full white, one older and reserved, the other younger, arms crossed, tired.
Younger Weaver (Ene):
"You say that like it's just a key or a keepsake. It's not."
Older Weaver (Kio):
"That box has been resonating since you arrived. But so has something else — something we hoped we'd never have to explain."
Rin doesn't flinch.
Rin:
"Threadwriter."
Silence.
Kio (softly):
"…You know the name."
Rin:
"I didn't. But I keep seeing pieces — broken colors, stitched lines, things that weren't mine… and then were."
Ene (with a sigh):
"He does that. Leaves residue. It's how most of us found him."
Rin:
"So who is he?"
Kio (after a pause):
"He's not one of us. Not one of them either. He was… already here when the Developers began. A thread too complex to map. At first, we were assigned to contain him."
Ene:
"Back then, we were called Patchers. Tools with hands. No voice."
Kio:
"But the more we tried to understand him, the more we weren't sure if we were fixing his story — or if he was weaving us into it."
Rin (quietly):
"So you left."
Ene:
"We didn't leave. We became something else. The Developers didn't know what to do with belief."
Kio:
"We formed a council. We keep stories stable now. Or try to."
Rin:
"But why hide him?"
Ene (bitterly):
"Because some of us think he's still writing. And if he is, we're not in control."
Rin turns to the box.
Rin:
"I need to remember. Not for him. For me."
Kio:
"…Then open it. But be prepared: your memories… may not be only yours."