TARGET LOCKED: NULL_01
BEGIN THREAD SEVERANCE IN:
6
5
4
The countdown echoed through him.
Not in his ears —
but in his lungs, in his bones, in the hollow space where his thread was supposed to be.
But there was nothing there.
No signature.
No path.
No line for the Loom to pull.
And that made the Prototype hesitate.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But in this kind of world — that was everything.
---
"GO!" Elira shouted, stepping forward.
Her ripper blade didn't appear —
It manifested.
Not drawn. Not summoned. Just there.
Like it had always been part of her —
Or maybe… she was part of it.
The space around her bent — not in respect, but in refusal.
As if reality itself tried to push her away.
It couldn't.
She wasn't meant to exist either.
"I'll stall it," she said, not looking back.
"Run to the breach gate."
---
"What breach gate?!" Nox choked.
She didn't answer.
Only slashed her blade down once.
The floor — a corrupted plate of system stone — split apart, like it remembered being broken.
A tear opened at the edge of sense — more feeling than sight.
A door.
A chance.
A trap.
Maybe all three.
But Nox didn't hesitate.
He ran.
---
The system didn't.
[THREADSIGNATURE RECOGNIZED: ELIRA — CLASS: SHADOWCODE]
Threat Level: Dynamic
Override: DENIED
Engaging: Counter-Instruction Protocol
---
The Prototype moved.
It didn't attack her blade — it attacked the principle of her position.
Its sword fell through space, carving a perfect line of null across the field.
Light vanished in its wake. Not shattered.
Erased.
Elira moved like a contradiction —
She shouldn't be fast. Shouldn't be real.
But she was.
Reality lagged behind her steps.
And behind them both, the countdown hit zero.
But nothing exploded.
Because this wasn't a countdown to detonation.
It was a countdown to rewrite.
---
[NULL_01 ESCAPE VECTOR CONFIRMED]
Pattern Interference: EXTREME
Containment Probability: <48.3%>
Deploying: THREADHOUND UNITS (x2)
---
Something screamed in the sky.
Not a voice —
Something older.
The cry of an algorithm losing control.
Nox didn't look back until the hum fractured.
Two shapes emerged.
Four-legged.
Too long.
Joints that shouldn't bend.
Eyes that didn't blink — they spun.
Maws of glitchteeth and threadspike tongues.
Threadhounds.
Constructs made to smell the future —
and rip it from the unworthy.
---
He ran harder.
The floor was no longer stone — it was… past.
A classroom desk.
A cracked command seal.
A child's drawing of the Loom, burned at the edges.
Hands — small, trembling — trying to grasp threads that refused to bind.
One looked like his.
Another… didn't.
He passed himself —
Or a version of him that never lived.
Or hadn't lived yet.
---
The Nullspace warped.
[WARNING: TRAJECTORY UNFIXED]
Orientation: BLEEDING
Map Anchor: LOST
You are leaving all authored constructs.
You are beyond the last paragraph.
He was no longer running toward safety.
He was running out of story.
And something inside him —
something the system had buried —
thrilled.
---
Then — light.
Not clean.
Not coded.
Not sanctioned.
It throbbed like a wound.
A hole in the universe where the pattern had bled out.
The breach gate.
It spun in wrong directions, collapsing in on itself. Each flicker screamed defiance.
Behind him: claws skidding.
Howls made of corrupted sound.
Threadhounds gaining.
---
The first leapt.
Nox turned.
Instinct.
Fear.
He yanked a length of red thread from the glitch-wall.
It pulsed like a heartbeat severed too soon.
He swung.
Not like a weapon —
Like a statement.
The thread cut through nothing — and that was enough.
The hound struck it mid-air.
And unwrote.
No blood.
No scream.
Just… gone.
Unmade.
Reduced to fragments of error-script and unsaved memory.
---
He stared at the thread in his hand.
Still alive.
Still waiting.
---
[UNWRITTEN TOOL DETECTED]
Threadname: ??
Usage: Undefined
Danger Index: Unrated
— Do you wish to name this?
He didn't hesitate.
"Threadcutter."
---
[THREADCUTTER — CLASS: UNWRITTEN]
Status: Soul-Bound
Signature: Null_01
Fate Rating: IMMUNE
---
He turned.
The second hound was mid-pounce.
No time to fight.
No time to think.
The breach was closing.
Nox dove through.
The tear swallowed him whole.
And the world shattered.
---
For a moment, there was no place.
No system.
No self.
---
Then:
[RE-ENTRY COMPLETE]
Location: Unwritten Expanse
Pattern Saturation: 3%
SYSTEM CONNECTION: LOST
OBSERVATION: SUSPENDED
---
He hit ground.
Not simulated ground. Not logic-stone.
Just dirt.
Damp. Cold. Real.
He coughed.
The air didn't sting with data.
There were no HUD pings.
No whispers from the Loom.
Only silence.
And his own heartbeat.
---
He looked up.
And what he saw stole the breath from his body.
Across the sky —
from one shattered edge of reality to another —
hung the Loom.
But not the one from Astralis.
This one was broken.
Its threads hung limp like snapped arteries.
Its glyphs were dark.
Its core — a pulsing void where something used to be.
Dead.
Buried.
Or… waiting.
---
A sound reached him.
Not through his ears.
Through the thread he still held.
It pulsed — once.
And a memory ignited behind his eyes.
"Nox… if you're seeing this, then you were never meant to survive."
---
Elira's voice.
But quieter.
Like it had traveled a long way to reach him.
Like it wasn't her voice anymore.
---
[UNWRITTEN ZONE ENTERED]
THREADSIGNATURE_01: RECOGNIZED
Initiate: Personal Narrative Protocol
Begin writing your own Pattern.
---
He stood still for a long time.
Breathing.
Listening.
Not to the world —
but to the emptiness between its cracks.
There was no interface here.
No instruction.
No prompt.
The rules had bled out.
And all that remained…
was him.
---
The silence wasn't empty.
It was expectant.
Like the world was waiting.
Like something beneath the dirt was watching.
The thread in his hand pulsed again.
Not guiding —
but asking.
What now?
---
He opened his mouth.
No words came.
But something else did.
Something he hadn't felt since the day he was summoned —
since Kiris had pulled him from non-existence and forced him into a role.
Something dangerous.
Will.
Not the kind coded into systems.
The kind that made systems afraid.
---
Then, far off — in the cracks between this broken world —
a light pulsed once.
A flicker.
Barely seen.
But it knew his name.
And it was getting closer.