The sunset always made the city look like it was rusting.
From the rooftop, Lio could see the haze cling to the skyscrapers, the glass windows burning gold as if the buildings themselves were on fire. He sat on the ledge with a paper cup of cheap coffee, its steam curling into the air and vanishing.
Down below, hundreds of people moved through the streets like blood through veins — purposeful, fast, unaware of the boy watching from above. But to Lio, the real sight wasn't the people. It was the threads.
Every person had one.
Thin, luminescent cords that stretched from their chest into the horizon, vanishing somewhere beyond sight. Some glowed steady like neon tubes, others flickered weakly as though the person they belonged to had already given up. Lio had seen them his entire life, though he'd never told anyone.
They say we're all connected, he thought, sipping his coffee. They didn't mention the strings.
He was about to take another drink when one of the cords below trembled violently. Its glow fractured into pixel-like cracks, scattering faint sparks into the air. The man it belonged to — middle-aged, brown jacket — froze mid-step.
Lio leaned forward, eyes narrowing.
The thread snapped.
The man didn't fall, didn't scream. His body kept walking down the street with mechanical precision, but his eyes were dull, hollow. The thread dangled uselessly from his chest before dissolving into nothing.
No one in the crowd noticed. Not a single head turned.
And then he heard it — not through his ears, but inside his skull. A faint, electronic whisper:
> "Packet loss detected."
Lio's coffee went cold in his hand. He'd heard that voice before, once, years ago, but never again… until now.
A shadow cut through the fading sunlight.
The man in the brown jacket wasn't alone anymore. Someone in a long black coat stood beside him, holding a strange object — half-blade, half-scissors — its surface gleaming with the same pale light as the threads.
"…Who patched him without permission?" the stranger muttered. Their voice was low, distorted, like it was struggling to stay human.
Lio stiffened.
The stranger's head turned unnaturally fast, locking eyes with him on the rooftop. Their irises were the color of static.
In the next blink, the figure was gone from the street.
And in the one after that, they were standing in front of him.
Up close, their presence was wrong — not threatening in the way of predators, but in the way of things that simply didn't belong in this reality. They reached into their coat, pulled out the thread-cutter, and placed it in Lio's trembling hands.
"You can see them, can't you?" they said, more a statement than a question. "The links."
Lio swallowed hard. "…What are you?"
"Cut someone," the figure said. "Anyone. Now."
Lio looked over the edge of the rooftop. His eyes landed on a girl standing in the crosswalk, pale and thin, a surgical mask over her face. Her thread pulsed erratically, twitching like a dying signal. He could feel the illness in it — brittle, poisoned light.
His hands moved before his thoughts did. He reached for her thread. It felt warm, almost alive, under his fingers.
With one quick swipe of the cutter, it split cleanly. The glow steadied. The girl's shoulders relaxed, her breathing smoothing out. She tugged her mask down just enough to take in a deep, effortless breath, smiling faintly.
"…She's cured?" Lio whispered.
"Temporarily," the stranger replied. "The packet will come back… but not where you think."
Before Lio could ask, a scream echoed from the distance. He turned.
On the far side of the city, a school bus had veered off the bridge, plunging into the dark water below.
Lio's stomach turned as he followed the thread he'd cut — the girl's sickness — slithering through the air like a snake. It coiled around the chest of the bus driver just before the vehicle hit the water.
The stranger stepped back into the shadows.
In front of Lio's eyes, black text shimmered into existence, floating in the air:
> YOU HAVE 23 HOURS BEFORE THE PACKET RETURNS.
And then it was gone, leaving him alone on the rooftop, the cutter still in his hand, and the city still rusting under the dying light.
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