Thanks to shadow _monerch for the power stones
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The world was both vast and suffocating.
To Matthew, every moment in his new body felt like a paradox. His mind, sharpened by years of study and discovery on Earth, still reached for equations, formulas, and notations. Yet when he tried to move his hand, all he could manage was the twitch of tiny fingers. When he longed to explain the dazzling threads dancing at the edge of his sight, all that left his lips was a garbled cry.
The frustration gnawed at him.
I could have solved it, he thought bitterly, though no one could hear. If only I'd had more time, more chalkboards, more nights in the lab. I was so close to unifying the model. So close.
Now he couldn't even hold a quill. Couldn't even speak. Couldn't even explain.
His mother — the gentle woman who had brought him into this world — held him warmly, rocking him against her chest. He loved her already. Yet part of him recoiled at how powerless he was, how utterly dependent on someone else's arms. On Earth, he had stood tall among theories that baffled even senior physicists. Here, he couldn't stand at all.
The helplessness was unbearable.
And then came the voice.
Soft, faint, woven into his very heartbeat.
[Patience.]
[You are bound to the Origin Weaver System.]
[Do not despair. Time is the thread that will grant you strength.]
The words brushed through him like a lullaby, steady and calm. They came not as commands but as whispers, soothing the storm in his chest. At first, he had thought it hallucination — remnants of his dying brain. But the voice repeated itself, always in moments when frustration peaked.
Patience. Wait. Grow.
At night, when his infant eyes refused to close, Matthew would stare at the flickering light of the hearthfire. There, he would catch glimpses — fleeting, faint — of threads. Shimmers along the air, lines binding warmth to smoke, shadow to flame. They were real. He knew they were real. And though he could not yet touch them, the sight gave him a strange comfort.
I'll endure this, he told himself in the silence of infancy. I've been given another chance. This time, I won't waste it on doubt.
---
By the time he reached three, the world had grown both clearer and stranger. His legs stumbled but carried him across the hut's wooden floor. His small hands could finally grasp toys, sticks, even scraps of parchment when his mother allowed. But more importantly — his eyes now truly saw.
Threads. Everywhere.
The crackle of the hearth wasn't just heat and light; it was woven strands of warmth, golden and trembling. The pulse of his mother's heartbeat was a rhythmic line of scarlet threads, steady as a drum. Even the spider's web in the corner shimmered faintly, its silken structure echoing the same cosmic weave he had once sought in equations.
It thrilled him. For the first time, he could not only see but interact. Tentatively, cautiously, he reached with his will.
One winter morning, when a chill breeze slipped through the hut's cracks, he tugged — ever so gently — at the golden thread of warmth near the fire. The air shifted. The draft died away, replaced by a lingering coziness. His mother had thought the weather stilled. But Matthew knew better. He had woven.
Another time, when his wooden toy cracked in play, he reached into the shimmering lines that defined its shape. A loose thread wobbled in the weave. He pulled it taut, tied it clumsily — and the toy held together as if new.
Each success filled him with a rush stronger than any recognition he had received on Earth. The truth he had been mocked for was not only real — it was usable, tangible, his.
But the joy carried danger.
Once, while curious about the flickering light of the hearth, he tugged a little too firmly at the fire's thread. The flame stretched unnaturally tall, shadows slithering across the walls. His heart pounded in terror. His mother screamed and dashed water onto the logs, dousing the blaze.
"Spirits above," she whispered, clutching him close, trembling. "This hut is cursed."
Matthew froze in her arms, silent. He couldn't tell her. Not about the threads, not about the system, not about the truth that only he could see. He had learned that mistake in his past life — baring his vision to others only earned disbelief, mockery, and isolation. He would not repeat it.
No, he vowed silently as his mother's tears dampened his hair. This time, I'll protect her. Even if it means silence. She won't fear me the way the others did. I won't lose her.
---
It began with a cough.
His small body burned with heat, his skin slick with sweat. The world wavered around him, threads shimmering in chaotic patterns. His mother knelt at his side, murmuring prayers to the village gods, begging for her child's recovery.
But Matthew — delirious, fever-ridden — reached instinctively for the threads. They shone brighter in his haze, tempting him, pulling him. He wanted to steady them, to tie the world back into focus.
So he reached.
And the world bent.
The shadows in the room stretched impossibly long, curving toward his bed. The rafters above groaned as if made of rope about to snap. The air shimmered, edges fraying. His mother screamed, clutching at his tiny frame, begging unseen spirits to spare him.
[Warning: Unstable weaving detected.]
[Cease. Or risk unraveling.]
The voice of the system broke through his fever, sharp and commanding. Matthew recoiled, panic seizing him. His threads snapped back into place with a violent shudder. The hut stilled. His body convulsed once, twice—then the fever broke, leaving him weak but alive.
His mother wept in relief, thanking gods that had done nothing. Matthew lay silently in her embrace, his mind spinning with horror.
I almost tore reality apart. Just from a fever dream. Just from touching carelessly.
The realization sank deep into him. The threads were not toys. They were not gentle. They could protect, but they could also destroy.
---
Days later, he sat outside on a stool, bundled in a blanket against the evening chill. His fever was gone, but his thoughts still lingered on the night he had nearly unraveled the hut, his mother, himself.
The stars glittered above him, distant yet woven in familiar lines. To most, they were just dots in the dark. To Matthew, they were the grand tapestry — the threads of the cosmos stretched taut across infinity.
His small hands clenched into fists.
This time, I won't be reckless. I won't be dismissed. I won't be laughed at or ignored. The threads are real, and I'll prove it. Carefully. Patiently. Until even the stars cannot deny me.
The system stirred.
[Resolve acknowledged.]
[Thread Resonance: +1]
The notification glowed softly across his vision, fading like a nod of approval.
And for the first time since his rebirth, Matthew felt not like a child trapped in a cage of weakness, but like a Weaver standing at the edge of possibility.
The stars above seemed to shimmer in answer, as if the universe itself had heard his vow.