The night was not quiet.
Not for Matthew.
He lay on the straw mat in his family's hut, listening to his mother's even breathing as she finally drifted into sleep. Outside, the village had gone still after a long day of mending fences and salting meats from the hunt. To most, the Festival of the Drifting Sky was over, a memory wrapped in laughter and lantern light.
But not for him.
Threads quivered above him like restless serpents, vibrating against the black star's cold stare. He could feel it now—not just see it. A hunger in the heavens. A pull at the edges of his veins.
Matthew clenched his fists. He couldn't rest. Not while the whispers kept gnawing at his skull.
He rose quietly, careful not to wake his mother, and slipped outside into the cool night. The sky stretched wide and fractured above him, constellations drifting like puzzle pieces too large for the board. He shivered, but he carried the small wooden comb he had broken earlier that day.
He sat beneath a crooked willow near the square and held it out in trembling hands. Its teeth had splintered when it fell. A simple thing to repair—for anyone else, just throw it away.
But not him.
Threads shimmered faintly around the comb, faint golden lines showing where wood fibers wanted to be whole. He reached out, grasping them with the will that had nearly killed him two nights ago.
The threads shifted.
Pain tore through him.
His vision blurred as dark veins spiderwebbed briefly beneath his skin, a searing backlash that almost made him drop the comb.
"Pull harder."
The whisper coiled in his skull like smoke, so close, so intimate. It wasn't his voice. It wasn't anyone's voice.
"Unravel. Break. Only then can you bind."
"No…" His jaw clenched, breath ragged. He tugged the threads gently, not with the hunger pressing against him, but with his own stubborn will.
Golden strands quivered, protesting. A single black filament wormed its way in, wrapping around his pull. His blood turned to ice.
The comb mended in his hand, splinter knitting back into place. For an instant, it was whole again—perfect.
But in his mind, the black thread slithered free, curling toward his chest.
Matthew choked, clutching at his sternum. He felt something sink into him, a rot pressing against his weave. Whispers rose like a tide.
"Unravel everything. All is thread. All must return to nothing."
He slammed the comb down, gasping, sweat slicking his brow. His vision wavered. For a heartbeat, the entire world looked wrong—threads writhing, splitting, tearing. People's homes looked fragile, as if one tug could make them collapse into dust.
His body shook violently. He pressed his forehead against the dirt, whispering hoarsely:
"Not yours… not me… I won't be your hands."
The whispers hissed. Then faded.
But the blackness didn't leave. It pulsed faintly inside his weave, like a splinter lodged too deep to pull out.
---
Morning came gray and heavy.
Matthew forced himself to smile at his mother, who fussed over him as always. He endured Liora's sharp-eyed suspicion, pretending nothing was wrong. He laughed with Bren, nodded politely to Mira.
But inside, he was rotting.
Every time he blinked, he saw that black filament. Every time he touched a thread, the whisper stirred.
By evening, his paranoia was suffocating. He kept looking up, certain the black star was watching him back.
And then—
The scream tore through the outskirts.
Hunters shouting, dogs barking, steel ringing. Matthew ran, heart pounding, ignoring his mother's voice behind him.
At the village edge, he saw it.
The beast was once a stag. Its antlers jutted sideways, twisted into grotesque spines. Its body sagged, flesh melted into ropey shadows, and its eyes burned with sickly red light. Threads leaked from its hide, not golden, not silver, but black—dragging across the ground like oil.
The hunters circled, but their spears faltered when wood turned brittle at a touch. The stag's very presence poisoned the weave.
Matthew's breath caught.
It was the same corruption inside him.
The whispers surged, thrilled.
"Yes. Yes. Do not resist. Join the song. Unravel."
His knees nearly buckled.
But then he saw Liora, standing behind her father, torch clutched tight in trembling hands. He saw Mira dragged back by her mother, crying. He saw Bren, trying to run forward, only to be yanked back by a hunter's arm.
They were afraid. They needed someone.
And if he didn't act, more would come.
His chest tightened, fear and fire clashing until words slipped through his cracked lips:
"If the world frays…" he whispered, "…then I'll weave it back—stitch by stitch, even if it tears me apart."
– The Origin Realm
The ten-meter screen rippled with Matthew's struggle, showing the boy clutching his head as whispers of the Shadow Hunger coiled around him like smoke. Villagers screamed in the background, hunters flailing against corruption-twisted beasts.
Kai leaned back lazily on his throne of woven starlight, one hand dipping into a bowl of popcorn. His expression was calm, almost bored.
Blank patches spread across it. Tiny holes, where threads should be. Empty spaces that looked like burns.
"Thought so," he muttered. "It's not entropy. It's something else."
Ema's voice was calm. "Shadow Hunger. The echo of your first act of creation. Every loom has a shadow. Yours is simply vast enough to hunger."
Kai pinched his brow. "So this thing is my fault. Great."
He leaned back, exhaling slowly. "Guess that makes me the irresponsible parent of cosmic rot."
Ema tilted her head. "You are also the only one who can choose whether to unmake it… or bind it."
"Persistent little parasite," he murmured, watching the black threads gnaw at Matthew's weave. "The Loom's shadow always does love nibbling at the edges. Can't do a damn thing to me, but it sure knows how to make a mess."
He popped another handful of popcorn, crunching thoughtfully.
Ema approached silently, setting a crystal goblet at his side, filled with golden nectar that pulsed like liquefied sunlight. Her gaze, unlike Kai's, lingered on the screen with a trace of unease.
"It spreads faster than before," she whispered. "The Shadow Hunger is no mere corruption. Left unchecked, it devours the foundation of realms. Even fragments like Matthew's are—"
"—are a good testing ground," Kai interrupted with a shrug. His tone was casual, yet sharp with certainty. "Relax, Ema. This universe is inside me. Nothing here can threaten me, not even that thing."
She pressed her lips together, bowing slightly. "I know, my lord. But you care for the boy. His weave is delicate. If the Hunger gnaws too deep—"
Kai smirked. "Then he'll just have to bite back harder. Pressure makes diamonds, right?"
Still, his eyes softened for a fleeting second as Matthew, trembling, managed to cut a single corrupted thread and force it back. The boy collapsed to his knees, panting, but alive.
Kai's grin widened. "Look at that. He's already learning to fight the whispers. Better entertainment than half the anime I've ever seen."
Ema blinked, tilting her head. "Anime?"
Kai waved it off. "Never mind. Just know this: the kid's fine. And as for the Shadow Hunger…" His gaze sharpened briefly, a glimmer of something cosmic flashing in his eyes. "…If it ever gets too bold, I'll pluck it out by the root."
He raised the goblet Ema had poured, swirling the glowing liquid before taking a long sip.
"Until then, we watch. After all—what's the point of a story without tension?"
Ema allowed herself the faintest chuckle, though her eyes remained fixed on the writhing black star above Matthew's sky.
-
The stag shrieked, lunging forward. Hunters braced, villagers screamed.
Matthew's hands rose on instinct, threads shimmering before his eyes.
The whispers roared.
"UNRAVEL—"
And on the screen, Kai leaned back with a smirk, sipping his drink.
"Well. The season's real villain just stepped onto the stage." He popped another kernel of popcorn. "Guess I'll need more snacks."
Ema chuckled softly, but her gaze lingered not on Matthew… but on the black star pulsing in the drifting heavens.
---