The glow shimmered faintly through the fog, steady and patient as if it had been waiting for him.
Matthew stumbled toward it, every step dragging with exhaustion. His legs ached from the fight with the wolves, his chest still pulsed with the black filament's quiet hunger, but the thought of shelter pulled him forward.
The mist thinned, and the sight struck him silent.
The settlement was unlike anything he had ever seen. No walls of timber or stone, no smoke curling from hearths. The homes looked as though they had been woven into being. Threads of pale light and shadow spiraled upward, hardening into frames, lattices, even roofs that shimmered like spider silk under moonlight. Glyphs pulsed along the walls, glowing faintly gold, breathing as though alive.
It felt less like a village, more like he had stepped inside the Loom itself.
Figures emerged from the mist. Cloaked, hooded, masks of bone and woven thread concealing their faces. They moved in silence, surrounding him with unsettling precision. No blades were drawn, no words spoken. Yet Matthew's heart pounded as though he stood before hunters again.
One figure stepped closer, head cocked slightly as if listening to something Matthew could not hear. The mask tilted.
"The Loom has led you here," the figure said, voice strange—half melodic, half cracked.
Matthew swallowed. "I… I didn't mean to intrude. I was only—"
The others stirred, murmuring softly. Some pointed at him, and he noticed faint glints beneath their hoods. Eyes marked with threads—golden filaments, black filaments, sometimes both. The same mark he carried in his chest.
The first figure gestured. "Come, Outsider. The Seer waits."
--
They led him through winding paths of luminous silk. Matthew's breath caught as he saw the people of the settlement.
Children with glowing veins played near thread-lanterns, their laughter fragile, their skin pale but alive. Adults whispered among themselves, faces weary, some with black lines coiling beneath their flesh yet still walking, still breathing. Others twitched as if holding back pain, but carried baskets, wove cloth, lived.
A village of the marked. A haven for the touched.
Frayborn. The word rose in Matthew's mind unbidden, as though the whispers themselves had supplied it.
Some of the people reached for him as he passed, eyes wide, fingers trembling. He recoiled instinctively when one whispered:
"Splinter-Bearer."
The name followed him like a chant until the cloaked escorts guided him into the heart of the settlement.
---
The Seer
The largest dwelling rose before him, a spire of threads twisted together, its surface humming softly with both light and shadow. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of herbs and something sharper—ozone, as if a storm had passed.
At the center sat a woman draped in layers of woven cloth, a blindfold across her eyes. Threads of both gold and black wound across the fabric, pulsing faintly like veins. She did not look at him, but when she spoke, her voice seemed to pierce straight through him.
"You carry the seed," she said. "The one that will decide if the weave holds… or unravels."
Matthew froze. His mouth went dry. "What do you mean?"
The Seer lifted her head slightly, as though peering at him through the blindfold. "I have seen you in visions, walking both paths at once. The Hunger coils in you, yet the Loom answers you still. Yours is no accident. You are test and answer both."
His chest tightened. He thought of Mira's pale hand, of the wolves drawn to him in the mist. "The corruption… it follows me. It won't stop."
The Seer nodded. "It never will. The Hunger knows its kin. It will come until you learn to shape it… or until it devours you."
The people outside shifted, their murmurs drifting in. Matthew realized they were listening, waiting—for his choice, his answer, his fate.
--
"The Hunger is not curse alone," the Seer continued. "It is the Loom's shadow. To resist it is to fight the weave itself. To embrace it is to risk becoming nothing."
Her words wrapped around him like the whispers in his own skull. For the first time, he felt them overlap—her prophecy and the voices in his chest, threads woven together.
"You must choose," she said softly. "Will you mend? Or will you unravel?"
Matthew's fists clenched. His breath came shallow. He wanted to shout that he didn't know, that he never asked for this. But the words would not come.
---
The Origin Realm
Above the starlit dais, Kai sat forward in his chair, eyes glinting with interest as the Seer's words echoed.
"Now that," he murmured, "is juicy. Loom shadow, seed-bearer, prophecy stuff. Didn't see that coming."
Ema stood stiff beside him, her expression grim. "The Frayborn should not exist. If they have endured this long, then the Hunger's roots run deeper than the Loom itself."
Kai chuckled, tossing a kernel of popcorn into his mouth. "Or maybe it's not a disease at all. Maybe it's evolution. And our boy's the first step."
---
Closing Hook
Night cloaked the settlement. The Frayborn sang low songs that sounded like half-prayers, half-dirges. Matthew lay awake in a woven hammock, staring at the threads above him.
The whispers in his chest no longer jeered. They hummed, harmonizing with the voices of the Frayborn outside.
The Seer's words repeated in his skull: "Seed-bearer, your choice will tear or mend the weave."
His eyes drifted shut.
But in the forest beyond the settlement, unseen by its people, something vast shifted between the trees. A shape too large, too many limbs, its breath rattling like torn cloth.
It had found his thread.
And it was coming.
Chapter 61(2) – The Beast at the Gate
The woven hammock creaked beneath Matthew's weight, swaying with every restless shift of his body. Sleep refused to take him. He lay with eyes wide open, staring at the faint shimmer of thread-lanterns that hung across the settlement like captured stars. The huts around him were silent, their walls made of interwoven light and bark, but outside, voices floated through the mist.
The Frayborn were singing.
The sound was low and haunting, rising and falling like waves against a shore. At first, Matthew thought it was a hymn of celebration, but as he listened closer, he caught something else in the melody—sorrow, a lament braided into the harmony. It was the sound of people who knew loss intimately and carried it in their bones.
The whispers in his chest stirred, humming along with the tune. Their resonance matched the strange rhythm perfectly, each note vibrating in his veins. The hairs along his arms rose, and he pressed a hand against his chest as if to silence them.
"They sing because they mourn," the whispers cooed. "They mourn because they are weak. But you… you could end mourning. You could end everything."
Matthew shut his eyes and forced his breathing steady. He willed himself to drift, though the whispers lingered at the edges of his thoughts like a second heartbeat.
Sleep came at last, but peace did not.
In the dream, he stood in the square of his old village. The gates behind him were sealed, and Mira stood in front, her small figure trembling. Her hand reached for him, but the veins along her arm were black and thick, writhing like worms beneath her skin. Her lips parted, and her voice came broken, fragmented.
"Don't… unravel…"
Matthew's throat tightened. He reached for her—but her eyes changed, glowing not with the familiar fragile light but with an unnatural duality: one eye blazing golden like his threads, the other sinking into endless black. The two lights pulsed together, weaving and unweaving, tearing her apart from within.
He screamed her name.
The dream twisted, shadows pulling him under. When he jolted awake, his skin was drenched in sweat, and the filament in his chest pulsed violently, as if it had been waiting for her call.
Outside, the Frayborn's song had stopped.
--
A crack split the night.
Not wood, not stone. Something deeper, like the tearing of fabric. Then came the alarms: thread-lanterns across the settlement flared crimson, light spilling in jagged bursts. The quiet harmony of the Frayborn shattered into shouts.
Matthew threw himself from the hammock and stumbled outside. The air was thick with mist, but through it, he saw movement—hulking, unnatural. The ground trembled under heavy steps.
From the forest's edge, a monstrous shape emerged.
It was larger than the stag that had nearly broken him. Its body was half-flesh, half-shadow, skin covered in writhing veins of black corruption. Its face might once have resembled a bear's, but now its maw stretched too wide, lined with too many teeth. Where its eyes should have been were burning hollows, gazing not at the settlement, but directly at him.
The whispers in his chest purred with satisfaction.
"Yes. It has come for you."
The beast roared, a sound like tearing cloth and breaking stone. The settlement walls trembled.
-
"Form the Loom!" voices cried.
The Frayborn rallied. Dozens of figures poured from huts and towers, their hands glowing with golden light. Threads wove into barriers across the clearing, shimmering nets and lattices of power that quivered with tension. Spears of light sharpened in their palms, arrows spun from radiant strands. For the first time, Matthew saw others fight as he did—wielding the Loom as weapon and shield.
But even as their light flared, he saw the truth beneath it. Dark veins snaked along their arms and necks, marks of corruption that bled into their weaving. Every strike carried both brilliance and decay. Each attack was a gamble.
"Their gift rots them," Matthew thought, horror tightening his chest. "Just like me."
At the center of the defense, the Seer appeared. Her eyes were covered with a veil of golden thread, but her voice carried above the chaos like the song of the Loom itself.
"Hold the gate! Anchor your threads! Do not falter!"
The Frayborn wove tighter, barriers snapping into place just as the beast crashed into them. The impact shook the settlement, threads shattering into sparks. Light sprayed across the mist, painting the huts in fragments of fire.
---
Matthew's Dilemma
The beast reared back, then struck again. Claws of shadow tore through the net, rending holes large enough to slip through. Frayborn fighters screamed as they were flung aside, their defenses buckling.
And always, the beast moved toward Matthew.
He froze. The whispers inside him surged like a tide, voices overlapping in a chorus.
"Give in. Let us weave through you. Only then will you survive. Only then will they survive."
Matthew's breath came ragged. His hands trembled, threads flickering weakly. The image of Mira burned in his mind—her plea, her fractured eyes. If he opened himself fully to the whispers, he might destroy the beast. But what else would he destroy with it? Himself? The settlement? His last chance at belonging?
He looked around. Frayborn were falling, their golden nets unraveling under the beast's weight. If he held back, they would all die. If he stepped forward, he might doom them another way.
Matthew screamed.
Threads erupted from his arms—not golden alone, but black and gold entwined. For the first time, he did not push the shadow back. He pulled it in. He let it lace with his light, jagged and unstable, threads fraying even as they formed.
A spear burst from his palm, shimmering with both radiance and void. It pulsed violently, threatening to tear itself apart.
The beast lunged.
Matthew drove the spear forward with every ounce of desperation left in him. The impact shook the ground. The weapon sank into the beast's chest, and for a heartbeat the world held still.
Then it exploded.
Light and shadow tore outward in a storm of brilliance and ash. The blast rattled the settlement, splintering huts, snapping barriers. The beast convulsed, veins bursting into clouds of smoke. With a final howl, it collapsed, dissolving into writhing motes that scattered into the night.
Silence followed. Then—only the crackle of fading threads.
---
Aftermath
Matthew staggered, nearly falling to his knees. His chest burned, the filament pulsing furiously, but his veins glowed—black and gold together, flickering like molten fire beneath his skin. His hands trembled, threads still dripping from his fingers.
He looked up.
The Frayborn had not rushed to him in gratitude. They had not cheered his victory.
They stared. Eyes wide. Faces pale. Their weapons and barriers hung in the air, forgotten, as they beheld him not as savior, but as something worse.
A curse. A danger. A reflection of the beast they had just fought.
Matthew swallowed hard. His vision blurred. He wanted to speak, to explain, to deny. But when he caught sight of his reflection in a pool of spilled threadlight, he faltered.
His eyes were no longer only his. They gleamed with golden radiance—and with bottomless black.
---
Origin Realm Hook
Far above, in the Origin Realm, Kai leaned forward for the first time in hours. His golden gaze fixed on the boy below, a slow smile curving across his lips.
"Oh…" he whispered. "Now that is interesting."
Beside him, Ema's expression was grave, her hands clasped tightly.
"He is no longer just resisting the Hunger," she said softly. "He is shaping it."
Kai chuckled, low and dangerous. "Which makes him dangerous to everyone—including me."
He raised his glass in salute to the screen.
"To the unraveling."