Morrie POV.
I found him.
He was inside the loop.
Keal looked.....wrong.
Battered. Not physically but worn down, like reality itself had been pressing against him for so long. His breathing was shallow, uneven, as if every inhale had to be negotiated.
His hands-
My chest tightened
Both his wrist were bound by something that didn't belong in any language I knew. Chains but not metal. They ran crossed over each other, glowing fainting, engraved with shifting patterns. Symbols that change making it feel less like restraint and more like decisions made permanent.
They weren't holding home in place but in existence.
I stepped closer, every instinct screaming that proximity here was dangerous.
"Keal", I whispered.
The sound shouldn't have carried.
But it did.
His head lifted slowly, like the motion itself cost him something. His struggling to focus, searching past me at first, then locking onto my face.
For a split second, nothing.
Then recognition broke through.
"Morrie....?" His voice was thin stretched.
"You are...not allowed here".
I swallowed hard and crouched in front of him, careful not to touch the chain.
"I know", I said softly. "We won't be here for long".
His gaze flicked past me, panic flashed through his exhaustion.
"They will notice you. They always do".
"I killed the one that brought me" I said.
"Bought us time".
That made him laugh, weak, disbelieving sound.
"You always did that", he murmured. "Solve problems sideways".
I felt my throat tighten.
I wanted to grab him. To break the chains. To do something.
But I knew better now.
Those weren't restraints.
They were anchors.
And pulling them wrong would finish what the the Seam Keepers started.
I leaned in, lowering my voice even more.
"I figured it out", I said. "The stitches. The correction. I can get u out of here".
Keal looked at me for a long moment.
Then his expression shifted- not relief.
Fear.
"Morrie", he said carefully.
"If you break those chains.....you won't just free me".
Suddenly the space around us pulsed.
Something had noticed a fluctuation.
Keal met my eyes, urgently cutting through his tiredness.
"You need to listen to me. Right now".
Keal followed my eyes to the chain and gave a slow, tired breath.
"They are not restraint", he said quietly.
"They are sentences".
I forwned. "What do you mean?".
"They are decisions made by reality", he said.
"Final ones".
He shifted slightly and the chains reacted- light flaring, symbols rearranging themselves like they were listening.
"When the Seam Keepers couldn't erase me cleanly", Kael continued.
"They did the next best thing. They bound me to the repair process itself, I fix the what broke...by existing".
My chest tightened. "So if I break them..."
"You collapse the stitch", he finished. "And the damage spreads. Nor just here. Everywhere I've been used to correct".
I shook my head. "There has to be another way".
Kael then looked at me- really looked at me- with something like relief and something like regret tangled together.
"There is", he said softly. "But it was never meant for you".
The space around us shifted.
Not violently.
Precisely.
Kael's eyes widened.
"Morrie", he said, urgency in his voice.
"They have found you".