As a white thread slithered along another, slowly reaching its position, it crawled along the complex tapestry.
A pattern of white string formed, one colliding with another, creating a smaller, less finely woven three-dimensional web than the golden one in the Soulsea.
Trying to imitate the shape and form of the web he had seen, Noctis created another thread, slowly flowing out of one of his fingers, like so many others were already.
Concentrating fiercely, a drop of sweat slowly ran down his hand. It slid down his index finger, made contact with the web, and ran seamlessly toward its center, traversing one thread after another. Meanwhile, two manually controlled threads slowly extended toward the center. They used other threads for balance and gravity's inertia to propel their descent.
Feeling the drop of sweat run down the center and begin its own journey towards its end. It ran down another thread and, with growing inertia, collided with the hand of Noctis.
Despite being a small drop on a large hand, even the smallest things can create significant effects. The impact traveled along his nerves, making him immediately aware. He had felt it cross the web, but the sudden stimulus still surprised him, heightening his awareness of his surroundings and sweat-drenched body.
Unable to ignore the overwhelming stimuli he had previously tuned out, Noctis gave in and fell onto his bed with a resounding thunk. Out of breath, he lacked the energy to check on the web he had woven with such effort.
Of course, he knew internally what had become of it; logically, he knew he was connected to every single thread, as if it were a part of his body. So how could he not know?
The moment he let himself fall, it ripped apart. It did so because he had weakened attributes like Durability to his limits, trying to discover the limits of what the attribute alucation could achieve.
It was midday. Nox was going to have a free day tomorrow, so he decided to just see how far his Symbolism could go.
He had trained the Moon sickle, as he called it, a few more times at the training grounds, slowly... very slowly, seeing some progress.
The days before had been quite uneventful, as far as Noctis was concerned. At the very least, a huge burden was taken off his chest after he told Professor Anderson about his Rank and that nothing bad happened.
All things considered, Professor Anderson's reaction was quite weird. Just for a moment, Noctis had the feeling that he was being seen as a delicious snake instead of a person. To add on, Anderson seemed aware of it, merely having waited for him to report.
That feeling quickly disappeared, but Nox couldn't help but frown every time he thought of it.
Afterward, nothing like that happened again, as if Anderson had noticed that he had made a mistake and wanted to hide all the evidence.
A question I was asked repeatedly, to my Dismay, was "how intense the call was." Not wanting to tell him that I felt almost nothing, I always answered in half-truths, pretending that it was stronger than it actually was.
Luckily, that was the worst part of the procedure; he didn't tell me to do many things differently and simply reminded me that I would get a new book on speeding up assimilation and that I should not neglect the basics.
Other than that, during the second academic lecture, Trisha started calling Noctis 'Nox' to annoy him.
Originally vehemently opposed to it, Trisha simply continued with it, without considering his opinion, deriving pleasure from his discomfort.
Man, she can be stubborn at times!
Giving in at the end of the day, Noctis, or now Nox, accepted his fate indignantly.
Internally cursing her and her entire family. What made it even more painful was that it seemed most students avoided her, which, in turn, meant they started avoiding Nox as well.
Nox had pictured many ways he might become an outcast in this class: saying uninteresting things, using a different kind of humor, or simply lacking the social skills to converse with these people.
But being ostracized because the first friend he made was hated by everyone... was not the way he had pictured it going.
At least she enjoys bets, that's something, I guess.
The lecture's content seemed mostly focused on the surrounding cities and the animals thriving there. What one should look out for and how to react to certain situations, and so on...
Having half-heartedly listened to the lecture, instead, mostly creating future plans, Noctis might have drifted off a bit. But he would "definitely" go over the stuff later again; obviously, he never neglected such things in favor of more interesting activities. He would never!
Turning his head to the pillow seductively lying beside him, his head slowly started wandering towards it.
His strength is still drained to its limits because of his prior activity. He quickly fell into the embrace of sleep.
***
A man still sitting in the center of the same golden web, still holding golden threads and weaving something with his ten fingers, looking up once more. His face, now in full view, was indistinguishable. It was as if a veil of threads was hiding him from the world, hiding him from me.
I can't identify any of his features, but for some reason, I felt he was wearing a bitter-sweet smile.
Slowly standing up, he tenderly caressed one of the thousand golden threads. This thread was particularly thick, most likely woven out of countless smaller threads. Suddenly, tightening his grip, he spoke in a harsh, disappointed tone, maybe to me or someone else, "Pathetic,... truly and utterly pathetic."
Slowly extending his nails into the string, splitting it from the middle outward, as he strained his muscles, the attempt clearly exhausting.
Now holding two threads half the size of the original, which were then connected at both ends to restore their original finger breadth. Stopping his actions when the thread's distance reached the span of his arms. One could describe the sight as a painting melded from many colors that were combining and blurring, with the frame being the split string and the howl in the middle, filled with many indistinguishable colors, painting a hard-to-distinguish picture. As a whole, it looked like a giant golden, black eye, with the unknown man serving as a slit pupil, and countless shades of color, with gold being the most prominent, shining upon him, elongating his shadow to encompass half of the center web, to encompass me.
Turning away from his creation, he looks towards me with an arrogant smile, or what I assume it to be.
With golden light shining upon his back. Taking a slow, measured step to the side, revealing the sight of the eye-shaped golden thread fully. In the space between the now-split threads, one could see golden light stream upon us, and beneath that light, something more was revealing itself.
A scene slowly depicts itself, but of what?
Not knowing why, I desperately try to decipher what is shown to me...
A strong desire is driving me on.
I need to know!
I need to HEAR!
I need TO FEEL!
I NEED TO SEE!
***
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh"
Suddenly, Nox jolts awake, sitting up and seeing his room in the same state he left it. Feeling relieved for some unknown reason, a strong headache coming up. The remnants of his dream still lingered in his mind, and a cold shiver ran down his back. Since his last rude awakening, he had developed the habit of checking his surroundings upon waking; to his luck, nothing seemed amiss.
While trying to remember something, anything really, Nox rubbed his head with his thumb and index finger; the headache he had since awaking slowly faded, taking with it the remnants of the memories, as if he had just gone through something terribly painful.
Feeling tears running down his face, Nox wasn't surprised, as he had gotten used to such phenomena as of late. Slowly wiping them away, he notices that they seem to be a lot thicker than usual. Rubbing them between his fingers as he cleared his eyes, still drowsy from sleep. Red?
Bafeled Nox touched his face again, only to find more of it, so much more.
If he had a mirror right now, he could have seen two bright red streams of some kind of thick liquid running down his face.
Blood?