"What you leave behind in fear, the forest remembers in hunger."
Fragment from the First Loomsong
The trees screamed like old men being torn in half.
Elric didn't look back.
Every step felt like dragging a blade through fabric, reality peeling open around him. Threads howled in his ears — not from him, but from the forest. From the thing chasing him.
It wasn't just the trees anymore.
Something stitched had risen.
He tore through the underbrush, breath ragged, eyes burning. His thread — once faint and fragile — now flared a deeper shade of gray, nearly charcoal. It whipped behind him like a tail, reacting, warning, urging.
He clutched the book to his chest.
The forest blurred.
Not just because of speed — but because it wanted to blur. Paths looped, trees rearranged. Bark melted into faces, branches into claws. It was rewriting itself as it pursued him.
Still, he ran.
And then, without warning —
Silence.
He stopped.
The screams were gone.
His foot landed in something wet. He looked down.
Mud.
Dark, thick, oily.
He'd crossed into a clearing — wide, circular, surrounded by trees with faces grown into their trunks, eyes closed.
Breathing.
The forest was… waiting.
And then, from the mist behind him, it arrived.
First came the sound: dragging thread. Wet limbs brushing against bark. A rattling breath like bellows filled with ash.
Then the shape emerged.
A Stitchspawn — malformed, massive, wrong.
It walked like it didn't understand how to move. Elongated limbs. Ribcage on the outside. Its head… a bundle of threads where eyes should be. Sewn mouths stretched across its shoulders. Each one whispering.
"Unweave. Unmake. Unremember."
Elric's knees buckled.
The book didn't open.
The thread above his heart curled into him, as if to hide.
"No," he whispered.
He forced himself to stand.
Forced himself to breathe.
Forced himself to feel.
Because fear was a thread too — and if he couldn't break it, he could at least weave it.
He extended his hand. His thread obeyed — weakly, but there.
The Stitchspawn stepped into the clearing.
The ground pulsed.
Elric closed his eyes.
Weave.
He pulled the thread forward — not toward the creature, but into the mud at his feet. He had no plan, no certainty. Only instinct. The forest had made him feel, and now he gave that feeling back.
The thread sank into the earth.
And the mud twitched.
The same memory-stain that had taken the stone earlier… answered.
A circle of sharp, jagged thread-teeth rose from beneath — a trap mimicking what had attacked him before.
The Stitchspawn stepped into it.
The earth screamed.
Thread shot up, fangs clamping down — biting into its legs. It shrieked. Not in pain.
In confusion.
Elric's eyes flared. He stepped backward, yanked his thread out of the mud. The trap held, but it wouldn't last.
Now. Move.
He sprinted around the edge of the clearing, ducking under low-hanging branches.
The creature writhed.
And then it spoke through one of its shoulder-mouths — his own voice:
"You're learning, Elric."
He stumbled.
That pause was nearly fatal.
The Stitchspawn snapped the trap — tearing through it like paper. Thread sprayed out, lashing at him. One strand slashed across his leg — shallow, but searing.
He screamed. But he kept running.
He dove between two thick trees — and found himself face to face with another horror.
A mirror.
No. A puddle — but the water didn't reflect him.
It showed a boy.
Bleeding. Laughing.
Thread unraveling from his back like wings.
Another Elric.
The puddle whispered: "Unravel yourself, and you will be free."
He kicked the water aside.
"Not yet."
Ahead — light.
A break in the canopy.
The first he'd seen in days.
A thin shaft of pale blue shone down onto an altar of stone, wrapped in thread.
Elric dragged himself forward. Behind him, the Stitchspawn shrieked again, fury replacing confusion.
He reached the altar.
The book finally opened.
One word burned across the page:
"Bind."
He didn't hesitate.
He pressed his hand to the altar and pushed.
His thread flared — not bright, not strong — but focused. Precise.
The altar glowed.
Threads snaked out from its surface like veins from a heart, spreading into the trees, into the ground — around the clearing.
The forest paused.
The Stitchspawn burst through the treeline — but stopped.
It looked around.
And for the first time…
It hesitated.
The forest had recognized something.
Not strength.
But structure.
Elric's thread had made a pattern.
And patterns held power here.
The Stitchspawn shrank back. Its limbs twitched, confused. Mistrustful.
Then, with a final whisper from its shoulder mouths — "Not ready. Not yet." — it turned, and vanished into the shadows.
The forest exhaled.
Elric collapsed beside the altar.
The thread above his heart slowly dimmed.
But it no longer trembled.
He stared at the book.
A new sentence had formed:
"To weave is to remember yourself even in the dark."