The crimson figure stood in silence, its body stitched from threads of light that twitched and pulsed like veins. It didn't move, but the air bent around it, vibrating with every faint hum of the fissure.
Clara couldn't breathe. It wasn't the heat or the glow—it was recognition. She didn't know the shape, didn't know the face. But some terrible instinct in her bones whispered: This is me. This is what I become.
Damien tightened his grip on his sword and took a step forward. "Stay behind me."
Clara shook her head, panic rising. "No—you don't understand. If you attack it—"
The woven figure tilted its head, mirroring her gesture, the threads of its neck stretching and tightening with the motion. Then, in the same layered distortion as before, Clara's voice spilled from its blank face:
"Threads resist. Threads fray. Threads return to the Loom."
Damien's stance faltered for just a heartbeat. "That's… your voice."
"It's not me," Clara snapped, though her words sounded hollow to her own ears. Her veins glowed faintly brighter, pulsing in rhythm with the fissure. She could feel the figure's hum vibrating inside her chest, as if the two were tethered.
Evelyn raised her blade, eyes sharp and unflinching. "Then we cut the thread. Whatever it is."
Before Clara could protest again, Evelyn charged. Her blade sliced through the woven figure's chest—yet instead of tearing, the threads unraveled and re-knitted around the steel, swallowing it like water around a stone. The fissure pulsed in response, brighter, deeper, hungrier.
Evelyn ripped her weapon back, cursing. "It's feeding on contact!"
Clara stumbled forward, clutching her head. "I told you—resistance strengthens it!"
The figure stepped forward at last, each movement sending ripples through the ground. Dust and pebbles slid toward the fissure, as if drawn by a breath too vast to resist.
Damien moved to intercept, sword raised. "Then what the hell do we do?"
Clara's vision blurred, the glow in her veins burning hotter. She felt the words pressing against her tongue—not her own words, but the Architect's. She wanted to resist, but resisting only made them sharper, louder, inevitable.
Join.
She screamed the word, though she hadn't meant to.
The figure's head snapped toward her. Threads unspooled from its arm, unraveling into the air like strands of crimson silk. They reached toward Clara—not attacking, not binding, but offering. Inviting.
Damien shouted her name, rushing to pull her back, but Clara held up a hand. For once, she didn't flinch.
Because deep inside, beneath the terror, beneath the whispers, she felt something else. A clarity.
"This isn't an enemy," she whispered hoarsely. "It's… a reflection. A message woven through me."
The figure's threads stopped inches from her fingertips, quivering, waiting.
Evelyn hissed. "Don't you dare touch it. You don't even know what it will do."
Clara's hand trembled in the air. "If it's part of me, if I reject it, we lose everything. If I accept it, maybe we understand the Loom. Maybe we know how to stop it before it—"
Her voice broke. She couldn't finish.
Damien's hand clamped onto her wrist. His eyes burned with something halfway between anger and desperation. "Clara, listen to me. You are not the Architect. You're not this… thing. Don't let it decide who you are."
Clara's gaze met his. For a heartbeat, the hum in her veins lessened, as if his touch dimmed the resonance.
But then the fissure pulsed again—harder, deeper. The woven figure lurched forward, threads snapping like whips, not to strike but to coil around her hand. The contact burned cold.
Clara gasped. Her vision split into two. One eye saw Damien's horrified face. The other saw spirals upon spirals, endless patterns weaving through blackness. A loom stretching beyond stars.
And at its center—two figures.
One was crimson, faceless, infinite.
The other was Yurin Crimson. Watching. Waiting.
The vision shattered. Clara stumbled back, threads tearing from her skin, leaving faint spirals burned into her palm. The woven figure collapsed inward, its body unraveling until only a single glowing thread remained, fluttering in the wind before sinking into the fissure below.
Silence.
Clara's chest heaved as she stared at her marked hand.
Damien gripped her shoulders. "What did you see?"
Clara opened her mouth, but no sound came. The glow in her veins flickered once, then dimmed, leaving her pale and trembling. Finally, she whispered, voice cracking:
"…Yurin. He was there. At the center of it all."
Evelyn's blade lowered, eyes narrowing. "Then it's true. The fissures aren't just calling. They're answering. And he's the one asking the questions."
The ground rumbled beneath them, faint but undeniable. The fissure was not closing. It was widening.
Clara stared into the glowing abyss and felt the Architect's hum echo in her bones, a song she could no longer pretend she didn't know the melody to.