The corridor swallowed them whole.
No sound. No wind. Just a stillness so complete it pressed against their eardrums, thick and unnerving. Even the glow of the loom behind them dimmed until it was no more than a memory—like warmth fading from skin after stepping out into the cold.
But the thread remained.
Each of them still held a line of light trailing back toward the loom. It wavered in the dark like the tail of a comet, trembling slightly with each heartbeat.
"I thought we'd left the Loom behind," the boy said, his voice hushed despite the silence.
"It comes with us," replied the healer, tightening her grip on the glowing thread. "Even in places where stories try to die."
The rogue stepped ahead, blades sheathed but fingers twitching. Her eyes narrowed on the shadows pooling up ahead—shadows that moved.
The stranger came up beside her, tilting his head. "Do you feel that?"
It wasn't fear exactly.
More like grief, distilled and bitter.
A sound like thread snapping came from the left wall—a crisp, final sound—and a rush of memories came with it.
A marketplace at dusk. A voice raised in laughter. Then, silence.
They spun toward the source, but found only a tangled knot of light—frayed, flickering, choking on its own unraveling.
"A broken story," said the ink-fingered girl. "This one didn't finish. It never got the chance."
The knot pulsed once.
And then it screamed.
They reeled back, hands flying up to shield their eyes as a flood of images tore through them. Not words, not even thoughts—just moments. Shattered lives, undone relationships, endings without closure. The emotional debris of a world lost in mid-sentence.
"I can't breathe," the boy choked. "It's like drowning in someone else's regret."
"No, not someone else's," murmured the stranger. "This is ours. A world we left unwritten."
"But we've only just begun," said the healer, blinking back tears. "How can we already be failing?"
"You're not," came a voice. Not theirs. Not from any of the five.
It was… smaller. Fragile.
A figure stepped out from the edge of the broken thread. A child. Genderless, with hair made of starlight and eyes like paper scorched at the edges.
"You are not failing," the child said again. "You're just late."
The rogue drew her blade. "Who are you?"
"I'm what's left of this story," the child said. "The last voice still trying to speak. You were meant to find us. We were meant to be part of the Loom. But the thread snapped before it reached you."
The ink-fingered girl stepped forward, kneeling. "What happened?"
"Fear," the child whispered. "Indecision. Somewhere, someone in the Loom hesitated. And in that pause, the thread frayed."
"We didn't know," the healer said. "We weren't ready."
The child smiled faintly. "That's the thing about stories. They don't wait for you to be ready. They happen anyway."
The stranger studied the frayed knot. "Can it be saved?"
"I don't know," said the child. "But you can try."
They exchanged glances.
They were still new. Still unsure. A Circle by name, not yet by test.
But here it was. The first.
"I'll steady the thread," said the boy, stepping forward. "I can stabilize it. Just for a moment."
The rogue nodded. "I'll guard the perimeter. If anything tries to pull us under, I'll cut it free."
The healer placed both hands on the child's shoulders, light blooming from her palms. "Let me carry the pain for a moment."
The ink-fingered girl took out her stylus and her book. "I'll write what's missing."
And the stranger?
He knelt beside the knot.
Watched it pulse.
And began to listen.
From his silence came a whisper—then a chorus—then a shape: a path through the memory, leading to where the thread had first begun to tear.
They moved together. A unit. Imperfect but aligned.
With the boy's threadwork anchoring the unraveling memory, and the healer grounding the emotions flooding through the child, the ink-fingered girl scribbled furiously—names, places, the shape of the world that had once been.
And the stranger wove the whispers into form, guiding the rogue to cut away the poisoned threads that had curled like rot around the original story.
It was not fast.
And it was not painless.
At one point, the rogue stumbled. "Something's pulling the story backward."
"Grief," the stranger said. "A part of the thread wants to forget rather than be remembered."
"We don't let it," the healer said. "We carry it forward."
A long moment passed.
Then the knot stopped trembling.
And for the first time, it began to hum.
The child's body flickered, the stars in their hair dimming. "It's time."
"No—stay," the ink-fingered girl said, panic blooming in her chest.
"I was never meant to last," the child said, smiling again. "Only to warn. You listened. That was enough."
And then the child vanished—dispersed into the thread like ink in water.
The corridor pulsed once.
The frayed knot straightened.
And the broken story joined the Loom.
A new strand, glowing soft and steady.
The Circle stood in silence.
They had acted. Chosen. Woven.
And it had mattered.
"We saved it," the boy said quietly.
"No," said the stranger. "We remembered it. That's not the same thing. But it's a start."
They turned, slowly retracing their path through the corridor.
When they reached the chamber of the Loom, the threads behind them still glowed—stronger now, interwoven with a new band of color: deep violet, laced with starlight.
"What will the Loom remember of us?" the rogue asked.
The ink-fingered girl looked up at the great spiral of glowing threads above them.
"That we answered the first call," she said.
"That we did not look away."
And the Loom pulsed once more.
A quiet confirmation.
The story was not yet whole.
But it was becoming.