She saw them at dawn.
Not in a vision.
Not in a dream.
In the air.
Thin, frayed, pulsing like dying veins — not golden, not silver,
but rotten.
Gray.
Twisting like worms beneath the skin of the world.
I saw her freeze mid-step, eyes locked on nothing — or everything.
Her breath stopped.
Her hands twitched.
Then she whispered:
"They're lying."
I followed her gaze.
To a boy — no older than six — crying beside a well.
His mother knelt beside him, murmuring comfort.
A normal scene.
A quiet morning.
But Mei didn't see that.
She saw the thread.
A thick, pulsing cord of decayed light, stretching from the boy's chest to his mother's hand — not connecting hearts,
but feeding.
And every time the woman said, "It's okay,"
the thread pulsed darker.
I grabbed Mei's wrist.
"Don't touch it."
She didn't look at me.
"She's not comforting him.
She's erasing him."
Her voice dropped.
"Can't you hear it?
The lie in her voice.
The way the word 'okay' tastes like ash."
She pulled free.
"She's making him forget something.
Something he shouldn't."
Her fingers twitched.
"I can cut it."
"No."
I stepped in front of her.
"Some threads hold more than memory.
Cut the wrong one, and you don't free a mind.
You break it."
She stared at me.
"Then what do we do? Let her poison him with kindness?"
I had no answer.
And in that silence —
she moved.
One step.
Two.
Then her hand rose — not with a blade, not with fire —
but with a flick of her fingers, like tearing spider silk.
The thread snapped.
The boy gasped.
Not in pain.
In remembering.
His tears stopped.
His body tensed.
And in a voice too old for his face, he said:
"She buried the red doll in the garden.
She said it was bad.
But it wasn't the doll.
It was her."
He turned to his mother.
"You burned Father's face in the mirror.
I saw."
The woman didn't scream.
Didn't cry.
Just went still — like a puppet with cut strings.
Then the thread reformed.
Not from her hand.
From the ground.
Black.
Thick.
Pulsing with a rhythm that made my bones ache.
And from the earth, a whisper — not in any language,
but in the space between heartbeats:
"She's awake."
Mei staggered back.
Her palm burned — the star-shaped scar, fresh again, weeping black fluid.
I pulled her away.
No words.
No scolding.
Just speed.
But I felt it.
Deep below.
Something stirred.
Not anger.
Not rage.
Recognition.
That night, the first Dreaming One arrived.
A traveler, blank-eyed, muttering in the old tongue —
the Hymn of Obedience, long forbidden.
He stood at the gate, face slack, eyes glowing faintly gold for three seconds at dawn.
When Mei passed him, he turned.
And smiled.
Not with lips.
With too many teeth.
Then he collapsed — not dead.
Just… empty.
Like a husk.
In his hand — a single seed.
Black.
Thorned.
The same as the one Xiyue once carried.
But this one was warm.
And when I touched it, it pulsed —
once.
Like a heartbeat.
I found Mei in the training yard at midnight.
She was cutting threads in the air — invisible ones.
Her hands moved with precision, with memory, with something not hers.
I didn't stop her.
Finally, she whispered:
"I don't know why I know this.
But I do.
And if no one else will cut the lies…
I will."
She looked at me.
"Even if it wakes the thing beneath the earth."
She closed her hand.
"Especially if it does."
Author Note:
They say truth sets you free.
But in this world, truth is a knife.
And every time you use it,
something in the dark starts walking toward you.