It's past midnight, but I haven't moved in hours. The candle's burned itself into a stub. The wax has spilled onto the desk in slow motion, like time decided to melt with it. I sit by the window, eyes half-lidded, watching fog erase the edges of the city one breath at a time.
The box still sits on my bed. I haven't touched it again.
Not because I'm afraid of what's inside.
I'm afraid it knows more about me than I do.
The thread is in my pocket — the black one. I told myself I just wanted to carry it. As a reminder. As proof. But the longer it stays near, the more it feels like something waiting to be pulled. Like it's stitched to something I forgot.
Or someone.
I finally stand.
The floor creaks the same way it always does. I've lived here long enough to know the rhythms of this place — how many steps to the door, where the board near the sink always groans like it's holding back a sigh.
But tonight, the sound feels… unfamiliar.
Like the flat is mourning something I haven't lost yet.
I step out into Sector 7.
The streets are empty today, but not quiet. Veritus never truly sleeps. Somewhere in the distance, a train whistles — low and aching. A dog barks. Neon signs flicker like dying stars.
I follow no map. Just instinct.
The thread burns cold against my palm, and something in me listens.
I take turns I don't remember choosing. Pass a bakery I thought had closed years ago. Walk past a statue in the courtyard I swear was never there.
And then — the library.
Old. Abandoned. Half its sign missing. I'd been here once. Or maybe more than once. I can't tell if the memory's real or if it belongs to someone else. But I know I need to go in.
The doors groan open.
Dust breathes out like a sigh. The inside smells like old leather and rot and faint perfume — the kind that clings to memory but not people.
Shelves loom like tombstones.
Books are scattered across the floor, pages torn, spines broken. I step carefully. As if I might wake something sleeping beneath them.
The moment I cross the threshold, the mark on my back pulses once. Then again.
There's something here.
A Trace. But not like the others.
Older.
Buried.
I walk toward it slowly. The thread in my hand begins to pull slightly toward the back corner, near a section labeled "Histories: Unverified."
I crouch. Reach out.
There — tucked between two volumes, a scrap of paper.
No title. No author. Just a torn page with a hand-drawn spiral and a single sentence:
"A name forgotten is a wound still bleeding."
The air sharpens. My vision tunnels. My breath hitches —
And then I'm inside the Trace.
_____
I'm not me.
I'm a boy. Maybe six, maybe seven. Knees bent. Holding someone's hand.
A voice — low, steady, not mine — says:
"Remember, even if they forget you, the thread still holds. Your name is the knot at the center."
The spiral appears again — drawn in chalk this time, on a wall I don't recognize.
A mark. A promise.
Then —
SNAP.
I'm yanked out.
Back into the library. Back into my body.
But not quite whole.
I stagger backward, gasping. Sweat chills my spine.
For a moment, I can't remember where I am. Or why I came.
Then I look down. The thread in my hand has curled — tied itself into a knot.
A symbol.
The same spiral.
Somewhere inside that Trace, something remembered me.
I leave the library shaken. I forget to close the door behind me. The air outside tastes kind of metallic — like static and grief.
My legs move on instinct. I reach for my journal mid-step, scrawling without thinking.
"Felt myself inside another memory. Not mine, but… close. Someone knew the thread. Tied it to my name.
Woke up to my own handwriting, which I don't remember writing."
I pause.
Flip back a page.
There's a line I didn't write.
"The thread will fray, but it won't break — unless you cut it yourself."
I stare at it for a long time.
It's my handwriting. But I have no memory of the words. No memory of the moment.
And yet… they feel like mine.
_____
The fog thickens.
As I turn toward the main road, I see someone across the street. A shape half-formed in the mist. Standing still.
Watching me. Again.
They don't move, nor do they blink. Just exist in the corner of my eye long enough for my skin to tighten.
But this time… the mark pulses differently.
Not warning.
Recognition.
"Another Wraithbinder?"I ask myself.
I move towards them.
But the second I blink —
Gone.
_____
I stand in the middle of the road for a long time.
The street is silent.
But something lingers.
Like a tether pulled too tight.
Like I was just seen by someone who knows more than I ever did.
Back home, I don't sleep.
I pin the spiral scrap to my wall. Then Set the knot of thread beside it.
Underline the journal's last sentence twice.
Then I write one more thing:
"If the Archive Keeper knows my name… then they knew me before I vanished."
I sit in the quiet.
Listen to the city forget itself.
And I feel something beneath the forgetting.
A spiral turning. A path waiting.