They didn't sleep that night.
Not because they feared the Hollow behind them—though it still whispered when they turned their backs—but because something had changed in them. The false memories had unraveled. Their belief in the prophecy had cracked. And when belief breaks, so too does the comfort of purpose.
So they pressed forward.
The ground grew stranger.
It was like walking across forgotten dreams. The soil shifted color with their moods. Black when Dee grew silent. Pale blue when Vampher hummed to himself again. And a dull grey under Hiro's pacing steps.
They passed ruins, warped by half-truths: statues of faceless gods, altars with no names, wells full of stars. It felt less like a path and more like a test they hadn't been told they'd begun.
Eventually, they reached it.
The First Lock.
It didn't look like a lock—not in any way they understood. No chains, no doors, no keyholes.
It was a hill.
Simple. Small. Covered in flowers that bled smoke instead of pollen.
At its summit stood a single post, with a thread tied around it—red, frayed, and pulsing slowly. Faint symbols shifted across its surface like living ink. The thread stretched toward the sky… and vanished.
Hiro frowned. "This is a lock?"
"No," Dee said. "It's tethered to the lock. Somewhere else."
Vampher tilted his head. "Like… like it's anchoring something?"
"Or someone," Dee murmured.
He stepped forward and the flowers turned to ash under his boots. The smoke curled around his ankles, whispering names—his old names, forgotten ones, the ones he burned to escape his past divinity.
He didn't flinch.
Hiro followed, more hesitantly.
But when Vampher stepped forward, the air changed.
The sky dimmed.
And the thread tied to the post twitched.
Then it pulled.
Hard.
Vampher fell to his knees, gasping. "It's—! It's pulling me!"
"Vampher!" Hiro lunged, grabbing his arm.
But Vampher's eyes had gone wide. Blank. Lost. He wasn't seeing the field anymore.
He was somewhere else.
Inside the Thread.
He stood in a hallway. Narrow. Infinite. Doors on either side, endless and numbered in languages he didn't know—but somehow understood.
Each door was a choice.
A life he could have lived.
A life he might still be forced to.
The prophecy whispered behind each one, reshaping his fate.
He turned slowly. The hallway felt alive. Watching. And at the far end, a mirror waited.
He stepped toward it.
His reflection didn't move.
It just stared. Mouth sewn shut. Eyes weeping ink.
Around its neck hung a thread.
The same thread.
He reached for it—
"NO!"
Dee's hand slammed into the thread on the hilltop.
He didn't cut it.
He burned it.
Fire—golden, defiant—raced up the tether and severed the connection.
Vampher screamed as he returned.
Hiro held him as he collapsed.
Dee stood over them both, panting, sweat running down his face. His hand was scorched black, still smoking.
"What… was that?" Hiro asked, voice ragged.
"A trial," Dee said. "A false path. If Vampher had accepted the thread—if he'd taken that other life—it would've rewritten him. Rebound him to the prophecy."
Vampher coughed. "I saw me. But not me. Another me. One that followed the seals. One that never questioned."
Dee nodded. "That's what the locks are. Not doors. Not cages. Versions. Versions of us. If we accept them, the story wins."
They stared at the scorched post. The thread was gone.
But above them, in the sky, a ripple formed.
A tear.
For the first time, the prophecy reacted.
It knew.
And it was watching.
Somewhere Beyond – In the Room of Threads
The cloaked figure looked up from the tapestry.
The thread had been burned.
Not frayed.
Not cut.
Burned with will.
It tapped its long, bone-like finger on the edge of the frame.
"They've refused their parts," it murmured.
A new voice answered. One older than the first. Not cloaked, but wearing a crown of mirrors.
"Then give them new ones. Lies are adaptable."
The figure paused.
Then smiled.
And rewove the tapestry.
Not to bind them.
But to tempt them.
Back on the Ashen Hill
Vampher sat cross-legged, pale but alive. "One lock down?"
"Not quite," Dee said. "We didn't break it. We denied it. There's a difference."
"So how many are there?" Hiro asked.
Dee didn't look at them. He was staring into the distance, where the ripple in the sky had begun to pulse.
"Seven," he said.
Vampher groaned. "Why is it always seven?"
"Because stories like patterns," Dee answered softly. "But patterns are cages. It's time we broke them."
The sky shimmered again.
And somewhere, faintly, Myla's voice echoed once more—no glitches this time.
"The second lock… bleeds."