"Nyxar is a world of contrasts: endless shadow broken by the glow of Veilmaw, its jagged cliffs carved by ancient winds, and its surface whispering secrets to those brave enough to listen." —Excerptfrom the Syndicate Exploratory Records, Volume VII
Nine days. At least, that's how many times he thought he'd slept—nine. He had no other way of measuring how much time had passed, but he could count the number of times he'd slept. Though, even in that, he wasn't entirely sure he'd gotten the number right.
At least he hadn't been starved. Food arrived while he slept, carefully deposited without a sound. They were meticulous—he never glimpsed the world beyond this endless void. He'd tried to feign sleep a couple of times, hoping to catch sight of whoever brought the meals, but it was futile. Somehow, they always knew when he was genuinely asleep.
Why hadn't Merrick returned? Had he not seen Arlo's strange ability? Or perhaps he had, and that was the problem. Maybe Merrick was afraid. The idea tugged at the corners of Arlo's mind, bringing a faint, bitter smile to his lips. If that were true, it meant he had leverage.
"Hell, I'm bored," Arlo muttered, his voice cutting through the oppressive silence. The sensory deprivation didn't unnerve him as much as Merrick might have hoped. The threads offered him something to focus on, an anchor in the vast nothingness. What truly got to him was the sheer monotony. He'd thought he understood boredom during his days as a scanner-watcher on Teve IV, staring at empty readouts for hours on end. But this—this was worse. No tasks, no purpose, no distractions. Just him and the void.
"You're waiting for something, aren't you?" he said to the room, his voice bouncing back at him in the silence. Someone had to be watching. Merrick wouldn't leave him completely unsupervised, not after what he'd seen. He'd given them something worth waiting for—walking on the ceiling wasn't exactly a daily occurrence.
"Fine, let's figure this out together then," Arlo declared, more to himself than to his unseen audience.
He hadn't touched the threads since the first day. The memory of shifting gravity still unsettled him; the other threads might be even more dangerous. But boredom gnawed at him, a relentless predator driving him toward action. One thread in particular caught his eye.
It glowed with an almost hypnotic vibrance, flickering between soft white and muted orange, each pulse accompanied by faint sparks. It seemed tethered to the relentless light above the table, the one that never turned off. He hated that light. Its unyielding glare was a constant reminder of his confinement. As he stared at it, willing it to go out, the sparking thread grew more pronounced, as if responding to his thoughts.
Arlo shifted to the corner of the room, his back against the wall, and stared up at the ceiling. The thread flickered, dancing just out of reach, tempting him. He hesitated, wondering what it might do if he reached out. The memory of the wormhole and the threads' overwhelming energy flashed through his mind. What if this thread was as volatile?
Yet the light mocked him, daring him to act. And Arlo, driven by a mix of frustration and curiosity, felt his resolve harden. Slowly, he extended his hand toward the sparking threads around the light.
A thin thread shimmered into view, bridging the space between Arlo and the glowing threads entangled around the light. It seemed calmer as it stretched further from the light, though it still carried the same vibrant energy. Driven by a mix of curiosity and desperation for stimulation, Arlo reached out and grasped it.
The light flickered slightly but didn't go out. This thread wasn't like the other one—the one that flipped gravity. It felt sturdier, less delicate, like it resisted him. Arlo gripped it tighter and gave a firm pull. The threads wound around the light began to unravel slowly, their intricate weave loosening. The light flickered more rapidly, its pulse irregular and erratic, but it stubbornly refused to extinguish.
Some threads still clung to the light, mocking him. Arlo realized that pulling the threads away siphoned energy from the light, weakening it incrementally. He paused, his mind flashing back to the mining outpost on Teve IV. One of the most common problems with the machines there was overloading—too much energy surging through a system all at once, causing catastrophic failure. What if he could replicate that? Instead of draining energy, he could overload the light.
The sparking thread he held wasn't loose; none of the threads ever were. They seemed perpetually tethered, connecting to unseen points in the fabric of reality. Arlo envisioned them as part of a vast, intricate web, densely packed and all-encompassing, weaving tightly around existence. If he could push energy through the thread instead of pulling it away, perhaps he could achieve his goal.
With determination, he pushed the sparking thread toward the light. Its vibrancy increased, and the light's gentle hum grew louder, rising in pitch. Encouraged, Arlo grabbed more and more of the thread and fed it into the light, its brilliance intensifying with each surge of energy.
Then, with a sharp crack, the light shattered. Sparks flew in all directions as it fizzled out, leaving the room dimmer and eerily quiet. The threads around the light unraveled further, their glow fading as they drifted away, weaving themselves toward other unseen places in the void.
Arlo sat back, breathing heavily as the implications dawned on him. The first thread he'd manipulated had controlled gravity; this one clearly influenced energy. By interacting with them—grasping, pulling, pushing—he was altering them, weaving them. The threads weren't just passive structures; they were tools, and he was beginning to understand their purpose.
"Happy now?" he muttered into the void, hoping he had given them what they wanted. Another display of strange powers for them to analyze and gawk at. Surely they would come back now.
The room was pitch black. No source of light remained, apart from the threads. Their glow was peculiar—undeniable yet ineffective. They illuminated nothing, not even the space around them, as if their light existed only for itself.
Suddenly, light spilled into the room.
"Now, how did you do that?" Merrick's voice broke the silence. He stood framed in the doorway, his silhouette stark before the light, which vanished again as the door clicked shut, plunging them both back into darkness. "Furthermore... how did you walk on the roof?"
"Took you long enough to ask," Arlo replied, his patience for silence exhausted.
"Trying to impress us, are you?" Merrick's voice was calm, collected. A faint metallic sound echoed in the room's center. Then, without warning, the light flared back on. Merrick had replaced the bulb, his composure unshaken. Then he secured the cover over the bulb, the very thing that made it impossible for Arlo to unscrew it on his own, ensuring it was locked tightly in place. The deliberate precision of the action felt like an unspoken challenge, a silent reminder of the control Merrick held in this room.
"Maybe," Arlo said, his tone guarded.
"Well, you have my attention," Merrick said, stepping closer. "I've shown the Arbiter the video of your little display. It's very interested in you now. I doubt that's the sort of attention you were hoping to attract, but it's the attention you have gained nonetheless."
There was something unsettling in Merrick's voice, a faint discomfort that mirrored the unease building in Arlo. An Arbiter? The thought sent a chill down his spine. Their status was near mythical—artificial intelligence machines that embodied the will of the Director himself, the all-powerful, supposedly immortal leader of Finisterra. The Arbiters were crafted to mirror the Director's exact mental likeness. Few had ever seen one in person, but their existence was undeniable, as much a fact as the Director's reign. The Arbiters and the Director had been a rare but fascinating topic of conversation in the cafeteria back on Teve IV. Workers whispered about them with a mix of awe and fear, their voices hushed as if the very mention of their names could summon attention. The Arbiters were spoken of as mythical enforcers, the Director's will made manifest. The Director himself was a figure of both reverence and dread—a symbol of power that transcend mortality.
Arlo's stomach churned. Whatever Merrick's intentions were, one thing was clear: he had drawn the gaze of something far greater and far more dangerous than he had anticipated.
"Don't panic. You won't be making an audience with it anytime soon—as long as you cooperate, that is," Merrick said as he perched on the edge of the table at the center of the room. He looked down at Arlo, who remained seated in the corner, his body language guarded.
"What now, then?" Arlo asked, unsure if he was pretending to cooperate or genuinely weighing the possibility.
"You tell us how you did what you did," Merrick replied, his tone unyielding.
"I don't even know how I did it," Arlo said, his voice steady but uncertain. It was only a half-truth. He knew the action that triggered it but had no hope of explaining the mechanics, the origin of his ability, or even why he instinctively understood it.
"Well, maybe you should spend some time figuring that out," Merrick said, standing and striding toward the door.
"Wait!" Arlo yelped, his voice breaking as the door began to slide open.
Merrick paused mid-step, turning his head slightly. "Got something to say?"
"Please, just... turn the light off," Arlo pleaded, his voice barely above a whisper.
Merrick's gaze shifted to the light fixture, then back to Arlo. His lips twitched in what might have been a smirk.
"Seems like you've got that covered yourself," he said, his voice cool and detached. Without another word, he stepped through the doorway, leaving Arlo alone in the oppressive silence once again.
Alone with the threads.