The smoke had barely settled.
Rin sat hunched over her knees, breathing through gritted teeth. Lumen crouched beside her, his chest still rising too fast. His hands trembled — not from fear, but from something deeper. Like a thread inside had been pulled too tight.
The clearing had gone silent again. No wind. No birds. Just the cold, watching.
"Are they gone?" Rin asked quietly, like saying it too loud might bring them back.
Lumen nodded slowly. "For now."
She wiped her blade on the grass. It didn't help much — the thing hadn't bled, but the weapon still felt tainted.
"That puppet... it knew you."
Lumen didn't answer. He was staring at the stone marker in front of them — a cracked tablet now scorched at the base where the sigil had flared.
A crow landed nearby, silent as a falling shadow. It tilted its head toward them, then cawed once and took off.
Rin followed it with her eyes. "Even the birds know something's wrong."
He gave a tired chuckle. "I thought crows liked me."
"You're not the only scarecrow out here."
They sat in silence again, but this time it wasn't cold. It was the silence that comes after surviving — when both breath and heartbeat remind you you're still here.
They didn't sleep. Just rested until the edge of dawn bled pale blue into the trees. The cold didn't lift, but the frost felt softer somehow — like the forest itself had exhaled.
By morning, Lumen's body ached from the hit. Rin winced when she stood, her cloak torn and shoulder bruised.
"Still sure you're not cursed?" she asked.
"More than ever."
They walked slow at first. Not out of laziness, but caution. Every bush could've hidden another laughing puppet.
They passed broken stone fences, the remnants of some forgotten outpost — maybe even a village. A rusted bell lay half-buried beneath wildflowers.
Rin knelt beside it. "You hear anything?"
Lumen listened. "Wind."
She frowned. "Funny. I thought I heard… humming."
They kept walking.
"What was that thing?" he asked after a while.
"The puppet?" Rin said. "I've seen similar masks. Forest spirits, sometimes. But not stitched like that. And the one behind it? That thing wasn't born — it was built."
"You think the System sent them?"
She kicked a stone off the trail. "The System doesn't always use weapons. Sometimes it sends messengers."
"You think they were warning me?"
"No." She glanced at him. "They were measuring you."
They walked past a collapsed signpost, symbols faded to bone-white scratches. Lumen ran a hand across it. The letters were unfamiliar — part rune, part pictograph.
He squinted. "Threadkeeper's Path?"
Rin nodded. "We're close."
"To what?"
"You'll see."
They stopped at midday on a ridge overlooking a dry riverbed. A campfire had been made here long ago — only blackened stones and scorched wood remained. Someone had drawn spirals into the dirt nearby. The center of each spiral was dug deep — claw marks?
Rin crouched beside them. "There was a fight here."
Lumen touched the earth. "Long ago?"
"Not long enough."
They pressed on.
Eventually, they heard voices — faint, ragged.
Rin held up a hand, signaling silence.
Through the trees, they saw two figures — scavengers, maybe, wrapped in mismatched cloaks, one limping. They sat beneath a bent signpost shaped like an arrow, cooking something over a low fire. The smell of roasted root and iron filled the air.
Rin didn't approach, but Lumen watched from the trees.
"They're like us," he said.
"No one's like us," Rin muttered, but her voice had softened.
The strangers never noticed them. They just murmured and ate, and then one laughed — a brittle, human sound. It made Lumen's chest ache in a strange way.
By dusk, the path narrowed into a valley choked with frost-bitten trees. Strange fabric hung from some of them — old prayer cloths, maybe. Others were tied with red string that looked too fresh to be abandoned.
"This place is warded," Rin said.
"Against what?"
"Things like them," she nodded back toward where they'd come from.
Lumen hesitated. "So we're walking into something worse?"
Rin smiled faintly. "Into something older."
They made camp beneath a gnarled tree whose roots twisted like rope. Lumen built a tiny flame this time — not for warmth, but for memory.
Rin sat across from him, sharpening her blade even though it wasn't dull.
"You hesitated today," she said.
"I didn't know what would happen if I used the Threadbinder like that."
"And now?"
He looked at the flame. "Now I'm afraid of what else it can do."
She studied him — not like he was dangerous, but like she was counting how many cracks he had left.
"You should be," she said. "Power like that? It remembers who touches it."
He didn't know what that meant, but her voice made it sound like a warning.
🛠️ [System Update: Environmental Thread Nodes Located]
Path: Threadkeeper's Trail
Condition: Severely Decayed
Potential Interference: High
🛠️ [New Entry: Unknown Travelers Sighted | Emotional Echo Logged: Longing]
░Three paths diverge. The second stitch begins.░