The silence was unnatural.
Not the stillness of nightfall or the hush of snowfall this was the silence that came before death. The silence that devoured sound, swallowed breath, and left only the heartbeat behind.
The boy felt it before he saw them.
The sword in his hand hummed with dread, its edge faintly glowing with threads of blue light. Shadows thickened around him, though the stars above remained fixed. Time stuttered hiccupped and resumed.
"They're near," the sword whispered.
"What are they?" he asked, eyes scanning the forest.
"The Hollowborn. Forgotten souls. Sent to erase what the world is not allowed to remember."
The Hunters with Sewn Eyes
They came in silence six figures cloaked in robes of skin and ink, their mouths sealed shut by golden twine, their eyes sewn closed with thread that shimmered with cursed runes. They moved like ghosts, bending through trees without disturbing even a leaf.
The boy turned to run but time fractured around him.
He stumbled backward as one of the Hollowborn flickered into view before him, its hand outstretched. A thread extended from its fingers, thin as spider silk, reaching for his throat.
The sword moved on its own.
Steel met spectral string, and the air erupted with a shriek that existed only in the soul. One Hollowborn fell away, clutching at its chest as its form unraveled like paper in flame.
The others hissed soundlessly.
They circled.
The Fight Beyond Time
"I can't win this," the boy muttered, panting.
"You don't have to win," the sword replied, "you just have to survive until she arrives."
"She? Who"
The sky cracked.
A rift opened above them, bleeding golden light.
From the tear in the heavens, a figure descended cloaked in fire, wings of burning thread unfurling from her back. Her face was hidden beneath a mask of glass and moonlight.
She landed between the boy and the Hollowborn. Her voice was thunder.
"By the Law of Loom and Thread, I banish thee!"
She raised a spindle-like staff and drove it into the earth. The runes along its shaft exploded with light, forming a circle of protection around the boy.
The Hollowborn recoiled, their bodies unraveling, limbs folding inward, mouths splitting open as threads snapped violently into smoke.
Within seconds, they were gone.
The Weaver's Name
The boy stared at the woman. "Who are you?"
She turned, mask reflecting a thousand stars.
"I am Lysira, Last Weaver of the Timebound Order."
"Why did you save me?"
"Because the Chrono Dominion does not yet know you live. And you must remain hidden until the Tapestry bleeds anew."
She extended her hand, revealing a fragment of a torn map stitched into her glove.
"Come. There are others like you. Heirs of threads long thought lost."
"Others?" His voice trembled. "What are we?"
Lysira looked at him long, and for the first time, he saw the sadness behind her fire.
"You are the last hope for a broken future. And the Dominion fears what you might become."
In the Ruins of the Past
Far away, in a crumbling tower on the edge of time, a figure cloaked in white listened to the echoes.
He held a shard of glass in his hand, within which a vision unfolded: the boy, the fight, the Weaver.
A smile touched his lips.
"So it begins."
He turned to the shadows behind him.
"Wake the Bone Clock. Prepare the Scribes. The boy has touched the Thread of Memory."
"What of the Hollowborn?" came a voice.
"Irrelevant. Let the Loom fray. We have a war to begin."
And beneath his cloak, the sigil of the Chrono Dominion pulsed like a heartbeat.
The Weavers' Refuge
The cold stung his skin as the light of the rift closed behind them. Kai stumbled, boots crunching through brittle grass covered in frost that hadn't existed moments before. All around him, the world had changed.
Where once there were trees, there were now stone columns carved with symbols that pulsed faintly. The sky above was a dull silver-gray, without sun or stars only an endless expanse, like a blank page waiting for ink.
Lysira walked ahead, each step leaving trails of glowing thread that faded quickly. She hadn't spoken since their escape. The silence between them was filled only by the strange ticking that came from nowhere and everywhere at once.
"Where are we?" Kai asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"A place between," Lysira said, without turning. "Beyond time, beneath fate."
"That's not comforting."
She stopped in front of a gate not made of iron or wood, but of braided threads suspended in midair, held together by ancient runes. At her touch, they unraveled soundlessly, revealing a winding staircase descending into shadow.
"Come. The Refuge is hidden deep. The Dominion's spies are persistent."
Below the Loom of Stars
As they descended, Kai began to notice things: murals on the walls depicting ancient battles, strange machines covered in dust, and clocks of impossible design that moved both forward and backward simultaneously.
Eventually, they emerged into a vast cavern glowing with soft, amber light.
Buildings of woven thread and crystallized time surrounded a central loom massive and ancient. Its threads stretched outward into nothingness, constantly being pulled and rewoven by unseen hands.
People bustled quietly through the Refuge. Some bore wounds that shimmered like broken glass, others walked with limbs stitched together from different eras of history. All of them bore the Mark: a tiny golden hourglass on the back of their hands.
Kai touched his own, half-visible symbol. It hadn't stopped glowing since the encounter with the Hollowborn.
"They're all like me?" he asked.
Lysira nodded. "Threadborn. Survivors of broken timelines. Each of them stolen from death's embrace."
"Why?"
"Because fate is no longer a straight path. The Chrono Dominion is rewriting everything. And they fear those who still remember the way it was."
The Hidden War
Inside the Hall of Echoes, a council of Weavers gathered. Elders, young prodigies, even stitched spirits bound to the walls with whispers.
Lysira presented Kai before them, and murmurs broke out recognition, fear, and awe.
"He bears the Sword of Shattered Time," one said.
"And survived a Hollowborn hunt," added another.
An elder stepped forward his body little more than bones held together by golden thread. His voice was like wind rustling old parchment.
"Child, do you know what you carry?"
Kai hesitated. "A sword. A whisper. A curse?"
The old Weaver laughed, a dry, echoing sound. "All three and something more. That blade remembers what the Dominion erased. And if you learn to wield it... you can cut through the fabric of lies."
"I didn't ask for this."
"None of us did," Lysira said gently. "But you were chosen, Kai. By the Loom itself."
Shadows in the Refuge
That night, the shadows stirred.
Far above, beyond the gate of braided thread, a single strand had begun to unravel slowly, almost imperceptibly.
A figure stepped into the threshold.
Tall. Thin. Wearing a cloak made from the stolen time of fallen heroes. His eyes were empty voids, his footsteps silent.
"The boy is here," the Warden of Forgotten Names whispered.
Behind him, a dozen Hollowborn emerged.
The Dominion had found them.
And time, once more, prepared to bleed.