The streets were quieter now, the crowds thinning as the sun dipped behind the stone buildings. Marcus sat alone on a stone bench, feeling the weight of the world pressing on him. His eyes stared into the distance, but his mind was elsewhere—entangled in thoughts that he hadn't allowed himself to examine until now.
He had spent so much time chasing answers, pushing himself deeper into the mysteries that the book had hinted at. A single day was all it had taken for him to understand what his gift truly was. One day. It seemed so simple now—so... easy.
But if it was so easy, why didn't everyone have this ability? He had watched the people around him, seen the occasional glint in someone's eyes that hinted they might understand something deeper. Some had to know. Why hadn't they awakened their threads?
And yet, there were others—like the old woman, and the boy, and so many more—whose lives were unknowingly intertwined with the very threads Marcus had only begun to see. They were walking, breathing, living along the very lines of the truth he had just started to understand. But why hadn't they noticed? Why had it taken him so long to even question what was right in front of him?
The question gnawed at him, a silent whisper in the back of his mind. If the power was so accessible, why hadn't anyone else grasped it? Was it that simple? Or was there something more he wasn't seeing?
Marcus ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the tension tightening in his chest. The world around him suddenly felt... distant. He could see people—he could hear them—but there was a barrier between them, one that hadn't existed before. It was like a veil had been lifted, and now all the little things that made them who they were—their struggles, their desires, their truths—were as clear as day.
But was that what he wanted? To see everything? To know things he wasn't supposed to know?
His thoughts were interrupted by a sensation—a pull, like a thread tugging at the very core of his being. It was subtle at first, but then it grew stronger. A sharpness in the air, a pressure that squeezed his chest.
It was happening.
He stood up, his body moving before his mind could fully catch up. The world around him blurred, and in a moment of clarity, he realized where he was being drawn.
To the test. The test he had read about in the book. The trial that would prove his worth, his understanding, his ability to navigate the threads of truth that bound everyone and everything.
He could feel it now—the weight of his decision, the weight of what was about to come.
He was ready. But was he? Could he truly handle what was on the other side of that test?
The thoughts spiraled, but before he could dwell on them any longer, the tug intensified. Marcus felt his feet moving, his mind racing, and then—the world around him seemed to pull apart.
He was being pulled toward something—toward his fate.