The safehouse was quiet.
Too quiet.
Ren sat at the worn wooden table, the Project Marionette file spread before him. The old, crumbling pages were covered in faded ink, but the blueprints told a story that the Stringbearers had tried to erase.
The city of Veyrith hadn't always been like this. The web of control, the strings that bound every mind—they weren't new.
They had been here since the beginning.
Ren traced his fingers along the blueprints, his gaze sharp. There. A set of tunnels, long abandoned, running beneath the city. They weren't on any current maps.
Because they weren't supposed to exist.
Elara paced across the room, arms folded. "So, let me get this straight. There's a hidden system of tunnels underneath Veyrith that lead to—what? The Source?"
Ren nodded.
Elara exhaled. "And you want to go down there."
"Yes."
"After what we just saw in the Archives?"
"Yes."
Elara threw up her hands. "Gods, you're impossible."
Ren didn't argue. His focus was on the path ahead.
The Weaver had let them go. But not because he couldn't stop them. Because he didn't need to.
He wanted Ren to come back.
And Ren would. But not blindly.
He turned to Kieran, who sat quietly in the corner, still recovering from his time in the Mind Chambers. His fingers traced invisible patterns in the air, as if feeling for the strings that no longer controlled him.
"You said your brother was taken," Ren said.
Kieran looked up sharply. His eyes were hollow, but there was something there now. Something growing.
"Yes."
"Do you know where?"
Kieran hesitated. Then, slowly, he shook his head. "Not exactly. But… I remember something."
Ren leaned forward. "What?"
Kieran swallowed. "When they put the strings in me… I could hear them. The other voices. Not just the ones in the Mind Chambers. The ones below."
Ren's fingers tensed against the table.
"They weren't like the others," Kieran continued, voice barely above a whisper. "They weren't… fighting. They weren't screaming."
Ren's breath slowed. "Then what were they doing?"
Kieran hesitated. His expression twisted.
"They were praying."
The words sent a cold shiver down Ren's spine.
Elara muttered a curse. "I hate this. I hate all of this."
Ren exhaled, pushing back his unease. "Then we're on the right path."
Elara shot him an incredulous look. "That's your takeaway?"
"Yes."
She groaned. "Why do I even bother?"
The tunnels were exactly where the blueprints said they would be.
Beneath an abandoned factory in the Lower Districts, buried beneath layers of rusted metal and forgotten history.
Ren crouched at the entrance, a gaping hole in the earth, leading into utter darkness.
Elara stood beside him, scanning their surroundings. "No patrols. That's either a good sign or a very bad one."
Ren didn't answer.
Because now that he was standing here—he could feel it.
The same presence from before. The same whisper of something watching.
This wasn't just a tunnel.
This was part of the web.
A deep, hidden thread, pulsing beneath the city.
Ren exhaled and stepped forward.
The descent began.
The air changed as they moved deeper.
Cold. Thick. Heavy with something unnatural.
The walls of the tunnel weren't just stone—they were layered with thin, glistening fibers. Not full strings, not yet. But remnants.
Like something had been growing here for a long time.
Kieran shuddered. "I don't like this."
Ren didn't either.
But they had come too far to turn back.
Elara's grip tightened on her blade. "Tell me again why we thought this was a good idea?"
Ren stayed silent.
Because he wasn't sure it was a good idea.
But it was the only way.
Ahead, the tunnel began to widen.
And at the end of it—
A door.
Not rusted metal. Not stone.
But black.
A smooth, featureless surface that seemed to absorb the dim light of their lanterns.
Ren stepped forward, heart pounding.
This wasn't normal.
This wasn't human.
He reached out—
And the moment his fingers touched the door—
The world changed.
For a single, terrible moment, Ren wasn't in the tunnel anymore.
He was somewhere else.
A vast, endless space.
A sky without stars.
A web.
Stretching out infinitely, tangled threads of thought and will, spiraling toward something in the center.
Something waiting.
Something vast.
"You have come."
The voice was everywhere.
Ren ripped himself back.
Gasped.
The tunnel returned. The door was still in front of him.
Elara was saying something, her voice distant.
Ren barely heard her.
Because now, he knew.
The Source wasn't just a place.
It was a presence.
A mind.
And it wanted him to enter.
Ren took a slow step back from the black door, his breath steady but his pulse hammering.
What he had just seen—the web, the endless strings, the presence waiting at the center—wasn't just a hallucination.
It had been real.
Something had looked at him. And worse—it had recognized him.
Elara's voice snapped him back to the moment.
"Ren," she said, sharper this time. "What the hell just happened?"
He blinked, refocusing. Kieran was staring at him too, his small fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt.
Ren exhaled. "The door. It's connected to something."
Elara scoffed. "Well, no shit. We're standing inside a tunnel full of nightmare fuel, I'd be shocked if the creepy void door wasn't connected to something awful."
Ren didn't respond. He was still feeling it—a lingering presence watching from the other side.
Waiting.
Kieran took a hesitant step forward. "It knows we're here, doesn't it?"
Ren met the boy's gaze. He didn't have to ask what 'it' was.
"Yes," Ren murmured. "And it's been waiting."
Silence.
Elara shifted uncomfortably. "Alright. I don't like that. Can we leave now?"
Ren didn't answer.
Because they couldn't. Not yet.
The blueprints had led them here. The whispers of the Unbound's old records pointed to something beneath the city—something older than the Stringbearers themselves.
And now, standing in front of this impossible door, Ren knew one thing for certain.
The Source was real.
And it was beyond this threshold.
Ren pressed his fingers against the door again, feeling for any kind of mechanism, a latch, anything. But there was nothing. No keyhole, no seams. Just an unbroken, smooth surface that seemed to absorb light.
A door with no way to open.
Except…
Ren hesitated.
What if it didn't open physically?
He closed his eyes. Reached out.
Not with his hands.
With his threads.
The moment Ren extended his will, he felt them.
Strings. Countless, thin, pulsing threads laced into the door, invisible to the eye but woven into something greater.
Not a lock.
A barrier.
Something meant to keep people out.
Or maybe…
To keep something in.
Ren's fingers twitched, his instincts sharpening. If this was made of strings, he could cut it.
But should he?
His gut churned. The last time he cut something this deep in the web, he had been seen.
And this door—this was closer to the Source than anything he had touched before.
One wrong move, and he might not be able to come back.
Elara frowned at him. "Ren. What are you doing?"
He ignored her.
Focused.
Then—he cut.
The moment the invisible threads severed, the air shifted.
The temperature dropped. The tunnel seemed to breathe.
Kieran gasped, stumbling backward, clutching his head. "I hear it—"
Elara moved to grab him. "Hey—what's wrong?"
Then, the door opened.
Not with a creak. Not with a groan of metal.
It peeled apart.
Like flesh.
Black, twisting tendrils of string-like material curled away from the center, unraveling into nothingness.
Beyond it was a void.
Not darkness.
Nothing.
A chasm of endless depth, stretching downward into a spiraling abyss of faintly glowing red threads, pulsing like veins.
Ren's throat dried.
This wasn't just a hidden passage.
This was an entry point.
A direct path into the Source itself.
Kieran's breathing was ragged. He was staring into the void, his small body shaking.
"I know this place," he whispered.
Ren stiffened. "What?"
Kieran swallowed. His voice was trembling.
"When I was in the Mind Chambers," he murmured, "when the strings were inside me… I saw this place."
Ren and Elara exchanged a look.
"What else do you remember?" Ren asked carefully.
Kieran hesitated.
Then—
"…They were waiting."
Elara tensed. "They?"
Kieran didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Because at that moment—
Something moved in the abyss below.
A faint, distant figure, barely more than a shadow, rising from the red threads.
A human shape.
But it wasn't human.
Not anymore.
And then—it looked up.
Straight at Ren.
Straight at all of them.
The breath left Ren's lungs.
It saw them.
And it was coming.
The shadowed figure in the abyss moved.
Not like a person. Not like anything human.
It didn't walk. Didn't crawl.
It shifted.
The red strings beneath it pulsed in response, stretching and twisting, pulling it upward—toward the threshold of the door.
Toward them.
Kieran let out a sharp breath, stepping back. "It's coming."
Ren already knew.
His instincts were screaming—every nerve in his body telling him to move, to run.
But he didn't.
Because he needed to understand.
This thing—whatever it was—was part of the Source.
The Stringbearers weren't just controlling people. They weren't just weaving the web.
They were feeding something.
And now, it had noticed him.
Elara drew her knife, her face tense. "Ren, tell me we're not standing here waiting for that thing to reach us."
Ren's grip tightened. "We need to see what it is."
Elara swore under her breath. "You're going to get us killed."
Maybe.
But this was why they had come.
The shadowed form continued to rise, its shape becoming clearer with every second.
It was humanoid.
That was the worst part.
It had a head. A body. Arms. Legs.
But it wasn't a person.
Not anymore.
The red strings weren't just moving beneath it. They were woven through it.
Its limbs weren't flesh—they were tendrils of thread, bound tightly together in the shape of a human.
And its face—
Ren's breath caught.
Because it had one.
A mask.
Smooth. Featureless. But disturbingly familiar.
A Stringbearer's mask.
But this wasn't a Stringbearer.
This was something else.
Kieran was shaking. "I know them."
Ren's gaze snapped to the boy. "What?"
Kieran's fingers curled into fists. His voice was barely above a whisper.
"When I was in the Mind Chambers… I heard them." His breath was shallow. "The ones who were taken. The ones who didn't resist."
He swallowed.
"This is what they become."
Elara stiffened. "No. No way."
Ren's stomach twisted. He believed it.
The missing people. The ones who had been taken in silence.
The ones who had been consumed by the web.
They didn't just disappear.
They became part of it.
The thing finally reached the edge of the abyss, its body still bound in red threads. It stood there, motionless.
Then, slowly—it raised its head.
And spoke.
"Unbound."
Ren's blood turned to ice.
Because the voice—
Was his own.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Ren's breath was steady. His heart was not.
Elara whispered, "Tell me you heard that."
Ren had.
But he couldn't explain it.
The thing had spoken in his voice.
Not distorted. Not layered.
Exactly like him.
It knew him.
The mask tilted slightly, as if studying him. Then—
More whispers.
Not from the creature.
From the threads themselves.
They crawled into the space around them, seeping into the air like unseen fingers.
"The one who cuts."
"The one who breaks."
"The Unbound returns."
Ren's pulse spiked.
The whispers weren't coming from just this creature.
They were coming from the Source itself.
Watching.
Waiting.
The masked thing took another step forward.
Elara moved first.
Her blade flashed, slicing downward.
But before it could connect—
The strings moved.
Thin, red threads lashed outward, faster than sight.
They didn't just block the attack.
They grabbed her.
Elara gasped, her wrist caught mid-swing, the strings coiling around her like living veins.
Ren reacted instantly.
He cut.
The moment his fingers twitched, the strings snapped.
A sharp, echoing cry filled the space—not from Elara.
From the masked creature.
It staggered.
The red threads along its body twitched violently, like something had been ripped away from it.
Ren's breath slowed.
It felt that.
The cut wasn't just severing control.
It was hurting it.
The realization slammed into him like a thunderclap.
This thing wasn't invincible.
It could be cut.
It could be killed.
The masked figure froze.
Then, without warning—it retreated.
The red strings pulled it back, unraveling like silk, dragging it downward into the abyss.
The whispers followed.
"Not yet."
"Not yet."
The figure vanished into the darkness.
And the black door began to close.
Elara stumbled back, panting.
Ren didn't move. He was watching the abyss.
The Source had seen him.
And now, he had seen what it created.
Kieran's voice was weak.
"They can still feel."
Ren turned to him.
The boy was shaking, his small hands gripping his arms.
"They're still in there," he whispered. "Trapped in the strings. They can't move on. They can't fight back."
He swallowed.
"They just… exist."
Ren's jaw tightened.
Then, finally—the door sealed shut.
The tunnel was silent again.
But Ren knew the truth now.
The Stringbearers weren't just taking people.
They were turning them into something else.
And whatever the Source truly was—
It wasn't done yet.
The black door sealed shut, vanishing into the wall like it had never been there. The red glow from the abyss faded, leaving only darkness in its wake.
Ren exhaled slowly, his fingers still tingling from the cut. The strings were gone, the whispers silenced.
But he could still feel it.
The presence of the Source hadn't disappeared. It had simply withdrawn.
Watching. Waiting. Preparing.
And Ren had no doubt.
It would come again.
Elara leaned against the tunnel wall, rubbing her wrist where the strings had grabbed her. "So. That was awful."
Ren didn't answer.
His mind was racing—turning over everything they had just seen.
The Source wasn't just a power.
It was a place. A mind. A hunger.
And the Stringbearers weren't controlling it.
They were serving it.
Elara narrowed her eyes at him. "Ren."
He looked up.
She scowled. "Say something before I start freaking out."
Ren hesitated. Then, finally—
"They're still in there."
Elara blinked. "What?"
Ren turned to Kieran. The boy was pale, shaking, but his eyes were clear.
"You heard them too, didn't you?" Ren asked.
Kieran swallowed, nodding. "They weren't gone. They were still… trying to reach out."
Elara shifted uncomfortably. "Are we saying those—things—used to be people?"
Ren's jaw clenched.
"Not just people," he murmured. "The ones who didn't resist. The ones who gave in. The Stringbearers didn't just erase them. They made them part of the web."
Silence.
Kieran lowered his head. "They were praying."
Ren exhaled sharply. "Yeah. And now we know what they were praying to."
Elara let out a quiet curse. "You're saying the Source—eats them?"
Ren didn't answer right away.
Because he wasn't sure if eating was the right word.
The Source didn't just consume. It converted.
Turned people into threads. Into extensions of itself.
And if that was true—
Then the Stringbearers weren't the masters of the web.
They were just its highest-ranked puppets.
Elara exhaled. "So what the hell do we do now?"
Ren's mind was already moving forward.
The Source had seen him. And it wasn't going to stop.
If it could pull people into the web—it could spread.
They had to move faster.
Ren stood. "We go back."
Elara's head snapped toward him. "Back? Are you—"
"Not here," Ren cut her off. "Back to the Unbound. We need to figure out if they knew about this. If any of them saw it before."
Elara crossed her arms. "And if they didn't?"
Ren's gaze darkened.
"Then we're on our own."
The trip back to the Unbound safehouse was tense.
Ren kept his senses sharp, scanning every shadow, every flicker of movement in the alleyways.
Because now, he knew the truth.
The strings were always watching.
Elara stayed silent beside him, her usual sarcasm replaced with quiet tension.
Kieran followed closely, his small fingers clenched into fists.
Ren didn't know how much the boy had truly seen. But it didn't matter.
He had survived the Mind Chambers. He had heard the whispers.
And he had walked away from the Source.
That made him important.
More important than Ren had realized before.
They slipped through a rusted door into a dim-lit basement, the Unbound's hidden sanctuary.
Galen was already waiting, arms crossed. His face was sharp, unreadable—but the tension in his stance said everything.
"You were gone too long," Galen said.
Ren dropped the Project Marionette file on the table. "We found something."
Galen's gaze flickered down to the old blueprints, then back up. "I'm listening."
Ren didn't waste time.
"We found the tunnels beneath Veyrith," he said. "They lead to a door. Not a normal one. Something—alive. It was guarding a pit. A chasm of red strings."
Galen's expression didn't change, but something in his posture tightened.
Ren narrowed his eyes. "You know what I'm talking about."
Galen was silent for a long moment.
Then, finally—
"I heard rumors," he admitted. "From the first Unbound. The ones who vanished years ago. They believed the Stringbearers' power wasn't their own. That they were tied to something deeper."
Ren exhaled. "They were right."
Galen's gaze sharpened. "You saw it?"
Ren hesitated. Then—he nodded.
And Galen cursed.
"Then we're out of time."
Ren's stomach twisted. "What do you mean?"
Galen's expression darkened. "The Unbound have been noticing… changes. The way people are disappearing isn't the same anymore. It's faster. And the ones who return…"
He exhaled.
"They don't have to be controlled anymore. They're willing."
Ren felt a cold realization sink in.
The Source wasn't just consuming people.
It was convincing them.
Elara muttered, "That's worse, right? That's definitely worse."
Galen nodded. "It means the Source is getting stronger. And if the Stringbearers are expanding… they're getting ready for something."
Ren's pulse quickened. "A full conversion."
A final assimilation.
One that wouldn't just take individuals.
It would take the entire city.
The weight of the revelation pressed down on the room.
For a long time, no one spoke.
Then Galen broke the silence.
"Do you know how to stop it?"
Ren hesitated.
Then, slowly—he shook his head.
But he knew where to start.
"We need to go deeper," he said. "Find the ones who have already been taken. The ones who didn't fight back."
Elara frowned. "What, you mean just walk into the Upper District and start asking people if they've been converted?"
"No."
Ren's gaze darkened.
"We find a Stringbearer."
Elara stared.
Then she groaned. "Oh, you've lost it."
Galen, however, was watching Ren carefully.
"You think they know something," Galen said.
Ren nodded. "I know they do."
The Source was controlling them, guiding them.
But some of them—like the Weaver—were different.
They remembered.
And if Ren could cut them free—if he could bring one back from the edge—
Maybe he could find a way to stop this.
Galen exhaled. "Alright. But you know what that means, right?"
Ren did.
If they were going to capture a Stringbearer—
They would have to go back into enemy territory.
Back where the strings were strongest.
Where the Web watched everything.
Ren clenched his fists.
"Then we start tonight."