Threadbound:System

Chapter 14 – The Smiling One

> [Collapse Clock: Day 19 / 30]

Anchor Sync: Unknown

Zone Classification: [Unregistered]

Threadlight Type: Crystalline Drift

Stability Index: ???

Hazard Forecast: Fluctuating

---

Silence fell like frost.

Not the silence of death, but of expectation.

Riven stood still. The others behind him—Brenn, Kalix, Nilo, Kaia—each locked in a moment of breathless pause. Not because they feared what lay ahead, but because whatever watched them from across the crystalline hollow wanted them to fear.

The figure didn't move.

Just stood there—outlined in a gentle, pulsing shimmer, like light echoing through mist. Not threadlight. Not zone-based radiation. Something older. Something colder.

He looked human. Almost.

Clothes plain. Skin pale. Face average in a way that felt deliberately chosen. But the smile—that smile—was carved too wide. As if it had been drawn on by a trembling hand and forced to stay in place.

Kaia pressed tighter against Riven's leg, her golden glow flickering. She didn't growl.

She shuddered.

"That's not a person," Nilo said quietly. "Not completely."

Riven stepped forward anyway. "Then let's find out what it is."

---

The figure blinked slowly.

Then spoke.

"You've come far, little ghosts. Worn your bones against dying memory. Good."

His voice was layered—one tone split across several registers. It sounded like a choir speaking through a crack in the world. Like someone else was puppeteering the mouth.

"I don't like riddles," Riven said. "Say what you want."

"I am the want. I am the reason you fell. The edge of the blade that cut the Citadel. The breath behind her name."

Aya. He didn't say it, but Riven's body tensed all the same.

"You knew her," he said flatly.

The man tilted his head. "I made her."

Kaia surged forward, light spiking—Riven caught her before she could leap. Her body shook with silent fury. Threadlight coursed down her limbs like a caged storm.

The man chuckled. "Ah. The anchor remnant flares bright. Her instincts are louder than yours."

"What are you?" Brenn asked, stepping beside Riven with shield raised.

The figure took a step closer. The crystalline dust beneath his feet didn't react. That alone was wrong.

"I was designed," he said softly. "Before the fall. Before memory cracked. A failsafe. A Watcher. One meant to observe Anchor irregularities."

"You're a System entity," Nilo breathed.

"Not anymore."

---

> [SYSTEM ANOMALY DETECTED]

Classification: UNSPECIFIED

Designated Title: The Smiling One

Authority Level: Outside Thread Hierarchy

Interaction Permissions: UNLOCKED

---

He raised a hand and flicked a finger.

The world rippled.

They didn't move—but the zone shifted around them, pulling the five of them into a wide open space that hadn't existed before.

A garden. Dead and crystallized. Trees made of memory shards. Petals like frozen thoughts. The air tasted like fractured recollection.

"You've seen pieces," the Smiling One said. "But you don't understand the play you've wandered into."

"Then explain," Riven said. "Why us? Why collapse the Citadel? Why push us here?"

"Because your thread is wrong. You move in ways you shouldn't. You've touched things you weren't meant to. She made sure of that."

Aya.

Always Aya.

The wound Riven carried hadn't healed. Wouldn't. But hearing her name—spoken with such irreverence—unsettled something beneath his ribs.

"She sacrificed herself," Riven said. "For the Core. For the team. She wasn't corrupted."

"No," the Smiling One agreed. "She was rewritten."

Silence.

"I watched her build the fallback," he said. "The failsafe zone. The one she died anchoring. And then I watched her overwrite her own thread. You think your sister died, little Warden?"

His smile widened.

"She recompiled."

Kaia snarled.

"You're lying," Riven said.

"I don't lie. I observe. And now I'm here to see what you'll become."

---

The garden cracked.

Just like that.

A loud shatter. Then a fold in reality. And the figure was gone.

Not teleported. Not erased.

Just... gone.

As if the zone had never permitted his presence.

Riven let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Did we just meet a god?" Brenn asked.

Kalix shook his head. "No. Just something pretending to remember what godhood felt like."

Kaia was trembling again.

But not from fear.

From pressure.

Riven looked down and saw the golden lines on her fur pulsing wildly. Her form blurred. Split.

She collapsed.

---

> [Phasekin Bond Instability – Core Reaction Triggered]

Thread Connection: Surging

Anchor Echo: Interfering

Phase Divergence Detected

Stabilization Required – Initiate THREAD FUSION?

---

"No," Riven whispered. "Not again."

Kaia convulsed. Her body flickered between solid and light. A silhouette appeared over her—Aya's. Barely there. But watching. Holding. Protecting.

And then Kaia's form changed.

Not completely.

But something had been unlocked.

Her fur shimmered white-gold now. Antlers gleamed with sigils—half-familiar. Eyes brighter, but distant.

"She's not just evolving," Nilo whispered. "She's becoming... aligned."

"To what?" Kalix asked.

"To her anchor," Riven said. "To Aya."

---

They rested in a crystalline alcove beneath a half-collapsed arch—some memory of shelter that had formed around them as the zone stabilized.

Brenn kept watch.

Kalix wandered.

Nilo crouched beside Kaia, tracing glowing threads above her fur.

"She's syncing with something old," he murmured. "Not from here. Some code in her pattern I don't recognize."

"Don't guess," Riven said. "Explain."

Nilo nodded slowly. "There's a deeper imprint. Not just a bond with you. It's more like... inheritance."

"You think Kaia was designed?"

"I think she was chosen. Like Aya was. Like you might've been."

Riven didn't respond.

He looked at Kaia—no longer just a companion, but something ancient wearing the shape of a fox.

Then he turned to Nilo.

"You've seen this before, haven't you?"

Nilo looked down.

And nodded.

---

> [Personal File Access: Nilo Eren]

Background Classification: Redacted (Threadlock Level 4)

Prior Exposure: Anchor Cascade / Zone Break Incident – Subject: Aether Spire

Thread Affinity: Chaotic-Attuned / Memory Seer Potential

---

"I lost someone," Nilo said, voice quiet. "In a place like this. A threadling I couldn't stabilize. I tried to fuse it too early. I didn't understand the risk."

Riven didn't speak.

Nilo looked at Kaia.

"Don't make the same mistake."

---

Kalix returned with a glint of motion in his eyes.

"Zone's not static," he said. "There's movement."

Riven stood. "Another construct?"

Kalix shook his head. "People. Real ones. Moving carefully. Organized."

"Survivors?"

"Possibly."

Or bait.

Riven nodded. "We go together. Stay tight."

---

They moved through a crystalline ravine, careful not to disturb the fractured terrain. Threadlight shimmered like frost on every surface, and Kaia padded at Riven's side with a new grace—less animal, more myth.

They reached the ridge—and saw them.

Three figures.

Not constructs. Not phantoms.

Humans.

Two armed. One injured. All alert.

They didn't speak. Just stared.

One raised a hand.

> [THREAD SIGNAL REQUEST – "Orien Vale"]

— Signal Key: UNKNOWN

— Status: Scrambled / Matching Partial Family Marker

---

Riven's heart stopped.

"Orien," he whispered.

It couldn't be.

Aya had spoken of him once. Their older brother. Gone before the collapse.

Lost to a breach. Unrecoverable.

Riven stepped forward, eyes wide.

The man didn't smile. Didn't call out. He just stood there—worn, bruised, but alive.

And across his chest was a cracked badge.

Warden Class I.

Riven staggered.

Aya's memory flared.

And Kaia looked up with wide, golden eyes.

"Brother," she whispered.

Not with words. With thread.