Threadless : A growing novel

The mirror dimmed.

The thread in Aro's hand pulsed again, softer now. Not demanding, but waiting. As if asking: How much are you ready to remember?

He let it guide him.

Aro's memory.

There was rain.

Cold. Metallic. It wasn't falling — it was suspended, as if the sky had stopped caring what direction things moved.

He was standing in a corridor — not a house. Not a city he knew. Glass walls. A single red light blinking slowly at the end of the hall.

He was calling someone's name.

He couldn't hear his own voice, but he knew who he was calling.

Rin.

He reached a door. His hand shook before it touched the knob. When it opened—

Darkness.

Silence.

An empty chair.

And something folded on the floor. A thread. Torn at one end.

She was gone.

Rin's memory.

A train. Not moving.

Dust hung thick in the air, suspended like ash. The doors were open. The platform empty. She stepped off slowly, scanning the tracks as if something had slipped through them.

Aro was ahead of her — just a glimpse. He was walking fast. Not away from her. Not toward her. Just… forward. As if he didn't know she was behind him.

She called out.

He didn't turn.

She ran.

And just as she reached him — the world folded in. The tracks twisted. The station blinked out.

And he was gone.

Back in the present.

Rin was on her knees now, just beside Aro. They weren't speaking, but they were breathing together. Their memories had pulled them under and surfaced them again — but not in the same rhythm.

She looked at him.

"You were leaving."

He looked at her.

"You were already gone."

They both fell silent.

Neither was angry. Neither blamed the other.

That was the worst part.

Because they didn't remember enough to even know who was right.

Threadspace.

The Weaver watched the mirror ripple.

"They're not aligned."

Threadwriter's expression was unreadable.

"No. That's the nature of the break."

"They both remember losing the other. Not being the one who left."

"That's how the grief loops."

She looked at him.

"So how does it break?"

Threadwriter's voice was soft now. Almost kind.

"They stop trying to agree on what happened… and start holding what didn't."

In the mirror-room.

The woven mirror slowly faded.

A new thread floated down. Black this time, with gold running through it.

It landed between them.

Aro picked it up.

"…Do you think this is another memory?"

Rin shook her head.

"No. I think it's what we never got to make."

Aro met her eyes.

"A second chance?"

She nodded.

"…If we want it."

And neither of them said what they were both thinking:

"…If we want it."

And neither of them said what they were both thinking:

The door never closed because they never said goodbye.