The doorway shimmered with faint threads of violet and amber light, its frame made not of stone or metal but of woven memory. Rafael stared at it, unsure whether to call it beautiful or terrifying.
It pulsed like a heartbeat, slow and inevitable, calling him forward. His gut twisted with the memory of Echo's voice—seductive, familiar, and venomous.
Beside him, Dasha brushed ash from her sleeves and checked the crude blade she'd fashioned after her rifle was lost. "Feels like we're walking into someone's mouth."
Rafael grimaced. "Thanks. Now all I can picture is molars."
"Big, crunchy ones," she said with a faint smirk. "The kind that chew through timelines and spit out paradoxes."
He didn't reply immediately. His mind still echoed with the images from the cathedral chamber—fractured versions of himself, bleeding across futures.
Echo's words had cut deep, but it wasn't just guilt gnawing at him. It was the memory of the mission gone wrong—the flash of light, the rupture in the gate, Dasha's scream swallowed by the fold.
He had been pulled out.
But he hadn't fought hard enough to stay.
"Still thinking about him?" she asked softly, catching his expression.
He looked down. "Yeah. And about you. About before."
Dasha's brows furrowed. "Rafael… you don't owe me an apology. We both made choices that day. The gate tore us apart. But I chose to be there."
He nodded slowly. "I know. Doesn't make the guilt any quieter."
She reached out, hesitating, then touched his wrist. "Then let's make this one count. Together."
Rafael took a breath. "Let's not keep whatever's on the other side waiting."
Together, they stepped through.
---
The smell hit them first—iron, rot, ozone. Then the sound: a rhythmic crunching, like jaws grinding through ancient bone.
Beyond the threshold sprawled a canyon of petrified roots, tall as towers, twisted with ancient glyphs.
The ground shimmered with layers of threadglass, some cracked, others glowing faintly with memories long gone. Above, the sky was a dome of eyes—dozens, maybe hundreds—unblinking and immense, gazing down in perfect synchrony.
They had entered the Maw Basin.
Rafael exhaled. "I've seen this place before. In fragments. Warnings. Dreams."
"Is there a difference anymore?" Dasha muttered. Her voice sounded small in the vastness.
They pressed forward, boots crunching on bone-dust and fractured timelines. The deeper they moved into the canyon, the more the shadows danced—not from their bodies, but from something slithering just beyond the visible spectrum.
The first denizen revealed itself as a ripple in the stone, peeling free from the wall. Its body was a tapestry of nerve strands and porcelain armor, and its face split open vertically in a grin that bled light. Eyes blinked in nested spirals along its limbs. It didn't speak—it sang.
The melody was wrong. Notes bent in unnatural directions, harmonies that scraped at the soul. Rafael staggered as the sound pressed against his skull like invisible fingers.
"RUN!" Dasha shouted.
They bolted. The thing chased with alarming grace, its legs rearranging with every step, its mouth-song growing louder, more chaotic. Dasha vaulted over a jagged outcrop; Rafael ducked beneath hanging roots sharp as razors.
"It's catching up!" Dasha yelled.
Rafael didn't think. He reached inward, toward the 'echoes' Echo had left inside him—the residue of fractured potential. His palm flared with the memory of the sigil. It pulsed to life.
He shouted a word he didn't know.
Reality bent. The canyon warped as if turning away. The creature screamed—a sound like glass shattering in reverse—as its limbs twisted into a whirlwind of wings and smoke. Then, with a final shriek, it burst into ash.
Dasha skidded to a halt, panting. "You... what the hell was that?"
Rafael stared at his palm as the sigil faded. "Echo's threads perhaps. Or maybe mine now."
"That wasn't Loom magic."
"No," Rafael said quietly. "It was something older. Raw. Reactive."
She studied him. "You're changing."
"I know," he said. "But I'm not letting go of who I was. Not yet."
They moved on, slower now, more cautious. The Maw deepened. Teeth—actual teeth—jutted from the canyon walls, some fossilized, others new and glistening. Here and there, they passed remnants of others who had tried to cross: shredded armor, broken charms, skeletons tangled in threadvines.
They paused at a massive root-bridge over a chasm. From below came a sound like laughter, but warped and hollow.
"This feels like a trap," Dasha muttered.
"It is," Rafael agreed. "But it's the only path forward."
They crossed, one careful step at a time.
Midway through, the bridge pulsed.
A memory struck Rafael—not his own, but one buried in the Loom. A version of himself, clawing his way through this same place, alone. That Rafael had fallen here.
But he wasn't alone now.
He grabbed Dasha's hand. "Don't let go."
"Not planning to."
Together, they made it across.
At the far end of the basin, the path narrowed into a tunnel lined with ribs and barbed roots. A faint glow pulsed ahead—pale, cold, and distant.
Dasha paused. "Before we go in... what happens if we don't make it?"
Rafael looked at her. "Then someone else will have to pick up the thread. But I'm not letting this end here."
She gave a grim nod. "Then let's keep walking."
They stepped into the tunnel.
Behind them, the eyes in the sky blinked in perfect unison.
Ahead, the glow pulsed.
And far away, a voice composed of broken thread began to hum—a lullaby to the end of all patterns.
But neither of them turned back.
***