Chapter 38 — The Thread That Trembles

The thread enveloped him.

Yusuf's stomach dropped as the devastation of the orchard dissolved around him. Ash dissolved into smoke, smoke dissolved into ink, and then nothing at all but endless threads stretching out before nothingness—threads swirling and trembling like veins in some great heart.

He had done this before, but something was different this time. The strings pulsed too fast. The air shuddered, rattling his teeth. The Codex within his fingers emitted heat that was alive.

The faceless child hovered by his side, the small form pale against the tug. But even they seemed disturbed, tilting their head as if they could hear something Yusuf couldn't.

What's happening?" Yusuf asked, fighting the spin of vertigo.

"The threads are. shaking." The child's words were raspy, strained. "Something is pulling them from the other side."

"Other side?" Yusuf's voice cracked. "There is another side?"

The child didn't answer before a sound erupted across the vacant space—like silk tearing, like snapping bone. One of the threads beside him unraveled before his very eyes, unspooling into nothingness.

Yusuf leapt back. "Is that normal?"

"No.".

The single word carried significance Yusuf wasn't used to receiving from the child. Their tranquility was being torn asunder.

The buzz intensified, shuddering through Yusuf's marrow. He clutched the Codex tighter, feeling its pages buckle open on their own. The ink wriggled, futilely fighting to stabilize the tug, to push in the direction of the chosen destination.

But the deeper the Codex rooted him, the stronger the pull of something else. Not to a world—but to the unraveling itself, to the black hole gaping where the thread had broken.

A voice seeped from that tear. Whispering. Familiar.

"…Yusuf…"

His chest tightened. He knew that voice.

"Father?" he breathed.

The child gripped his wrist, yanking him away from the unraveling edge. Their faceless head leaned in, urgency in their voice.

"Don't answer."

But the voice came back, more forcefully now, raspingly human:

"Yusuf. Help me."

Yusuf's heart seethed. All his being screamed to touch, to listen, to believe. But the Codex flared hot in his arms, drawing him toward the coveted thread.

"Yusuf!" the child's voice cracked for the first time. "If you go after that sound, you won't return."

The void trembled. The fibers bound him like halyards, pulling two directions—one towards the voice of the father, the other towards the universe outside.

Nails scraped along the Codex's spine. He kicked his legs, shedding the unraveling brim. The hold of the new fiber wrapped around him, ripping him out—away from the whispers.

The last thing he perceived before the void closed in on itself in radiance was his father's voice summoning him.