CHAPTER 61: 58: THE LOOSE THREAD.

Edward’s mouth felt dry. His heart hammered so forcefully he was half-sure Raum could hear it.

The old man—or the thing wearing an old man—rested his chin on one hand, patiently awaiting Edward’s next words as though this were a fireside chat and not a terrifying interrogation.

Edward swallowed.

"...What do you want from me?"

It escaped in a whisper. Barely a sound. But he was sure that Raum heard it as clearly as thunder.

A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, not cruel, not warm, just... recognizing something.

"I wondered when you would ask that," Raum said. "Humans are predictable. Eventually, you always reach the same fear."

"I’m not afraid," Edward lied, voice shaking.

"You are," Raum corrected gently. "But that is natural. You were not meant to sit across from a being like me."

Edward forced air into his lungs. "Why am I here?"

Raum didn’t answer at first.

Instead, he leaned back in his chair and looked up at the fractured sky. The cracks pulsed, a slow heartbeat of something monstrous bleeding through the seams.

"I brought you here because the illusion tried to do more than trap you," Raum finally said. "It tried to consume you. Consume your mind. Your identity. Your soul-thread."

Edward shivered.

"And that... displeased me."

"Why?" Edward whispered.

"Because," Raum said, lowering his gaze back to him, "you are mine to observe."

Edward flinched so hard his chair creaked.

"M-mine?! That’s- No! I’m not—!"

Raum blinked at him, puzzled.

"Not possession, child. Observation."

He tapped the side of his head. "You are a variable. A deviation. Something that should not exist, yet does."

"That doesn’t help!"

Raum hummed thoughtfully, as if searching for a metaphor Edward’s mortal brain could handle.

"Very well," he said. "Imagine fate as... a tapestry."

Edward hesitantly nodded.

"Every thread is a life. Every knot a decision. Every color a world. And I—"

The meadow warped for a moment, the sky flickering like a slide of images.

"—can see the tapestry from above."

Edward swallowed, trying to calm his wilding heart as Raum continued:

"You were... supposed to be a short thread. Thin. Unremarkable. Ending quietly." He said. His voice casual, yet low.

Edward felt something twist in his chest.

"But something cut you loose." Raum gestured vaguely. "Something ripped your thread from your world’s fabric, threw it across the weave, and tied it—badly—into ours."

Edward stared. "My death."

Raum nodded once. "A severing. Messy really. Inelegant."

"And then... this world pulled me in?" Edward asked.

"No," Raum corrected softly. "This world tried to reject you. But the parasite—your system—latched on and forced you inside."

Edward froze.

Forced...?

Parasite?

The system was a parasite?

The system...

Raum continued, tone disturbingly calm:

"Your existence here is unnatural. A contradiction. \This realm does not recognize you as... legitimate."

Edward felt nauseous.

"A-and that’s why weird things keep happening to me?"

Raum’s eyes warmed almost imperceptibly—the faintest sign of approval.

"Good. You are beginning to understand."

Edward’s mind spun. He felt a chill run down his spine as he processed the new information, his brain racing to find a logical conclusion to all of this.

"So... I’m not supposed to be here."

"No," Raum agreed. "You are not."

He felt his stomach drop.

"Then I... I should go back?"

Raum tilted his head in that slow, uncanny way.

"To what?"

He asked it gently, almost like a doctor breaking bad news.

Edward opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

He had no answer.

Raum continued, softer than before:

"The moment you died, your thread unraveled. There is no world waiting to receive you. No body. No destiny. Rejected by fate"

He smiled faintly. "You are a rootless piece of string now. A free-floating anomaly. The only thing keeping you whole right now is that parasite."

Edward had never felt so small.

"So what happens to me now...?"

Raum’s gaze sharpened, luminous like a blade poised above silk.

"That," he said, "is what I intend to discover."

Fear crawled up Edward’s spine.

"You mean—you’re using me as an experiment?"

Raum blinked. "Experiment?"

He almost sounded offended.

"No. I am not tinkering with you. I am watching you. There is a difference." He chuckled.

Edward stared.

Raum went on:

"You fascinate me. A creature detangled from fate. Acting against design. Changing threads around you simply by existing."

"Changing... threads?" Edward echoed, confused, his pupils shaking at the implications.

Raum gestured lazily toward the meadow.

In an instant, the ground beneath them dissolved into a swirling tapestry made of brilliant gold threads— the glowing threads stretching into infinity.

Edward gasped.

Each thread rippled with light—pulsing, twisting.

Raum pointed at one glowing line.

"Calen," he said.

The next pulsing line,

"Selene."

Another,

"Aria."

Another,

"Rowan."

"The nexus..." Edward said without meaning to.

Raum nodded, then he pointed at a line that flickered violently—two colors fighting for dominance, misaligned, unstable.

"And this." Raum said. "This is you."

Edward felt dizzy looking at it.

"Because you were never part of this tapestry," Raum continued, "your thread warps the ones around it. You shift their trajectories. Their destinies. Their futures."

He took a small breath. "In a sense, you are too heavy for the fragile balance of this world."

Edward’s voice shook.

"That’s..."

"Yes," Raum said simply. "Everything changes in your presence. Everything you touch moves off its path. Everything that observes you distorts."

"I didn’t mean to—"

"I know."

The tapestry vanished in a blink.

The meadow returned.

Raum folded his hands neatly again.

"That," he said gently, "is why I am here."

Edward felt his stomach twist.

"...To watch me ruin everything?"

Raum actually frowned at that.

"No," he said. "To ensure that you do not collapse the weave."

Edward went still.

"Collapse... the weave?"

Raum nodded once.

"If your thread becomes too unstable, too powerful, or too entangled—"

His voice lowered to a whisper.

"—the entire tapestry may tear."

A cold wind swept through the meadow.

Edward stared at him, horrified.

Raum smiled kindly, as if discussing the weather.

"And that," he said softly,

"would be inconvenient."