Seth was never one for fishing. Others usually did it with their family on camping trips, but that was far from anything his family would ever consider doing. Later in life, he spent all of his time in the city, far away from the water. His closest experience with fishing was a school trip to the aquarium or when he ate at a sushi restaurant.

Yet as he sat there, down an arm and holding onto a fragment of his soul with a set of phantom threads, he couldn't help but wonder if fishing lessons would have helped.

Nevertheless, despite his inexperience in the subject, Seth focused on reeling in his catch slowly but surely. Thankfully, he still had some control over his ability, yet every movement of the spectral strings caused his vision to blur and his mind to be drowned in pain. The more he worked, the more his mind wanted to slip away and focus on something else, anything else, just to have a peaceful end.

But Seth was determined not to let that happen. Even when his mind began to wander, to play with stray thoughts and nonsensical detours, he would drag his concentration back kicking and screaming to focus on the task at hand.

Inch by inch, he dragged the sapphire through the air back to where it belonged. Soon, the glittering crystal was just a metre away, still out of arm's reach yet gradually making its way home.

Of course, that's when life decided it had other plans. Glass shattered in his mind once more and agonising pain erupted from his chest once more, as if someone had punched through his flesh and was squeezing his heart.

Seth grit his teeth, his eyes scrunching closed as he clenched his fist tight enough that it drew blood. Palpitations of pain echoing throughout his body, each one draining more energy from his already starved reserves as he put his all into retaining his focus on that single fragment.

When the pain finally resided and he opened his eyes, letting those silver pools gaze upon the world once more, he was welcomed by an area of twinkling lights, seven in total. It was almost as if he was gazing upon a constellation in the clear night sky.

However this particular constellation was not made up of stars, but multiple sparkling sapphires of various shapes and sizes drifting through the air like a group of jellyfish. Each fragment was dancing through the air, sailing off slowly in its own direction.

Seeing that, despite all his hard work, that the load had increased by so many Seth wanted to scream and shout. He wanted to curse the world for the hand it dealt him, to spit at the cruel gods who seemed to delight in his torment.

Yet all he could manage was a strained and weak whimper.

Letting out an internal sigh, Seth decided that he would continue to spite whatever was weaving his fate. That if it wanted him dead, it was going to have to earn him.

Gritting his teeth, he kept ahold of the fragment he had already ensnared and began to split his threads, creating a new set just like he had done to control his knife and Coal at the same time.

But the moment the thread started to form, the muscles in his arm seized up. A new wave of torment shooting its way through his already battered form, making him feel like he had plunged his hand into a blender that was immediately struck by lightning.

His already weakened mind couldn't handle it anymore. It forced him to stop what he was doing, before his vision went black and he was plunged into the realm of the unconscious.

It was unclear how long he remained in that state until he finally snapped awake, gulping in the air like it was his first in years.

His head rang like a church bell as he trailed his eyes over the room, checking to see where the fragments were. A quick count told him that all of them were still in the room with him, but they had drifted quite the distance away.

Any longer in the sandman's embrace and he might never have woken up.

'Note to self, don't try that again. Splitting is off the table.'

He shook his head, forcing away the delirium as he set about to work. Pushing through the torment to wrap the strings around the furthest fragment and drag it back to him. Luckily, he could move them back faster than they were moving away, but only barely. He knew he couldn't focus exclusively on just one of them, lest the others escape from the room and god only knows what happens when he can't get them back.

So just like that, the game was on. One by one, he reeled in the sparkling sapphires, pulling them closer to him while keeping an eye on the others. Switching constantly, never letting any stray too far yet always dragging the same one closer.

When he finally got one of the fragments back to himself, he was faced with a new problem. The task of keeping it in place.

Much like a vase that had been dropped and shattered, simply bringing the pieces back together wasn't enough to fix it. It wasn't going to magically restore the damage and become whole again, despite how much he would have wanted that.

Diving his consciousness deep inside of himself, he found the retrieved fragment floating in an endless abyss accompanied by an intricate web of spectral threads and the remnants of his soul. The once whole crystal was now cracked in half like a geode, some of it remaining within the web while the broken fragments tried to abandon him.

Seth drew the missing fragment close to his core, not having the time, energy or understanding to slot it back into its proper place, if such a thing even existed. After pulling it close, he focused on the surrounding web of threads, bending them to his will just like he did with the ones that emanate from his fingertips.

He weaved the threads of his abyss together, forming a net around the fragmented core. The natural repulsion of the core fragment and the threads would keep the sapphire contained within the net, the weave of its structure stopping it from creating gaps that the fragment could escape out of.

Thankfully it seemed like the threads inside of his abyss were more cooperative as, unlike the threads that extended into the physical world, he didn't need to maintain concentration on it to keep its shape.

He had tried to do the same thing with the external threads, but they seemed to have a will of their own. When his focus started to drift from them and his tired mind took a rest, they would begin to unravel themselves from the net structure.

It was an annoyance to be certain, meaning that he wasn't allowed a second of rest, but he didn't let it stop his soul fragment fishing.

Bit by bit, he pulled them back to the abyss and ensnared them inside the net he had formed around his soul. Time became naught but an illusion, his mind barely able to handle the process of drawing the sapphires back and thus unable to properly process the passing of time.

He could have been sitting there only for a single minute, or he could have been performing this arduous task for days on end. There was no way for him to tell, not that he had the concentration to spare on caring about such a trivial matter. All that mattered was reeling in the fragments.

That was, until the shadow darkened his door as he was on his second last fragment.

He turned his head weakly, letting it flop to the side as his chest heaved with every laboured breath. Blinking his eyes a few times, forcing them to bring the blurred world into focus, he watched the formless shadow grow, wondering who it would be rapping at the chamber door.

He had hoped to see the charming and handsome face of Sirius, sporting that dashing smile as he proclaimed his victory. But alas, it was not meant to be.

When a broken beak poked its way through the large doorway, followed closely by the head of the steel-feathered raven, Seth's heart plummeted in his chest as his last remnant of hope was taken out behind the woodshed and shot dead.

Despite pulling most of the fragments back into his soul, there was no surge of strength or sudden wave of energy that revitalised his fighting capacity. Instead it took almost everything he had to complete the process, only growing weaker as time went on as more and more of his life drained out of him. He was in no state to battle this creature. But whether he was fit or not didn't matter anymore, because a single thought echoed in his wearied mind as the beast made its way further into the room.

'I'm the only one left…'