Eliara had never believed in ghosts—not the transparent kind that moaned through walls or flickered in candlelight. But now, standing at the edge of what used to be Barrow Hill Orphanage, she knew some ghosts didn't need a body to haunt.
They lived in threads.
They lived in the Wake.
The Wake was what Rowen called the aftermath of a rupture in the Weave—those faint places where memory, reality, and time blurred like watercolor. The orphanage had been one of the earliest breach points ever recorded. Officially demolished in 1953. But here it was again.
The land should've been empty. And yet…
Barrow Hill stood before them, dark and intact, its windows blacked out and ivy strangling the stone like veins. Mist slithered along the grass. The building looked more like a memory than a structure, like it had been rebuilt by someone who didn't quite remember what it was supposed to look like.
Rowen adjusted the strap on his shoulder bag, scanning with a narrow-spectrum thread reader. The device buzzed faintly. "We're standing in a fully stabilized false construct," he murmured. "This place shouldn't be here."
Eliara pulled her coat tighter. "Which means something rebuilt it from memory. Or emotion."
Rowen nodded grimly. "Either way, it's tethered to the Weave. If it collapses while we're inside—"
"We don't walk out."
She stepped through the gate first.
The inside of the orphanage smelled like dust and static. The air shimmered faintly with magic residue—fragments of past events replaying just out of reach. Down the long hallway, doors hung half open. Threadmarks lined the ceilings like veins.
Eliara followed a thin silver strand that had begun to unravel near her pendant. It quivered with each step she took.
As they passed the main staircase, she paused.
A girl stood at the top of the stairs, facing away from them. Pale dress. Hair cropped short. Still as a statue.
Eliara's voice was barely a whisper. "Kera?"
The girl turned—and vanished like fog.
Rowen muttered a curse. "Residual memory echo. We're not alone in here."
Eliara stepped cautiously up the stairs, each board creaking underfoot. When she reached the second floor, the thread she'd been following split in two directions—one toward the east wing, the other to the west. The east thread pulsed red. The west, blue.
"Which one?" Rowen asked.
Eliara hesitated. "We split. Take the blue. I'll follow the red."
Rowen looked like he hated the idea but nodded. "You get into trouble, pulse the pendant three times."
"You'll feel it?"
"Always do."
They parted ways, each vanishing into their wing.
The red thread led Eliara to a corridor where the wallpaper peeled like dead skin and the floorboards warped upward like something had tried to escape from beneath. She passed empty dorm rooms, some still holding rusted bed frames and scraps of paper dolls.
Then she found the source.
At the end of the hallway stood a door painted black. A red thread snaked underneath it like a fuse.
Eliara paused, her hand on the doorknob, heart thudding. Her pendant glowed steadily now, as if it recognized what waited inside.
She turned the handle.
The room beyond was empty—at first glance.
Then she saw them.
Threads. Hanging in the air like marionette strings. Hundreds of them. Each one anchored to the ceiling and ending in a shape.
A memory.
A person.
A face.
Each thread held a small, hovering fragment of someone's identity. A girl humming. A boy drawing circles. A woman reading aloud. Like stolen snapshots of people who once lived—but no longer existed.
She stepped between them, careful not to disturb the fragile weavings. Each one pulsed softly, trying to remember itself.
One thread brushed her cheek. It whispered, "Don't forget me."
Eliara's throat tightened.
Then—screaming.
A voice erupted through the room. Furious. Fractured.
"YOU DON'T BELONG HERE!"
The air thickened. Threads twisted violently. Eliara reached for her pendant, fingers shaking.
"Three pulses," she gasped. One. Two—
A shadow slammed into her from behind. The room spun. She crashed to the floor, her hand crushed beneath her. The pendant flared once—then fizzled.
The world darkened.
She woke in another room.
At least… she thought it was a room.
The walls shimmered like wet glass. Threads danced across the air like jellyfish tendrils. And in the center stood a man. Not quite real. Made of loose, shimmering lines, like a puppet only half sewn together.
His voice cracked like broken mirrors. "You woke me."
Eliara sat up slowly, every part of her screaming. "Who are you?"
"I was once a name," he said. "Now I am only purpose. And the purpose is to rewrite what was forgotten."
"Did you take the children?" she asked, voice trembling.
He tilted his head. "They wanted to be remembered. I gave them presence."
Eliara rose to her feet. "By tearing them from reality?"
"They were already forgotten," he said simply. "I gave them sanctuary. A memory unbroken."
"You built this place," she whispered. "This orphanage."
"I preserved it," he corrected. "Before the Veil turned its back. Before the Weavers abandoned the Wake."
Eliara frowned. "The Wake? That's where we are?"
He nodded. "Where forgotten things drift. You and I—we stand at the shore of remembrance. But only one of us belongs."
Threads began wrapping around her legs, tugging.
"You're trying to pull me in," she gasped.
"Not trying," he said. "Succeeding."
Then—a flash of light.
The threads recoiled, shrieking.
Rowen burst through a tear in the air, eyes blazing, his own pendant glowing violently. He held out his hand to Eliara. "Grab it!"
She lunged. Their fingers met—
And the world shattered.
They fell back into the physical orphanage with a crash, landing hard on the dusty floor of a dorm room. The pendant on Eliara's chest pulsed weakly, flickering in and out.
She lay there, chest heaving, heart still trapped in that haunted space.
"That wasn't a breach," she said finally. "That was a conscious construct. Someone made the Wake into a prison."
Rowen nodded grimly. "And it's feeding off forgotten souls."
Eliara sat up slowly. "That man… or creature… he's not the Whisperer. But he's something worse."
"What did he call himself?"
Eliara's eyes met his. "He said he was purpose."
Rowen's jaw clenched. "Then the Wake is no longer just aftermath. It's a battlefield."
"And we're not just Weavers anymore," Eliara whispered. "We're soldiers."