Threshold

The fracture widened.

Silence shattered.

It didn't break like glass or tear like fabric. It expanded—with cold, mathematical precision, an equation solving itself in real time. Threads of existence—crimson, silver, phosphorescent green—coiled and twisted through the air, alive with an intelligence Leo could feel but not understand.

They weren't just connections. They were rewriting everything.

Mike's equipment screamed, but the sound never reached his ears. The sensors, modified with fragments of the Harbinger's altar, were detecting something beyond the breach—something alive. The screens filled with symbols that burned like living equations, reshaping themselves in real time.

"It's here," Jessica whispered.

The Weaver arrived.

Not walked. Not materialized.

Existed.

A figure draped in something that wasn't fabric but the concept of fabric. Its suit was a shifting construct of silken gray strands, woven from quantum possibilities. Light bent wrong around it, vanishing into the folds of its presence.

Watching.Calculating.Choosing.

Jessica convulsed.

Her form flickered between three versions of herself:

One where she stood beside Leo, eyes wide in realization.One where she had already vanished, erased by the weave.One where she was screaming, her mouth never moving.

The equations beneath her skin burned, shifting faster, erasing parts of her every time she moved.

"Leo—" She tried to step forward.

Her foot didn't land.

It phased through the ground, as if she existed in a half-written reality.

Leo's stomach twisted.

The Nexus wasn't destroying reality. It was correcting it.

Something was already wrong.

Something had been rewritten incorrectly—and Jessica was paying the price.

The Weaver in Gray watched him.

Leo saw what it saw.

Jessica wasn't meant to exist.

Not in this reality.

Not anymore.

"No," he breathed. "No, that's not right. That's not—"

Riven struck.

The crimson thread buried itself into his mind, a thousand thoughts unraveling at once.

"Let her go, Leo."

Riven's voice came from within him. A thought that was not his own.

"She is an anomaly. A mistake. Cut her away, and the weave will stabilize."

Leo's vision fractured—he saw himself choosing wrong:

One where he let Jessica vanish, the threads consuming her.One where he cut another thread instead—Mike, Chen, himself.One where he did nothing, and the weave collapsed, taking all of them.

The silver threads around his wrist pulsed violently, a defensive response, rejecting Riven's influence.

Riven hissed.

The parasite withdrew, but its offer remained.

The Weaver turned its head.

And the world turned with it.

Choice crystallized.

To reshape the weave, something must be cut.To step forward, something must be abandoned.

Jessica's form continued to flicker.

Her body was unraveling.

But now, Leo saw the alternative.

Something else could take her place.

Mike.Detective Chen.Himself.

It wasn't just about Jessica.

It was about equilibrium.

Leo clenched his fists.

Jessica looked at him, tears slipping down her cheek—except they weren't tears. They were equations.

"Leo, please," she whispered. "Don't let me disappear."

The Weaver waited.

Not for time.

For his answer.

Chen grabbed his arm—but her hand passed right through him.

"Leo!" she shouted. "What happens now?"

Leo felt the cost of his choice settle onto his bones.

Let Jessica vanish, and reality corrects itself—but at what cost?Sacrifice someone else, and the weave remains unstable.Cut himself away, and everything realigns.

"Leo," Jessica whispered.

She was almost gone.

He had seconds.

One of them wouldn't leave this room.

His chest rose.

Fell.

And he chose.

Reality unraveled.