Who Holds the Thread

There was no door.

Only fabric.

A wall made of sound — chords and chords of compressed voices, stitched into silence.

I didn't walk through it.

I listened through it.

And the wall… gave way.

---

On the other side: a circular chamber.

Dim.

Endless.

Spun with thread.

Red. Blue. Gold.

Black.

Each one connected to something: a piano key, a memory jar, a recording mic, a name tag, a childhood drawing.

In the center of the room:

A spindle.

Old. Wooden.

Still turning.

Feeding threads into itself.

Feeding… me into itself.

---

A voice echoed from above.

> "Every artist makes a tapestry."

> "Some call it a legacy.

Others call it survival."

> "You called it truth.

But you never checked who stitched it first."

---

I stepped closer to the spindle.

Each thread vibrated with a different song:

— Red pulsed with the lullaby I sang at nine.

— Blue hummed the verse that made me famous.

— Gold played the harmony I shared with her.

— Black stayed silent… and yet I could hear it scream.

---

I reached for the red thread.

My fingers trembled.

But before I could pull —

> "If you untie the past, the melody may break."

The voice again.

Mine?

My mother's?

Hers?

It didn't matter anymore.

I pulled.

---

FLASHBACK.

I'm nine again.

Backstage.

Holding the microphone too tightly.

My mother kisses my forehead.

> "Smile. Don't cry. No one likes a girl who sings sad."

But the girl beside me —

my reflection —

says:

> "Let her cry. It's the only real note she has."

I blink.

She's gone.

---

Back in the spindle room, the red thread frays.

It doesn't vanish.

It shifts.

From polished memory

to raw reality.

And I feel something in my chest uncoil.

---

Next, I take the blue thread.

Pull gently.

---

FLASHBACK.

I'm twelve.

On a radio show.

First live performance.

The host grins:

> "What inspired that powerful line: 'You clapped for me until I couldn't hear myself think?'"

I smile.

Say the answer I was trained to say:

> "My fans inspire me."

But inside, I remember:

That line was hers.

She whispered it through the mirror the night before.

---

I pull harder.

The blue thread snaps.

No music.

Just a gasp.

A silence so deep it rewrites how the memory sounds.

---

I turn to the gold thread.

The one that hummed our duet.

I hesitate.

This one is tied to both of us.

If I pull it…

---

The thread vibrates.

> "Not all duality is damage," it hums.

> "Some is design.

Some is desire."

---

I let go.

Not because I'm afraid.

But because I understand now:

She wasn't a parasite.

She was the survival instinct I never named.

She wasn't trying to erase me.

She was trying to anchor me.

---

And then…

The black thread.

Still. Coiled. Dead.

But pulsing — ever so faintly — like a vein.

This is the thread of unspoken truths.

The one they stitched into me to keep me sellable, smiling, singing on cue.

---

I grip it.

It feels colder than thread should.

It hums with an unfinished verse.

---

> "The truth is not what you say…

It's what they forbid you to sing."

---

I pull.

And the entire spindle shudders.

The walls begin to peel away.

Behind them:

Reels of footage.

Clippings.

Contracts.

False interviews.

Performances lip-synced by a version of me I can't remember becoming.

---

A voice — hers — yells:

> "Pull it all the way."

> "If you're going to remember…

don't stop at what hurts.

Stop at what frees."

---

I yank the black thread.

And the chamber unravels.

Thread flying.

Sound twisting.

The spindle explodes into sheet music.

Each page blank.

Waiting.

A microphone descends from above.

Old.

Dusty.

But open.

And beside it: a stool.

On it — a note.

> "Sing what wasn't allowed."

---

I sit.

Stare at the blank sheets.

And begin:

---

> "I was made from echo.

Built from saleable grief.

Fed silence like sugar.

Trained to weep on beat."

> "They told me: 'Perform the pain, but don't name it.'

'Write the melody, but never the message.'

'Bleed — quietly.'"

> "I did.

For years."

> "But the girl behind the glass?

She screamed."

> "She stole my notes.

Rewrote them into fire."

> "Now, I sing beside her.

Not against.

Not above.

Beside."

---

The room brightens.

Not with light.

With honesty.

---

The mirror returns.

And there we are.

Me.

And her.

Same face.

Same eyes.

But this time, we smile together.

She fades.

Not disappears.

Just returns to where she was always meant to be.

Inside me.

---

I take the blank sheet.

Write one line.

> "This song is mine.

Because I chose to sing it this way."

---

As I walk out of the spindle room — or what's left of it — the world outside is quiet.

Real.

Muted.

Beautiful.

And somewhere in the stillness,

I hear a single, soft voice.

Hers.

Mine.

Ours.

> "You cut the thread.

But what remains…

is finally yours."