There are those who remember how the world once was. But none who were meant to. He was not born to know. He simply read the wrong thing… at the right time.
Ilyan Voss stood at the edge of a broken city. His hand touched the ruined stone, his fingers cold despite the humid air. The remnants of what once might have been a library—or perhaps a church—lay sprawled before him like the skeleton of a forgotten beast. Where walls should have been, only broken fragments remained. The stained glass windows, long shattered, lay scattered like pieces of a fractured dream.
This place was a relic of a time that had long since passed, a time he could never remember. Only the faintest hum of the air around him—a hum that seemed to emanate from the very fabric of the world itself—told him that he was not alone.
The journal.
It was why he was here. Why he had come to this forsaken place. The journal was all he had left—apart from his name.
Ilyan pulled it from beneath his cloak, the leather-bound cover crinkling with the sound of ancient paper. It smelled faintly of mildew, dust, and something else—something he couldn't quite place. It had been hidden away in the ruins of an old building, left behind by someone who had vanished long ago. Its pages were thin, brittle, as though they had once been read too many times, then forgotten, only to resurface years later—lost to time but still hanging on.
He opened it.
"You are not you, not yet." The words on the first page blurred, shifting under the faint glow of the city's dying light.
He blinked, his heart giving an involuntary flutter. That had not been there before.
The page was supposed to be empty. There was supposed to be nothing.
But the words, as though freshly inked, stared up at him—impossible and true.
"You are not you, not yet."
Ilyan's hand trembled as he flipped to the next page, and then the next. Each one was the same. A blank page. Then more words.
"A thread pulls tight when it is stretched too far."
"The Loom is not kind."
"The forgotten speak, and yet, no one listens."
His breath caught in his chest, the words pricking at his mind, gnawing at the edges of a memory he could not reach. It was like the journal knew something about him—something buried deep within. Something that felt… wrong.
Ilyan moved further into the ruins, tracing the path that the journal seemed to lay out for him. With each step, the hum in the air grew louder, until it vibrated against his chest, thrumming in rhythm with his heartbeat. And the words. The words followed him, like whispers tugging at the edges of his thoughts.
"What is a name, if it is forgotten?"
"Who remembers the dead, when they do not wish to be known?"
He halted. His breath caught in his throat, and the journal slipped from his hands. He couldn't recall dropping it—his fingers felt numb as they hovered in midair, but the journal was gone, lying open on the floor before him.
He bent down to retrieve it, his movements slow, deliberate, as if his own body were questioning whether it should obey. As his hand closed around the leather, a strange sensation overcame him, as though the world had shifted, just slightly. A ripple in the fabric of reality. He had felt it before, once, but he couldn't place when.
The journal's page fluttered open as though it had a mind of its own.
"Your name is Ilyan Voss."
"It will fade, but you will remain."
"No one will remember your face."
A sharp gasp tore from his throat, his heart slamming against his ribs. He read the words again, slower this time, a sick feeling spreading through him. His name. His face. The last thing he had left.
He stood. The world shifted.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the flicker of movement. A shadow darted between the broken pillars, too quick to be a person, too deliberate to be a trick of the light. His instincts screamed at him to move, to run, but his legs remained rooted to the ground.
And then came the voice.
"Voss…"It was barely a whisper, like a breeze through the ruins.
"Ilyan Voss…" the voice repeated, louder this time, but still distant.
Ilyan's breath quickened. It sounded like his own voice, yet not his own voice. It came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, echoing through the ruins in fractured syllables. He turned, scanning the shadows, but saw nothing.
And then he remembered.
A memory—a fragment—broken into pieces, like an old mirror shattered beyond recognition.
A face.A woman.She had spoken his name, too. But it was not the same.
Her face was a blur. But her eyes—those eyes, like mirrors—stared at him in a way that made him feel… unseen. Forgotten.
Her lips had moved.
"Ilyan Voss…" she had said. Then, in the moments that followed, her face had vanished. Her name had vanished. Everything about her had vanished.
Ilyan looked back down at the journal, his fingers aching to turn the page. But it wasn't the same page anymore. The words had shifted again. They had rewritten themselves, like a sentence reformed by the hand of someone who knew no bounds.
"The threads of time twist when they are touched."
"The Loom is not kind."
"And your face will fade before your name does."
He looked up again, his mind racing, as the shadow passed once more. But this time, he could see it clearly.
A figure stood in the distance. Its form was tall and indistinct, wrapped in tattered cloth. It did not move, but it seemed to stare at him.
Waiting.
He could hear it—could feel it—somewhere deep inside, as if the very fabric of the world had spoken its last word, and it was now time to listen.
The world shifted again.
But this time, he was not the one who would disappear
Ilyan's hands trembled as he held the journal, but his thoughts were elsewhere. The shadow he'd seen earlier hadn't left his mind. Every footstep echoed too loudly in the ruins, and every flicker of light felt like a reminder that he was being watched—observed by eyes he couldn't quite reach.
The journal felt different now, heavier. He couldn't explain it, but the pages seemed to pulse under his fingers, as though they were alive.
"Ilyan Voss…"
The voice whispered again, this time from the shadows in front of him. This time, it wasn't distant. It was close. Too close.
He froze.
From the darkness, a figure emerged. Tall, thin, and wrapped in an unkempt cloak that fluttered in the still air. The figure's face was obscured—no eyes, just a void beneath the fabric. Only the voice remained, a low hum of strange syllables that seemed to twist and curl like smoke.
"Ilyan Voss, Threadless," the voice said, each word warped like a distortion in the air.
Ilyan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He had no idea who this person was, but the name they had spoken—Threadless—struck something inside him. It was a name he didn't recognize, yet somehow, it felt like his own.
"You know me," Ilyan said, though his voice faltered. "How?"
The figure tilted its head, a motion that shouldn't have been possible. It was as if its body existed in multiple places at once.
"I know all who thread the world with their steps. I am but a reflection," the figure murmured, voice slipping between moments. "But you? You are… not yet what you are meant to be. You are still being rewritten."
Ilyan felt his pulse quicken, his thoughts a tangle of confusion. The journal had spoken those words, too. "Not yet what I am meant to be." But what did that even mean?
"I don't understand," he said, eyes darting to the figure's featureless face. "Who are you?"
The figure let out a low, rasping laugh that seemed to come from every direction.
"I am the Riddle-Speaker, Voss the Unwoven, the Keeper of Unsaid Words. But you, Threadless, are already walking your path. You are more than a name, but less than a truth. Not yet."
Ilyan's heart pounded, his confusion mounting with every word. There were so many questions—so many things he couldn't understand.
"Threadless?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper.
"Yes, Threadless," the Riddle-Speaker repeated. "You have not yet woven yourself into the pattern of things. But the world is fraying, and so are you. A thread pulled too tight will snap, Voss. A thread left too loose will unravel."
He didn't know whether the words were a warning or a riddle, but they made his stomach churn.
"I'm… I'm not sure what you mean," Ilyan said, looking down at the journal in his hands. The words still shifted, rearranging themselves on the pages.
The figure stepped closer, and for the first time, Ilyan saw its eyes—or rather, the lack of them. There were empty, hollow spaces where eyes should have been, but in their absence, a depth lingered, a hollow well of forgotten things.
"Do you seek answers, Threadless? Are you willing to pay the price for them?"
Ilyan hesitated. There were so many questions. But even more than that, there was an undeniable pull within him, an urge to understand—to put the pieces together, even if the cost was beyond what he could grasp.
"I don't know. But I… I need to know what happened to me. To the world."
The Riddle-Speaker tilted its head again, an eerie motion that felt unnatural in its perfect stillness.
"You do not yet know what you seek, but you are already on the path," it said. "You will meet those who seek the same truths. Some will help you. Some will use you."
It stepped closer again, its voice almost a whisper now.
"The truth has a price, Ilyan Voss. And soon, you will find yourself paying it."
Ilyan stepped back, his heart pounding, the air around him thick with unease. "What do you want from me?"
The Riddle-Speaker's laugh returned, soft and cryptic. "Nothing. Everything. Nothing. All."
It turned away from him, fading into the shadows as it spoke its final riddle:
"Will you thread the world's tapestry, or let it fray beneath your hands?"
Ilyan stood frozen, staring at the empty space where the figure had been. For a long time, the world around him felt muffled, like he was underwater. He opened the journal again, and the words shifted once more.
"You are not the weaver, but the thread. The Loom has broken. It will never be the same."
"When the threads fall, they return to the void.""Do you dare reach for the fragments?"
The journal closed with a soft snap, and Ilyan felt the weight of the world press down on him. The Riddle-Speaker's words echoed in his mind.
The world was fraying. And somehow, he was woven into it.