Every thread holds a secret — some unravel only when we dare to pull.
The camera blinked on as I stepped through the doors, just long enough to scan my threadband around my wrist and record my name in its silent memory. It lingered, as if it wasn't quite finished watching me, as if I didn't belong.
Lately, I haven't been sure that I belong anywhere at all.
He hasn't spoken to me in months. The thought jumped into my mind like a bad dream that I couldn't forget.
That silence echoed louder than any words, making everything feel more distant between us.
I don't know if he's trying to protect me, or if he's punishing me, or if he's there at all.
Either way, the silence started to feel like goodbye. And a goodbye without closure never sat right with me.
You spend most days wondering what you could have done differently, if anything, and replay the events in your head, reliving all the memories of what happened, what could have happened, and what didn't happen.
No one else knew what I'd done. And I wasn't ready to explain it.
The weight of this secret pressed heavier every day.
I swallowed the ache in my chest and took a step forward. I grabbed onto my two red French braids with bright pink tips that fell just before my knees and shook my head slightly, as if I could shake the memories from existing at all.
Be free, I thought to myself. You don't need to dwell here anymore. But they didn't listen, they stayed with me, haunting me with the life I will never have with him.
After scanning my threadband, the camera retracted into its wall mount with a soft mechanical chirp—too cheerful for a museum of echoes. And far too cheerful for me.
My world was shattering, but I learned to hide what I felt on the inside.
I didn't flinch and kept moving along. They always monitored the front doors. It was simply part of the job.
Those who come and go from the museum of souls take priority in accessing the risk they may bring.
You either work here or are a visitor to history on display, but if you come to deceive or betray, then you'll be gone before the day even begins.
I knew this place too well, every corner, every hallway. Every camera.
Everything becomes routine when the job becomes your life because you have nothing else. You either excel in your craft or fall into despair. I chose to excel, but I could feel the weight of one wrong step, and I could fall into despair, never to recover.
And yet my steps were slow. Today felt different, as if the air held a secret I hadn't earned the right to hear.
Some truths are buried deep and hard to find.
"Welcome to the Thesira Soul Archive—Solence branch," the front desk AI chimed as I walked past, its voice monotoned and too robotic to be human.
"Preserve connection. Honor the thread. Merge for Unity."
The same slogan, every morning.
I gave a half-hearted nod, as if it would care whether I responded, and kept walking toward the left hall, my boots clicking softly against the tile. The museum was quiet at this early hour, just how I liked it.
Then I noticed that my threadband was blinking red, and that was the end of my leisurely morning before it even began.
I paused my step just long enough to catch the edge of it. One quick pulse, then it was gone.
I glanced over my shoulder, but the hallway was empty. Tourists wouldn't be flooding the museum yet, not until nine. I had two hours to resolve this issue.
It should be plenty of time, but I was wrong.
I kept walking.
I wasn't supposed to visit the records room today.
But someone—or something—wanted me there.
I pressed the call button and waited. A hum stirred in the shaft, then the elevator groaned to life.
I stepped inside and tapped my threadband against the panel. The doors slid shut. Knowing exactly where to take me.
The elevator was slow and too quiet, leaving me alone with my thoughts that could darken even the brightest of rooms.
I told myself, just got to get through today, the same thing I tell myself every day.
When the doors slid open, I stepped into the hallway near my office. The lights flickered on, bright, steady, and familiar.
I continued past my office without stopping, beyond the familiar world I knew, heading toward something more profound.
I remembered that whenever I entered my office, I would always glance down the hallway—the dark, haunted stretch that never seemed to end. And now I was finally seeing just how long that hallway was.
The basement reeked of decaying paper and damp metal, the scent of history left to rot in the dark.
I had never ventured this far past my office.
There was a weight to this place, as if the echoes of the past sealed in the walls were leaning in close, whispering stories no one else could hear. I didn't mind.
Recently, being surrounded by the past felt safer than confronting the uncertain future.
Besides, the smell makes me feel like I'm still here, still alive, even if it's not a great smell, but for some reason, I feel more alive when I smell something.
My eyes didn't seem to work right; nothing beyond the near distance came into focus, just a blur until I got closer. A blur was my life.
My ears hardly paid attention to the sounds around me, probably because I was always stuck in my own world.
However, the smell snapped me into the present moment and reminded me that I'm still here, not just floating or drifting away.
I ducked beneath a low beam. Each step made the ceiling feel lower, as if I were trespassing in a place time had forgotten.
My boots whispered against the concrete as I scanned the dim corridor.
When I reached the records room, the lights flickered on in sections—motion-triggered, slow to wake, like the room itself resented being disturbed.
The record room was merely a holding area—raw records, outdated backups, the kind of data no one bothered to examine.
It required level A clearance, the kind most people never requested unless they had a reason. I'd only recently been approved for it, just enough to log and retrieve misplaced entries like this one.
My reason for requesting access is my unexplained love for history, which most Thesirans wouldn't understand.
The museum's systems flagged a mismatched inventory entry—File L-1074—missing its analog source. Normally, a drone would handle it, but the one assigned to that room had malfunctioned. So now, I guess that was my job, too. We always got the older tech in the basement.
Truthfully, it was a nice change. I'd been cooped up in my office alone for so long. Although I didn't have company now, being out and doing something different today, surrounded by the physical history of the old and new worlds, made silence feel less like loneliness and more like presence.
Like standing in a room still echoing with lives once lived.
The thought settled in, Familiar, I didn't question it.
I've been carrying something heavy lately, and I could feel it crushing me more every day.
I brushed the side of my face and kept walking.
The distraction was a welcome one. I could forget, even just for a little while.
I found a drawer halfway open, like something had tried to escape.
Holographic tags sorted most records, but this one had no tag at all. I hesitated, my hand hovering above it.
Some part of me whispered that whatever was inside wouldn't stay locked away again. Once opened, some invisible thread might unravel everything I thought I knew.
Maybe the city wasn't haunted by what was lost, but by what it refused to let go.
I brushed that thought away because I know it's something Thayer would have said if he were here.
I reached for what was in this mysterious drawer. A leather-bound journal lay tucked beneath a faded cloth, embroidered with the seal of Atropa Innovations—a gold-threaded nightshade flower.
After the Quiet Collapse, Atropa had risen to guide the New Era forward. It wasn't called a government, but it held everything together.
They saved humanity after the fall of the Old World. That's why I took this job, to be near the artifacts.
To understand what came before.
Atropa handles everything now. But for me, it's more than duty, it's a legacy. It's my family's history.
I looked closer at the unregistered book, my breath catching.
Etched faintly across the cover, looping cursive:
Hasley Liora
It shouldn't have been here. It shouldn't have existed at all.
My heart skipped.
Liora. My name.
Everyone in Solence knew Hasley Liora's story. She wasn't just any Liora—she was my blood, the woman who changed everything.
I stared at her name. Afraid it might vanish if I blinked.
My hands didn't feel like my own anymore.
My vision blurred for just a second, like I'd forgotten how to breathe.
A strange pressure gathered behind my eyes—soft and suddenly, it didn't feel like a memory, more like someone waiting, just beyond the edge of thought.
Like love, it was something I hadn't finished feeling yet.
I blinked it away.
Probably, the dust is getting to me. Or maybe… something inside me whispering, finally.
Part of me wanted to run upstairs and report the discovery.
But the other—stronger—wanted to read until the ink wore away beneath my fingers.
My hands trembled as I opened the journal to the first page.
The ink was faded, the date barely legible—yet it waited, like a voice that had been patient far too long.
I wasn't sure I was ready to face what came next.