The Red String of Fate | Hiatus

I. Red String

Letting out a sigh, I watched the sun sink beneath the hills, the last few rays bathing the ice-covered mountains in a shimmering, reddish-orange glow that danced across the peaks like embers in a dying fire. The soft wind whispered over the river, leaving a cool, tingling touch on my skin, a reminder of the end of another day. Endings. They were something I had never learned to accept, especially when it came to the stories that had shaped me. Perhaps that's why I was here, alone, instead of with my friends.

It had been two years. Two long years since the last episode of my all-time favorite show had aired. Two years since the family business had concluded. Two years since our hero—the one who had defied fate time and again—had fallen. And still, I couldn't bear to watch that final season. I already knew how it ended. How he ended. A hero I had grown up with, a name that had warded off my childhood fears, the one the monsters feared.

Dean Winchester.

How do you watch someone die when they've been part of your life for as long as you can remember? How do you face it, knowing half your idols are already dead—if not in the real world, then in stories lost to time? The weight of that realization had settled over me earlier, heavy and suffocating, as I finished re-reading one of my favorite books: Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human. Another hero gone, another story left unfinished.

"Why, Dazai?" I murmured to the fading light. "Why did you have to end your story like that? I would've given anything to talk to you, to ask you why. Maybe then I could have faced that final episode with the same excitement I had when it all began—without the grief of knowing how it ends."

As my thoughts drifted, they latched onto a story I had been reading recently—an old piece of Japanese folklore. The tale of the red string of fate. Legend said that two people connected by the gods with a red string, bound to their fingers, would share a profound story—regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The string may stretch, tangle, or fray with the passing of years... but it could never break.

The soft rustle of pages broke through my reverie. The wind had caught the edges of my copy of No Longer Human, flipping it open as if by some invisible hand. A page settled, and I found my eyes drawn to the words, as though the book itself demanded to be read.

"For someone like myself, in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid, forever trying to read the expressions on people's faces."

A humorless laugh escaped me. "Geez, Dazai, you really know how to make a girl blush," I muttered, my voice flat, eyes lingering on the page for just a moment longer.

But the day was fading fast, and I needed to head home. As I began to collect my belongings, a sharp snap reached my ears, and I glanced down to find my sapphire pendant—my grandmother's pendant—rolling down the hill. With a panicked gasp, I watched helplessly as it plunged into the river, swallowed by the cold, unforgiving current.

Cursing, I scrambled down the bank, plunging into the icy water without hesitation. Thankfully, the river wasn't too deep. The cold stung my skin, but I forced myself to focus, eyes scanning the shifting water for any glimpse of blue. There—just beneath the surface. My fingers closed around the pendant, the familiar weight settling into my left hand. But before I could let out a breath of relief, something caught my eye.

A flicker of red.

I turned my head, heart pounding. There, tied around my middle finger, was a thin red string—shimmering in the water like a thread of blood. The rest of the string drifted through the sea-green depths, stretching toward a point where the light bent and refracted, creating a glowing orb of brightness that hurt to look at. I couldn't see where the string led. I didn't even know how it had gotten there.

Suddenly, the world tilted. My chest tightened as the water seemed to swirl around me, faster and faster, until I could no longer tell up from down. My vision blurred, and the edges of the world began to darken, the last thing I saw was that faint, pulsing glow as my lungs screamed for air.

Then—nothing.

I shot up, gasping for breath. Cold air filled my lungs as I frantically looked around, my mind struggling to grasp what had just happened. The river was gone. I was no longer in the current I had fallen into. I was standing knee-deep in a shallow stream, the water barely touching my legs.

I stumbled, dizzy and disoriented, when suddenly I felt hands—strong, steady hands—grab my arms, preventing me from falling.

My vision slowly cleared, and as I blinked away the haze, I looked up into the familiar face of—Jim Beaver? Dressed as Bobby Singer?

What. The. FUCK.