Tangled In Strings

Chapter 13: Rift in the Roots

It started with a sound—like a tree screaming.

Snatcher sat upright, mid-sentence, eyes narrowing. Moonjumper stopped sharpening his cursed string-blades and looked toward the window.

Then came the second sound.

A crack. Not thunder. Not wood.

Reality tearing.

---

✦ The Rift Opens ✦

By the time they reached the clearing, the damage was done.

The air shimmered with green light, and the roots of the oldest trees had curled backward in pain. In the center of the grove, a swirling rift had torn open—black and teal, edged in chaotic fire. Something about it felt wrong in a way that words couldn’t hold.

And pouring out of it—not beasts. Not shadows. But twisted echoes.

They looked like versions of Snatcher’s former contracts—distorted, maddened, wearing masks of guilt and betrayal. Others wore Moonjumper’s face—cracked versions of himself, oozing lunar magic, eyes empty.

“That’s not possible,” Moonjumper whispered.

“They’re not real,” Snatcher growled. “They’re what the Rift wants us to see.”

“Then let’s show it what we are.”

---

✦ The Battle Begins ✦

They fought like moonlight and wildfire.

Moonjumper’s blades flicked in precise, crescent-shaped arcs, slicing through corrupted magic with surgical grace. His strings wrapped around enemies like constellations binding chaos.

Snatcher surged beside him—a storm in shadow, snapping through illusions and echo-beasts with a roar. He flung dark fire and twisted roots, his laughter rising wild and furious above the noise.

“You’ve REALLY pissed off the wrong ghosts!” he howled.

Moonjumper leapt onto his back and launched into the air, spinning midflight, crashing down with a glowing burst of silver light that cleared ten monsters at once.

“Was that—MY cloak?!” Snatcher shouted. “Did you use me as a springboard?!”

“Romance is a battlefield.”

“You’re the WORST flirt, Moonpie!”

---

But even as they cut down the illusions, the Rift pulsed again—stronger.

Something ancient stirred behind it.

A voice neither of them recognized—but both felt.

"You are not meant to survive this."

Snatcher stumbled, clutching his chest.

“That’s not just a threat,” he hissed. “That’s reality unmaking itself.”

Moonjumper’s mask cracked a little further. “If this rift spreads, Subcon will collapse.”

Snatcher looked at him—serious, breathless. “Can you seal it?”

“Only with enough stable magic. Moonlight and shadow.”

“You mean us.”

“I mean trust.”

---

✦ Closing the Rift ✦

They stood at the edge of the chasm—power swirling violently between them.

Moonjumper reached out.

“Together.”

Snatcher took his hand—his form sparking with unstable magic. “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You kissed me first.”

“...Fair.”

The Rift screamed as they stepped into its pull.

Their magic ignited—blue and violet threads weaving together, pulsing like a heartbeat. Shadows wrapped around moonlight. Strings of cursed light fused with roots and flame.

Their bond was the key.

Their fear, the cost.

Their love, the weapon.

“You don’t get to take my forest,” Snatcher snarled.

“You don’t get to take him,” Moonjumper added, eyes burning.

And then—they let go.

Not of each other.

Of everything else.

---

With a final scream, the Rift closed—collapsing in on itself in a burst of magic so intense it shook the forest to its roots. Echoes turned to mist. The wind died.

Silence.

---

✦ Aftermath ✦

Snatcher collapsed to his knees, cloak burned at the edges. Moonjumper fell beside him, mask cracked, chest heaving.

They sat in the middle of the ruined grove, backs against each other.

“Still with me?” Snatcher rasped.

“Only barely,” Moonjumper muttered. “You smell like burnt contract paper.”

“You smell like regret and lunar trauma.”

“You kissed this, remember.”

Snatcher snorted. “Don’t remind me.”

Moonjumper leaned his head back against Snatcher’s. “We protected it.”

Snatcher looked up at the bruised moon above. “For now.”

A beat of silence passed.

Then Snatcher reached out and took his hand again.

“Let’s make ‘for now’ last a little longer.”