The Red String Effect

Chapter Two -- Part Two: The First Knot

The first place Layla thought to look for Peter was the attic. It had been years since she'd been up there – dust, spiders, boxes filled with her grandmother's endless collection of porcelain figurines and moth-eaten quilts. But when she told Luca, he didn't laugh or dismiss it. He just nodded, like he already expected the trail would start somewhere forgotten.

"You're sure he wrote it?" he asked as they climbed the narrow pull-down ladder. Layla coughed at the cloud of dust that greeted them. "I don't know. It wasn't my handwriting. And no one else should've had my notebook." The attic smelled of cedar and damp insulation. Luca followed her up silently, his steps soundless, almost unnatural on the creaking boards below them. He didn't look like he belonged in this place – or any place – but he didn't hesitate.

Layla set her flashlight on a box and dug through old trunks, flipping open lids that squealed with rust. Her hands moved faster as she searched. She felt the weight of Luca's eyes on her, and the silence between them seemed to grow even thicker. Finally, she found it. A shoebox with "Peter" scrawled across the top in faded marker. Her chest tightened. She saw a cross-legged person on the floor and lifted the lid. Inside were photographs – her and Peter at the beach when they were eight, faces sunburned, holding melting popsicles.

A school ID card. A half-finished sketch of a bird in flight. But what froze her was the photograph at the bottom. It showed Peter, maybe twelve years old, standing in the garden. Besides him was Layla. She remembered that day. The trellis, the roses, the threads curling in the sunlight. But there was someone else in the picture, too. A boy. Shadowy, blurred at the edges, as though the film had rejected him. Layla didn't remember him being there. She glanced at Luca. His gray eyes lingered on the photo, unreadable. "That's not possible," Layla whispered. "It's always possible," Luca said softly. Layla looked back at the image. What unsettled her most wasn't the shadow boy's face – it was his hand. Around his wrist, faint but visible in the photograph, was a black thread.

She dreamt about it that night. The attic. The shoebox. The photograph. Only in the dream, the shadow boy stepped out of the picture, his black thread stretching across the room like smoke. Layla tried to run, but her legs wouldn't move. The thread reached for her. Slid around her wrist. Burned. When she woke, she was clutching her hand, skin icy, her faint red thread flickering violently like it was trying to fight something off.

Luca didn't act surprised when she told him about it the next day. "They're already touching you," he said simply. "They?" Layla demanded. "What are they?" "Not people," he said. "Not really. They're what's left when a string gets cut or when someone's born without one. The connection doesn't just disappear – it mutates." "And that's what you are?" asked, voice sharp. Luca's jaw tightened. "Not yet." Layla felt her pulse throb in her wrist, in time with the dim glow of her thread. "But you will be." Silence. The truth settled between them like a storm cloud. By the end of the week, Layla started seeing the black threads when she was alone. Not fully – just glimpses in mirrors, in the reflections of windows at night. They slithered around her shoulders, coiling at her throat, as if waiting. And she couldn't shake the feeling that every time Luca stood too close, they multiplied.

That Friday, she found herself at the old greenhouse on the edge of town. It hadn't been used in years, the glass panes mottled with moss, ivy climbing its bones. She didn't know why she came – only that her feet carried her here after following the faintest pull of her fading thread. Luca was already there. He stood in the center of the cracked floor, rain dripping through the broken ceiling. His hood was down. His dark hair stuck to his forehead, and his eyes caught what little light the greenhouse still offered. "You feel it, don't you?" he asked. Layla's throat was dry. "Feel what?" "The Knot." He lifted his hand, and for a moment – just a flicker – Layla saw something. Not red. Not black. But both, tangled together in the air between them, threads twisting violently, fighting for dominance. It pulsed. Once. Twice. And Layla felt her knees go weak.

"What is it?" she whispered. "The beginning," Luca said. "Or the end." The threads coiled tighter, pulling her forward. She stumbled, catching herself on a broken pane of glass, and looked up. Luca was watching her, expression unreadable. And for the first time, Layla realized he wasn't asking her to cut her string anymore. He was asking her to tie it – to him.