The Red String Effect

Chapter Three -- Part Two: Frayed

Layla skipped lunch the next day. She didn't want to sit among the chattering voices and glowing strings, not when her own thread looked like a frayed wire sparking in a storm. She didn't want to feel the hum of other people's fate pressing against her skin. Instead, she went to the records room. It wasn't technically open to students, but Layla had learned long ago that most doors in St. Morwyn High didn't close all the way if you knew how to push. She slipped in quietly, heart pounding, and let the heavy door shut behind her.

The room smelled like paper and dust. Stacks of yearbooks lined one wall, while filing cabinets squatted in the back like silent guards. She pulled one open and rifled through the folders until she found the "M" section. Monroe, Peter. Her hands trembled as she pulled the file. It wasn't thick – just a few sheets stapled together. Grades. Attendance. A disciplinary slip for skipping gym too many times. And then the transfer form. Layla's eyes narrowed. The signature at the bottom didn't look like her aunt's handwriting. The ink was faded, smudged, as though someone had coped it badly. The school name – some boarding academy in Vermont – was typed neatly, but there was no address, no phone number.

Her stomach twisted. "Find what you're looking for?" Layla jumped, spinning around. Luca leaned against the door frame, arms crossed, eyes glinting in the dim light. "You can't keep following me like that," she hissed. "I don't follow you," he said softly. "I end up where you are." "Why?" he tilted his head. "Because your thread leads here." Layla froze. "My thread is dying." "Not dying," he corrected. "Changing." She shoved the file into her backpack, her pulse racing. "You knew about Peter, didn't you?" Luca didn't answer. That was enough of an answer for her though.

Layla walked home under a weak glow of streetlamps. Her shoes scuffed against the wet pavement, her backpack heavy against her shoulders. She kept replaying the smudged signature, the missing details, the shadow boy in the photograph. And then she felt it. The air changed. Colder. Denser. Like the space around her was folding in. Her thread pulsed once, violently, and she froze. Something was behind her. Slowly, she turned. A figure stood at the far end of the street. Tall. Faceless. Its body rippled with black threads that slithered across the ground like worms. Layla's chest seized. She stumbled backward, nearly tripping over her own feet.

The figure didn't move at first. Just watching. Waiting. Then the threads shot forward. Layla screamed and ran. Her sneakers slapped against the pavement as she bolted toward her house. The threads hissed, scraping across the ground, reaching for her ankles. One brushed her leg, cold and burning all at once, and she gasped, stumbling. She rounded the corner, heart hammering – and slammed into someone. Hands caught her arms, steadying her. Luca. "Run!" she gasped. But he didn't move. He turned, calmly, to face the figure. The black threads halted a few feet away, writhing like snakes in the air. Luca raised his hand and to Layla's horror, black threads spilled from his wrist, slithering across the pavement to meet them.

The two sets tangled, twisted – recognizing eachother. The faceless figure shuddered. Then, slowly, it receded, its threadsdragging back into the shadows until it dissolved into the night. Layla stared,chest heaving. "You –" her voice broke. "You're one of them." Luca's gray eyesflicked to hers, unreadable. "Not yet," he said.