The Red String Effect

Chapter Four -- Part Three: Tangled

Layla didn't tell her mother about the dream. She didn't tell anyone. What could she say—that Peter was alive inside a vortex of broken strings, reaching for her in place that wasn't real?

Except it was real.

Every time she blinked, she saw it again—the threads twisting downward, pulling at her chest. It was worse in the hallways at school. Students bustled past her, threads knotted between them, glowing red, humming with quiet life. But her own didn't move like theirs anymore. It tugged steadily in one direction. Down. Down into something no one else could see. She tried to ignore it. She sat in class, chewed the end of her pencil, stared blankly at worksheets. But the pull grew stronger with every hour. By the end of the day, she felt like she was being reeled in. When she stepped out into the gray afternoon, Luca was waiting. "You feel it," he said simply.

Layla didn't ask how he knew. Of course he knew. "It won't stop pulling," she whispered. "Not unless I follow it." Luca's gray eyes darkened. "That's how it gets you." "I saw Peter." Her voice cracked. "He was there. I can't just ignore that." "You can't trust it." "I don't care." She gripped the strap of her backpack until her knuckles whitened. "If there's even a chance –" she didn't finish. The knot throbbed in her chest, yanking so hard she stumbled forward. Luca's hand shot out, catching her arm. His grip was firm, grounding. "Layla." She looked up at him, trembling. "Then come with me." for a moment, silence. Rain pattered softly against the pavement. Then he nodded once. And that was how Layla begin to follow the thread.

It led them through town, past streets she knew, past the square, down roads she hadn't walked in years. The pull was relentless, dragging her feet forward even when her lungs burned. Luca kept pace silently, always one step behind, his presence steady. By dusk, they stood at the edge of the old railway yard. It had been abandoned for decades. The tracks were rusted, weeds choking the gravel. Half-collapsed sheds sagged under peeling paint, windows shattered, roofs caved in. Layla's breath clouded in the cool air. Her chest throbbed—the knot pulling harder here.

"It's beneath," Luca murmured. His eyes scanned the yard, sharp and unblinking. "You feel it, don't you? The split." Layla nodded. She did. The air shimmered faintly around the tracks, like heat haze, though the evening was cold. The threads in her vision twisted here, curling downward, vanishing into the earth. The tangle was close. "Once we cross," Luca said, his voice low, "we can't be sure we'll come back." Layla swallowed hard. "Then don't come." His gaze flicked to her, unreadable. "You'd never make it alone." And with that, he stepped forward first. The ground shuddered.

Layla gasped as her thread yanked violently, dragging her after him. Her vision split—half the railway yard, half a writhing storm of threads below. Red. Black. Endless. She stumbled, fell to her knees on the gravel – and then the world tore open. She was no longer in the yard. Darkness stretched in every direction, endless and suffocating. Threads whipped around her in violent currents, lashing across her arms, her face, humming with an energy that rattled her bones. Some glowed red, faint and broken. Others writhed black, dripping like tar. The knot in her chest pulsed so hard she screamed. She was in the Tangle. And Peter was waiting.