Chapter 11: The Ledger of Lies
Both of them left the cafe, the door's chime echoing like a funeral bell in the sudden silence. I turned back to the counter, my hands moving on autopilot to wipe down a surface that was already clean. On the outside, I was the manager—composed, pragmatic, and in control. But inside, my brain was a storm of static and jagged edges.
The thoughts wouldn't stop. They clawed at the back of my skull, demanding an audit of my own soul. Is Elizabeth really not my sister? I tried to pull up a memory, any memory, to anchor myself. I could see us clearly: two little girls sharing a single umbrella in the rain, the way she used to tug at my sleeve when she was hungry, the specific, high-pitched ring of her laughter from years ago. But when I reached out to touch those memories, they felt cold. They lacked the grit of reality. They were too perfect, too vibrant, like a movie I had watched a thousand times until I convinced myself I was the protagonist.
Was everything I remember doing with her fake? I looked at my own hands, half-expecting them to be translucent. If she could stitch a sister into my heart, what else had she edited? Was the cafe real? Was the grime on the windows or the smell of the roasted beans just another sensory layer added to keep me occupied? Every "fact" I held onto felt like it was dissolving into ink and shadows.
Was all they talked about real—the Collectors, the interdimensional harvesters, the harvesting of souls? The more I questioned Elizabeth, the more the world around me started to feel thin, like a cheap stage play where the set might fall over if I leaned too hard against the wall. I felt a sickening lurch in my stomach as the boundary between truth and fiction vanished. Is this world really real, or am I just stuck in a dream? I wasn't just managing a cafe anymore; I was managing a hallucination. And the worst part—the part that kept my heart hammering in a frantic, uneven rhythm—was the realization that even if it was a dream, I couldn't wake up. Elizabeth owned the pillow, the bed, and the very air I was breathing. I was a prisoner of a history that never happened, waiting for a girl who was
fighting monsters that shouldn't exist...
The alleyway was quiet except for the hum of the city and the soft fizz of Elenas soda can. They had been practicing for hours. Her muscles were screaming for a break that Kuroshi wasn't willing to give.
"So what are these 'Soul Threads you keep talking about?" Elena asked, leaning against a brick wall and taking a long drink of her soda. The sweetness was the thing keeping her going.
Kuroshi stopped pacing. He looked at her then at the colored soda can in her hand. "It's a kind of energy " he said, his voice flat. "An energy you can use to do things like this."
Before Elena could react Kuroshi snatched the soda can from her hand. Threw it high into the air.
In the second the can started to change shape. An invisible pressure squeezed it from all sides. The metal screamed, folding in on itself as if invisible strings were being pulled tight around it crumpling the aluminum into a ball before it hit the ground.
"All things, no matter how different they are. Metal, air, flesh. Are made of Soul Threads " Kuroshi explained. "When a powerful being puts pressure on the Threads of things the weave breaks down. It's the weight of an existence."
He looked at his palm his fingers twitching as if feeling the air itself. ". Don't get confused. Controlling and pressuring are two things. Pressuring is raw; its just snapping the threads of another. I could put out a wildfire by crushing the energy out of the flames. But creating?"
He shook his head. "Creating fire out of air is much harder. To do that you need to know the pattern of the Threads that make up heat. Then you have to know how to re-weave your internal Threads into that pattern."
Elena looked from the soda can to her own hands, a spark of determination in her eyes. "Okay. So I just... I reach into the air grab the Soul Threads and pull them into a pattern? Like knitting with string?"
Kuroshi leaned against a dumpster his arms crossed. "That's the idea. Start simple. The moisture in the air. Structure the Threads into a liquid sphere. Don't try to move mountains; just make a ball of water."
Elena closed her eyes her brow furrowed in concentration. She reached out with her senses searching for that humming sensation Kuroshi had described. She could feel it. The air wasn't empty; it was thick with millions of strings of energy.
Weave it she told herself. Catch the ends. Pull them together.
She felt a tingly warmth crawling up her arms, a humming sensation that grew louder.
"I think... I think I'm getting it!" she whispered, her face turning red. "The Threads are reacting! They're... They're tangling!"
"Don't pull hard " Kuroshi warned, his eyes narrowing as he watched the air around her begin to shimmer. "If you don't anchor the tension the recoil will-"
SNAP.
A loud sound echoed through the alley. Elena didn't create a ball of water. Instead her own internal Soul Threads jerked violently in the direction.
A burst of energy surged upward.
There was a rustling sound and suddenly Elenas hair didn't just stand on end; it began to knot itself. In a matter of seconds her hair was yanked into a series of intricate braids that seemed to be knitting themselves together.
"Ouch! Ow! Stop!" Elena shrieked, clutching at her head. Her hair was currently "knitted" into a mess that was literally vibrating with leftover energy.
From above a familiar giggle rang out. Elizabeth was perched on a fire escape clutching her stomach and gasping for air. "Oh Elena! That was amazing! I didn't know you were studying to be a hair stylist!"
Kuroshi sighed, rubbing his nose as Elena struggled to untangle her hair.
"You didn't anchor the weave " Kuroshi noted dryly. "You grabbed your Threads by mistake and ended up knitting your hair into a knot."
Elena glared at her snarled reflection in a nearby window. "Again " she growled, her voice thick, with determination.
The alley was finally quiet. The hum of the city felt different now—less like white noise and more like a chaotic, overlapping symphony of millions of invisible, vibrating strings. Elena stood in the center of the damp pavement, her fingers twitching with the phantom sensation of the weave she had just held.
"So this is what Soul Threads are like," Elena murmured, her voice barely a whisper in the dark. She looked at her hands, then at the brick wall, then at the flickering streetlamp above. "But if they're everywhere—if they're the foundation of everything I touch, breathe, and see—why couldn't I see them before? Why couldn't I even feel them, or hell, why was I completely oblivious to their existence until now?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered by the distant rumble of traffic. She felt like a person who had spent their entire life in a room, only to realize the walls were made of glass.
"That's because Soul Threads can only be perceived—and subsequently edited—by someone who truly understands the nature of their existence," a melodic, teasing voice chimed in.
Elena spun around. Elizabeth was leaning against a brick pillar, her silhouette framed by the violet, unnatural glow that seemed to follow her like a shadow. She wasn't holding chips or soda anymore; her hands were clasped behind her back, and she wore an expression of cold, clinical amusement.
"You can't just stumble upon them, Elena-san," Elizabeth continued, drifting toward her like smoke. "You can't just be told 'there is a thing called a Soul Thread' and expect them to suddenly manifest. It's not a parlor trick. To see them, to weave them, you have to bridge the gap between knowing and being."
Elizabeth stopped inches from Elena, her eyes piercing.
"You have to believe, with every atom—no, with every Thread of your being—that they are real. If you doubt, the Threads remain hidden. If you believe, they respond to your will. The world is only as solid as you allow your own perception to be."
She reached out, her finger tracing a line in the air, causing a faint ripple of light to distort the space between them.
"Kuroshi treats them like a mechanic treats a machine, but you? You've been looking at them like a prisoner looks at bars. That's why you couldn't see them. You were too busy trying to survive the 'reality' I gave you to realize you were the one holding the scissors."
Elizabeth let out a short, sharp giggle. "Go on then. Keep believing. The more you believe, the easier it will be for me to see exactly how much you can unravel before you snap."
Without another word, Elizabeth dissolved into a flicker of violet static, leaving Elena standing alone in the damp cold. Elena stared at the space where the entity had been, her heart hammering. She looked at the wall again, and this time, she didn't just see bricks. She saw the faint, rhythmic pulse of silver wires running through the mortar, connecting the world in a complex, shivering tapestry.
She took a shaky breath, the terrifying weight of the realization pressing down on her. She had a promise to keep. She had to get to Sarah's, but for the first time, she walked through the city like a person who knew exactly how fragile the floorboards were.