The streets buzzed with life, yet Marcus moved through them like a ghost, unseen and untouched. Since awakening his Thread of Truth, he hadn't stopped observing. Not just watching—but perceiving.
Threads danced before his eyes now, invisible to others yet vivid to him—lines of emotion, memory, fear, and hope stretching from one person to another, from objects to thoughts, like veins pulsing with silent truths.
Drawn by something he couldn't name, his steps veered off into a narrow alley where worn-out books and tools lay scattered on the cobblestones. An old woman sat on a crate, blowing dust from a thick, cracked book. Beside her, a small boy toyed with broken stones, his eyes wide with imagined worlds.
Marcus stopped. He didn't look at them the way others would—he saw the threads.
The child's thread glimmered with quiet shame and unspoken dreams. He saw a flash: rough hands tearing a drawing, a voice yelling it was "a waste of time." The boy had stopped drawing after that—but he hadn't stopped dreaming.
Marcus knelt before him, eyes sharp.
"You like to draw," he said softly, "but you're afraid to show your pictures because your father doesn't understand."
The boy froze.
The old woman stood slowly, eyes narrowing.
"Who are you?" she asked, her tone shifting from curiosity to suspicion.
Marcus didn't answer. He was lost in the light between them. A thread from her, heavy with longing—a memory of a night long past, of giving her last meal to a child who wasn't hers, of watching him grow and drift away.
"You don't want coins," Marcus murmured to her. "You just want someone to see you."
Her expression hardened. A second passed. Then she snapped.
"You're rude! Who gave you the right to say such things?"
Marcus blinked, the threads vanishing like smoke. The weight of his body returned. The noise of the world crashed back in.
"I... I'm sorry," he said, rising to his feet. "I didn't mean—"
But he had. Somewhere deep inside, he had meant every word. And for the first time since discovering his thread, he realized the danger in it.
He hadn't just seen them—he had cut too deep.