I leaned against the soot-stained bricks, the midday sun beating down into the narrow gap between the buildings. My watch read 11:15 AM. The "dawn" I had specified was a distant memory.
The sound of frantic, uneven breathing reached me before she did. Then, Elena skidded around the corner, nearly losing her footing on a patch of loose gravel. She looked like a mess—socks pulled up unevenly, hair a disaster, and lungs working like bellows.
I didn't move. I didn't even turn my head to look at her. I just let the silence stretch until her heart rate started to settle.
"Now tell me," I said, my voice flat, "why are you so late?"
"Uhh, i—I got stuck in traffic!" she blurted out, her face flushed. It was a pathetic lie, delivered with the conviction of a failing student.
"Oh, really?" I pushed off the wall finally, turning to face her with a cold, knowing look. "But I heard Elizabeth say you were sleeping so soundly."
Her eyes went wide. "Shi—that bitc—"
She cut herself off, but the damage was done. The look of pure betrayal on her face was all the confirmation I needed.
"So you really were sleeping," I noted, a small, cynical smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth.
Elena froze, realizing she'd just walked right into it. "What do you mean by 'really'?"
"I was just guessing," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "But who knew you were so easy to fool? You gave it up in less than five seconds."
I took a step toward her, the ambient hum of the city's Soul Threads vibrating between us. To her, this was a joke, a late arrival for a morning meeting. To me, every second she spent unconscious was a second the Collectors were gaining ground.
"Elizabeth didn't tell me anything," I said, my voice dropping an octave. "I didn't even see her this morning. But now I know that while I was standing here in the dirt, you were curled up in a blanket. Do you think the things hunting you are going to wait for you to finish your nap?"
I reached out, my fingers twitching toward the invisible threads in the air. "Since you've had so much rest, I expect you to have plenty of energy for what's next. We're not starting with the basics today. We're starting with consequences..."
I stepped back toward her, my shadow stretching long across the brickwork in the 11 AM sun. I didn't care about the heat in her cheeks or her frantic excuses. To me, her reaction was just a messy, inefficient leak of focus.
"Why did you push me?" I asked, my voice sharpening with a flash of genuine anger. The irritation wasn't just about the physical shove; it was about her lack of discipline. In this world, hesitation and "surprise" were just different words for being dead.
"Wh-what do you mean why?" Elena stammered, her hands still trembling slightly as she tried to fix her disheveled hair. "Who wouldn't be surprised if someone suddenly grabs their chin and asks 'look me in my eyes'!"
She huffed, turning her gaze toward a pile of discarded crates, her pride clearly wounded. To my ears, she was just making excuses for being caught off guard.
I crossed my arms, unimpressed. I wasn't here to be a companion; I was here to be a mirror.
"I didn't grab your chin to be polite, Elena," I said, my voice cutting through her flustered rambling like a blade. "I did it to force your perspective. If you're busy being 'surprised,' you're missing the fact that I could have snapped your neck ten times before you even blinked."
I stepped closer again, but this time I kept my hands to myself, letting the weight of my presence do the work.
"The Collectors don't care about your personal space," I reminded her, my eyes locking onto hers with a cold, clinical intensity. "They won't wait for you to feel 'comfortable' before they start unravelling your essence. If a little bit of proximity is enough to make you lose your cool, then you've already lost the fight."
I gestured to the empty air between us.
"Again. Without the dramatics this time. Look me in the eyes, Elena. Stop seeing a person and start seeing the threat. Tell me what you see when you actually look."
I stood perfectly still, letting my presence expand until it filled the narrow space between us. I didn't reach for her again; I didn't need to. The air was heavy enough.
"Focus," I commanded. "Don't look at the color of my eyes. Look at what's holding them together."
Elena took a shaky breath, her embarrassment finally giving way to a desperate, sharp concentration. She stopped looking at my face as a person and started looking at me as a structure. Slowly, the frantic blinking stopped. Her pupils dilated, her gaze turning glassy and distant as she pierced through the physical veil.
And then, she saw them.
Deep within the center of my chest, a core of intense, obsidian-colored energy acted as a sun, and from it radiated thousands of Soul Threads. They weren't like her frayed, hesitant lines. Mine were taut, glowing with a cold, silver-blue light, woven into a geometric pattern so dense it looked like armor. Each thread was hummed with a low-frequency vibration that seemed to distort the very air around me.
She gasped, her knees buckling slightly as the sheer weight of the observation hit her. She wasn't just seeing me; she was seeing the mechanical blueprint of a hunter. She could see how my threads were anchored into the ground, pulling stability from the earth, and how they spiraled up my spine to sharpen my senses.
"They're... they're like iron," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind whistling through the alley. "It's not just energy. It's a cage... no, it's a machine."
"It's discipline," I corrected, my voice softening just a fraction. "Every thread has a purpose. Every knot is a memory of a fight I won. Now you know what you're up against. You aren't just fighting people, Elena. You're fighting architectures."
I stepped back, breaking the connection, and the shimmering lines faded from her sight, leaving her blinking in the harsh 11 AM sun.
"Now," I said, my tone returning to its usual cold edge. "Try to do the same to yourself. Show me that your sleep wasn't just a waste of time. Show me you can hold a single thread without it snapping."