Tangled in thread

Kai awoke in the unfamiliar darkness, his body stiff and heavy as if the weight of the world itself pressed down on him. The air was thick with silence, as though even the shadows themselves held their breath in anticipation. His eyes strained to pierce the inky blackness, but it felt like the darkness itself was alive, an endless, oppressive void that swallowed every attempt at clarity.

With shaky hands, he pushed himself to his feet, his legs unsteady beneath him like the fragile stems of a wilted flower. Every movement felt foreign, as if his body had forgotten how to navigate this cold, confining space. The ground beneath him was uneven, a patchwork of rough stone and smooth tiles, like the twisted remnants of some forgotten place.

He took a step forward, his footfall muffled by the thick carpet of silence. It was as if the walls were closing in on him, the air growing denser with every breath, each exhale like a desperate whisper in the vast, empty space.

And then—he saw it.

In the far corner of the room, half-shrouded in the shadows, stood something that seemed to breathe with a life of its own. A figure. Half angel, half demon—its wings fractured, feathers dripping with blood like dark raindrops. One wing was a tattered remnant of purity, a faded memory of what once was. The other was a twisted mockery, an unnatural thing that curled inward like a snake, its edges sharp and cruel.

The figure’s face was a beautiful mask of suffering, long white hair falling in disheveled strands around its shoulders, its once-pristine features now marred by the marks of agony. The skin, pale as moonlight, had been slashed and broken, scars and cuts weaving their way across the delicate form like a twisted tapestry of pain.

Kai felt a strange tugging at his waist, his breath catching as something slick and cold wrapped around him. Strings. Thin, white threads of something that was neither silk nor rope, but something in between—something that felt like a shiver from the deepest corners of his mind. The strings moved with a life of their own, slipping around his waist, his neck, his limbs. They tightened, cutting into his skin as they wrapped themselves around his wings. Kai was in shocked when he saw them. we're did he got them?

A rush of pain exploded in his chest as the strings constricted, pulling, suffocating, like a predator slowly tightening its grip. The wings—those delicate, broken wings—began to tremble. Blood seeped from the wounds, falling like drops of rain, staining the pure white feathers with the evidence of their torment. Kai could feel the pain as if it were his own, the burning, the throbbing, the sharp sting of something being ripped away.

His heart pounded in his chest, each beat a desperate cry for release. He could barely breathe, his neck trapped in the cold, unforgiving grip of the strings. His body was bound, helpless. He was nothing more than a puppet to whatever force had chosen him. The pain was unbearable, yet somehow familiar, like a memory that refused to die.