EPISODE 13: The War That Wasn’t
1237 Words
Seviah stared at the sea of glowing eyes.
A dozen, maybe more. All children. Teenagers. Maybe one or two years older than her. Some she recognized faintly from her days in the orphanage—blurred faces, forgotten names. Some she’d never seen before.
And every single one of them radiated the Gift.
Not fractured. Not borrowed.
Whole.
She stepped back, her voice barely audible.
“How many of you are there?”
“Enough,” said Nali.
“Enough for what?”
“To remember what was taken,” the Threadbreaker answered. “To remind the world what it chose to forget.”
Renn stood at Seviah’s side now, her blade lowered but her posture tight.
“And you’re just… what? A rebel army? A resistance?”
“No,” said Nali, shaking her head slowly. We’re the inheritance. The next phase. And you’re either part of it—or in its way.”
The words hung in the air like smoke.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Seviah said. Her voice cracked.
“Neither did we,” Nali replied gently. But you were chosen, Sev. Just like the rest of us.”
“No. I was a mistake. I was the replacement.”
The Threadbreaker took a slow step toward her.
“And yet you’re here. Alive. Awake. Free.”
“I didn’t free anyone,” she spat.
“Yes, you did,” Nali said. When you rewrote the Archive, we all felt it. A door opened that had been locked for years.”
“You didn’t open a door,” Renn snapped. “You broke a containment zone.”
“Same difference,” muttered the Threadbreaker.
The shadows parted as a tall figure approached.
He was lean, older, with long silver hair braided down his back and a dark scar curving beneath his left eye. His presence silenced even the Threadbreaker.
He looked at Seviah and offered a small, almost sad smile.
“The last one wakes.”
“Who are you?” Seviah asked.
“Karo,” he said. “I was once the Warden. I kept them from finding each other. Now I lead them.”
“You were part of the facility?”
“No. I was part of the lie that built it.”
Seviah’s mind swirled.
Everything she thought she knew—her place, her purpose—was unraveling again.
“What do you want from me?”
Karo’s eyes turned solemn.
“Not obedience. Not loyalty. Just one thing.”
“What?”
“Your memory.”
She blinked.
“What do you mean?”
“You saw the first war, didn’t you? In the field. The three of you—”
He pointed out: Seviah. The Original. The Threadbreaker.
“—You ended it.”
“That wasn’t real,” she whispered. “It was a vision.”
“No. It was history. Buried inside you.”
“And you want me to… remember it?”
“I want you to choose. If it happens again.”
Thunder rolled in the distance. But the skies were clear.
It wasn’t a storm.
It was something else. Something waking.
Seviah shivered.
The Original stepped forward at last, her presence eerily calm.
“There’s a facility in the North Wing. Off-grid. Still functional. They're preparing to awaken new subjects. Children. Infants.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they used my code to build it.”
Everyone looked at Seviah again.
“Then it’s your decision,” said Karo. “We destroy it—or we reclaim it.”
“Destroying it means war,” Renn said flatly.
“Reclaiming it means power,” the Threadbreaker added.
Nali watched Seviah with soft eyes.
“You don’t have to lead. You just have to choose.”
Seviah’s fingers curled into fists. Her breath came shallowly.
“I don’t know who I am.”
“You’re all of us,” Nali said.
“That doesn’t help.”
Silence.
Then—
Karo stepped forward, placing something in her hand.
A small glass orb. Inside it, three threads of light swirled—one white, one gold, one black.
“This holds your first memory. The moment before the Gift fractured. When you were still whole.”
Seviah stared at it.
“If I break this… what happens?”
“You remember the war. The one that wasn’t. And the choice that ended it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then someone else makes the choice for you.”
The sky above rumbled again.
This time, it shook the ground.
Seviah closed her eyes.
The orb warmed in her palm.
The world didn’t crack open. It folded.
One moment she stood in the cold mountain chamber, orb pulsing in her palm. The next—she was barefoot in a field of red grass, the sky above her humming with unfamiliar stars.
The moon was too close. The air was too still.
It wasn’t a memory.
It wasn’t a dream.
It was before.
Seviah looked down at her hands.
They were aglow—midnight black, threaded with silver veins. They didn’t feel like hers.
She turned, searching the horizon.
The Original stood in the distance. But she was younger—twelve, maybe. Kneeling by a motionless boy, sobbing quietly. Her hair was pure white even then.
Seviah’s breath caught.
This was after the war. Not before it.
A figure stood to her left. Tall, graceful. Genderless. Glowing with an otherworldly presence.
“You remember now,” they said.
“Where is he?” Seviah asked, stepping forward. “Where’s the boy?”
“Scattered.”
“Why am I the one holding this?”
The beings tilted their heads.
“Because you were the only one who let go.”
Seviah frowned.
“Let go of what?”
“Control. Fear. Identity. You emptied yourself of all the things that made you small. And now you can choose.”
“Choose what?”
The sky above them fractured—like cracked glass. Through the cracks, she could see faces. Shadows. Her friends. The Threadbreaker. Nali. Renn.
Waiting.
Watching.
“You can let the war happen again,” the being said. “Or you can let the Gift become something new.”
“I don’t even know what the Gift is.”
“Then make it something it’s never been.”
“I’m not a god,” Seviah whispered.
“No,” they said gently. “You’re a thread." And all threads lead somewhere. Yours just happens to lead… to the end.”
“The end of what?”
The being didn’t answer.
Instead, they began to fade.
The sky split open.
Light poured in—
And Seviah screamed as the past collapsed into the present.
Back in the real world, Seviah collapsed to her knees, eyes blazing silver and black. Her breath came in short, heavy gasps. The orb was gone—shattered into mist.
Everyone stared at her.
Karo stepped forward, reverent.
“You saw it,” he said.
Seviah nodded, shaking.
“Then what’s your choice?” Renn asked.
Seviah stood, taller than she had before. Stronger. Her voice didn’t waver this time.
“We go north.”
“To destroy it?” the Threadbreaker asked.
“To rewrite it.”
A spark ignited behind her eyes.
“If this is the second war… we fight it our way.”
- Writer
