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Caloroga Shark Media Welcome to the Night Market, a special
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Romance Weekly and Ghost Scary Stories crossover event. This is
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episode three, What Binds Us? The whispers started before I
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even made it home. At first, I thought they were
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coming from my car, radio static voices bleeding through between stations.
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But when I turned the radio off completely, they were
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still there, emanating from the speakers, the air vents, the
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very upholstery of my seats. Soft conversations in languages I
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didn't recognize, punctuated by my name, spoken in tones that
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made my skin crawl. Avenue Ava, Kim, She's coming home
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to us soon. By the time I reached my apartment building,
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the voices had multiplied into a chorus. They whispered from
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the elevator buttons as I pressed them, echoed from the
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fluorescent lights in the hallway, murmured from behind the doors
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of my neighbors, Neighbors who should have been asleep at
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two a m. But whose apartments now glowed with the
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same amber light I'd seen spilling from the market. My
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hands shook as I fumbled with my keys. The silver
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thread in my chest pulsed with each whisper, growing warmer
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and more insistent. I could feel something tugging on the
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other end, not physically, but deeper than that. Something was
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reeling me in like a fish on a line, and
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every breath made the line shorter. I locked the door
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behind me and sagged against it, but the relief lasted
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only seconds. The whispers were inside my apartment, now coming
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from the walls, the floor, the air itself, And when
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I flicked on the lights, my reflection in the hallway
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mirror made me scream. I was translucent, not completely. I
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could still see myself clearly, but there was a quality
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to my reflection that hadn't been there before, Like I
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was a photograph that had been left in the sun
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too long, slowly fading around the edges. I pressed my
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hand against the mirror, and for a terrifying moment, I
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could see through my palm to the wall behind it.
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She's coming apart, one of the voices observed, with clinical interest.
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The thread is drawing her essence back to us. Soon,
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there won't be enough left to anchor her to this reality. No,
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I whispered, backing away from the mirror. This isn't real.
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I'm just tired, just stressed. People don't fade. People don't.
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The lights flickered, and suddenly I wasn't in my apartment anymore.
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I was standing in the market, surrounded by the familiar
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maze of stalls and amber lanterns. But something was wrong
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with the overlay. I could see both realities at once,
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like a double exposed photograph. My kitchen table occupied the
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same space as a stall selling bottled dreams. My couch
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sat where a vendor hawked stolen youth, and through it
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all the other customers wandered their eternal paths, their silver
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threads glowing brighter in the darkness. This isn't possible, I
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said aloud, but my voice echoed strangely, as if it
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was coming from very far away. Everything is possible when
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you belong to us, The collector's voice rumbled through both realities.
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The boundaries between worlds grow thin for our collections. Soon
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you won't need the new moon to visit. Soon, you
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won't be able to leave at all. The overlay lasted
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only a few seconds before my apartment snapped back into focus,
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but the message was clear. I was being pulled into
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the market's reality, whether I wanted to be or not.
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The silver thread wasn't just connecting me to the collector.
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It was slowly dragging me across the dimensional divide. I
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spent the rest of the night huddled on my couch,
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afraid to look in any reflective surface, afraid to close
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my eyes in case I woke up somewhere else entirely,
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But exhaustion eventually won, and I dozed fitfully. As dawn approached,
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I woke up in the market, not my apartment, overlaid
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with market imagery, the actual market, with the familiar sense
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impossible spices, and the warm glow of lanterns overhead. I
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was lying on the ground between two stools, and concerned
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vendors were gathering around me, like I was some kind
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of curiosity She's manifesting during daylight. A woman with moth
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wings whispered to her companion, I've never seen the pool
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work so quickly, new soul, the other replied, examining me
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with eyes like black pearls. The collector must be very
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hungry or very interested. I scrambled to my feet, panic,
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clawing at my throat. How am I here? The market
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only appears during the new moon. The market appears when
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the collector wills it, the moth winged woman said gently,
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for most that's only during the new moon, but for
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special collections. She gestured to my chest, where the silver
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thread was now visible, pulsing with its own light. The
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rules bend. I followed the thread's path through the maze
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of stalls, pushing past customers who watched me with expressions
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of pity and hunger. Some reached out as I passed,
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trying to touch the thread, and when they did, I
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felt flashes of their memories, fragments of lives traded away,
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peace by peace, until nothing remained but the endless search
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for wholeness. A man who traded his ability to love
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for perfect eloquence, now giving speeches to empty rooms. A
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woman who sold her sense of time for eternal youth,
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trapped in a single moment that stretched into forever. Children
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who'd bartered their capacity for joy in exchange for adult wisdom,
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now ancient in minds that would never again no wonder,
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all of them connected to the web, all of them
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feeding the thing that waited in the shadows. The thread
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led me to kieran stall, where he stood with his
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back to me, shoulders rigid with tension. He was talking
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to someone I couldn't see. His voice, low and urgent
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told you she wasn't ready. The integration period should be longer,
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give her time to adjust. The collector grows impatient. Came
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a voice like grinding stone. She carries flavors we have
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not tasted in centuries. Her connections run deep, to family,
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to craft, to dreams not yet abandoned. She will feed
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us well. And when she's hollow, like the rest of them,
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when there's nothing left to extract, you'll discard her and
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move on to the next victim, as we always have,
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as we always will. Your objections are noted and dismissed. Honey, merchant,
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you have your own debts to consider. Kieran's hands clenched
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into fists, and I could see silver threads extending from
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his own body, dozens of them, far more than any
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other customer. They wrapped around his arms like chains, connecting
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him to the web with bonds that looked impossible to break. Kieran,
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I called softly. He spun around, and the relief in
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his eyes was overwhelming, but it was quickly replaced by
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horror as he took in my translucent state. Ava. You
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shouldn't be here, not during daylight. The polls shouldn't be
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strong enough yet yet I stepped closer, studying the threads
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that bound him. How long have you been planning this?
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How long have you known exactly what would happen to me?
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His expression crumbled longer than I want to admit, but
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not by choice. I swear to you, I'm bound to
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this place, trapped by debts I accumulated trying to save
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someone else. He looked away, someone I loved. The grinding
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voice spoke again, though I still couldn't see its source.
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Tell her the story, honey, merchant. Tell her how you
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came to us, full of noble intentions and foolish hope.
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Perhaps she will learn from your mistakes. Kieran's jaw tightened,
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but he began to speak, his voice hollow with old pain.
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Her name was Elina, my fiance. She was dying cancer.
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The doctor said there was nothing they could do. But
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I'd heard rumors, stories about places where impossible things could
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be brought for the right price. So I went looking.
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The market around us seemed to darken as he spoke,
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the amber light growing dim and cold. I found them
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on a new moon in Barcelona, in an alley that
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shouldn't have existed. They offered me a cure for Elena,
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a vial of liquid starlight that would burn the cancer
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from her body and restore her to perfect health. The
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price was my freedom, ten years of service, feeding them customers,
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luring the desperate and hungry into their web. My stomach clenched,
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But you saved her. I thought I had his voice cracked.
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The cure worked. Elena's cancer disappeared overnight, her strength returned,
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her color came back. For three beautiful months, we planned
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our wedding. We were going to have the ceremony in
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her grandmother's garden, surrounded by roses and fairy lights. And
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then he paused, struggling with the memory. Then she started
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forgetting things, little things at first, where she'd put her keys,
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the name of our favorite restaurant. But it got worse.
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The cure hadn't just removed the cancer. It had removed
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part of her soul, the part that held her memories,
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her personality, everything that made her a lanor. By the end,
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she looked at me like a stranger. She died six
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months later, not from cancer, but from forgetting how to live.
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Tears streamed down my face as the full horror of
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his situation became clear, And your ten years of service
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became forever, the grinding voice interjected with cruel satisfaction. The
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contract specified that his service would end when the recipient
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was fully healed, but since she died, the debt remains unpaid.
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He has been with us for sixty ths three years now,
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watching hundreds of souls make the same bargain he did
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sixty three years. I looked at Kieran with new eyes,
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seeing now the weight he carried, the ageless quality that
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I'd mistaken for natural beauty. He'd been trapped here since
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the nineteen sixties, forced to watch as person after person
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fell into the same web that had claimed him. Why
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didn't you warn me away more forcefully, I asked, Because
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I can't, he said, simply. The threads prevent me from
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directly interfering with the collector's will. I can offer warnings
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express concern, but I cannot refuse a customer who insists
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on making a trade. If I try, the silver threads
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around his arms tightened and he gasped in pain. If
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I try, the punishment is severe. The market shuddered around us,
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and I realized with growing alarm that my apartment was
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bleeding through again. I could see my kitchen, through the
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honey stool, my bedroom door, overlapping with a vendor selling dreams.
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The two realities were merging, and I was the catalyst.
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What's happening. You're becoming a bridge, Kieran said urgently. The
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thread is strong enough now to pull pieces of the
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market into your world. Soon everyone you care about will
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be at risk. The collector will be able to reach
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them through you. The thought of my mother, my editor,
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even my distant friends being pulled into this nightmare because
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of my choices made me physically sick. But worse than
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that was the growing certainty that I was running out
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of time. My body was becoming more translucent by the minute,
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and I could feel my thoughts becoming scattered, harder to
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hold on to. There has to be a way to
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break the connection, I said desperately. The grinding voice laughed,
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a sound like bones breaking. The only way to break
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the thread is death, and even then, the soul belongs
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to us. Would you like to see the others who
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tried The web in the shadows suddenly lit up with
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thousands of points of light, Souls trapped within its structure,
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still conscious, still suffering, unable to escape even in death.
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Their whispers rose in a chorus of despair, calling out
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warnings and pleas that fell on deaf ears. But Kieran
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was studying me with an intensity that made my chest tight.
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There might be another way, he said, slowly, something the
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collector has never encountered before. Impossible, the voice snarled. We
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have seen every form of resistance, every desperate gambit. Humans
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are predictable in their selfishness. But what if someone chose
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to share the burden instead of escape it. Kieran's storm
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gray eyes locked onto mine. What if two people willingly
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connected their threads, creating a bond stronger than the collector's control.
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I felt something shift in the air around us, attention
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that hadn't been there before. The grinding voice fell silent,
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and even the other customers stopped their wandering to stare
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at us. That's never been tried, i whispered, because no
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one has ever cared enough about another person to risk it.
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Kieran replied. The market feeds on isolation, on people so
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desperate and alone that they'll trade anything for a moment
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of connection. But genuine love, freely given. He reached out
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toward me, his hand stopping just short of my cheek
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that might be something it can't digest. The very air
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seemed to recoil from the idea. The amber lanterns flickered,
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the ground trembled, and the whispers from the web rose
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to a shriek of rage. No, the collector's voice roared
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through both realities. You will not poison our collection with
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your sentiment. The girl belongs to us, as do you.
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Any attempt to interfere will result in immediate collection of
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all debts. But I was already reaching for Kieran's hand,
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drawn by something deeper than desperation. Maybe it was the
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way he'd tried to warn me despite the cost to himself.
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Maybe it was the sixty three years of suffering I
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could see in his eyes. Or maybe it was simply that,
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in a place designed to isolate and consume, he was
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the only real connection i'd found. Our fingers touched and
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the world exploded into light. The market screamed, not just
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the collector, but the very structure of the place itself,
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as if something fundamental had been violated. My silver thread,
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which had been pulling me steadily toward the web, suddenly
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snapped taut and began to vibrate like a guitar string.
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Kiiran's dozens of threads did the same, creating a harmony
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that cut through the collector's roar like a blade. And then, impossibly,
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our threads began to merge, not just connecting, actually weaving
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together into something new, something that pulsed with its own
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power instead of feeding the web. The sensation was indescribable,
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like suddenly being able to see colours that had never
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existed before. I could feel Kieran's thoughts, his memories, his
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emotions flowing into me, while mine flowed into him sixty
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three years of pain and regret, but also hope, stubborn,