~ "Not all prisons have walls. Some are stitched in silence." ~
Spidey walked in silence across the shimmering thread bridge that unfurled from the Mirror Realm. Each step hummed like a heartbeat, as if the Web itself was remembering her. Beneath the silk lay no sky, no ground just endless dark, stitched faintly with drifting memories.
Nyxi sat quietly on her shoulder, for once not saying anything. It wasn't peace. It was a pause like a breath held just before a story turned.
The fog thickened ahead, pale and cool, curling like fingers through the strands. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it parted.
And before them stood a gate.
---
It was not made of wood, or stone, or metal.
The gate was entirely of woven memories glowing strands twisted together with scenes from forgotten lives. A lullaby sung in a dying tongue. A face pressed against a window, waiting. A pair of hands letting go.
Spidey stepped closer, mesmerized.
> "What is this place?" she asked softly.
> "The Gate of Trials," Nyxi replied, her voice reverent. "Beyond it lie the Root-Chambers where the first stories sleep."
> "What kind of trials?"
Nyxi turned to her, her many eyes gleaming.
> "The ones you've hidden from yourself."
---
The gate did not open with a creak or a sound. It simply… parted.
Spidey stepped through, and the world changed again.
Gone were the threads of silk and starlight. This place was earthy, thick with roots that pulsed faintly as if carrying blood or memory. The air smelled like forgotten soil deep, old, alive. Above her, the ceiling was not sky but tangled branches, glowing faintly with runes.
> "The Web was born here," Nyxi whispered. "Not in the sky, not in the trees, but in the wounds."
> "What wounds?"
> "You'll see."
---
There were three paths.
One wound downward, spiraling into darkness.
One split into countless doorways each flickering with soft lights, like dreams barely remembered.
And the last was a tunnel of threads shifting colors, pulling at her fingertips with every step closer.
> "You must choose," Nyxi said. "Each one leads to a trial. Each one takes something."
> "And gives?"
Nyxi hesitated.
> "Sometimes."
---
Spidey chose the tunnel of threads.
It pulled her in like water down a drain slow at first, then faster, faster
Until suddenly, she wasn't standing anymore.
She was in a bedroom.
Her bedroom.
But younger. Smaller.
The walls still carried scribbles of her childhood stories. A broken music box rested on the shelf, playing a warped lullaby. And on the floor… sat a little girl.
Herself.
Tiny Spidey. Curled into a ball. Crying into her knees.
Spidey's breath caught.
> "This is…" she whispered.
> "A thread you never mended," Nyxi said softly. "You buried it. Now it's fraying."
---
Spidey knelt down.
> "Hey," she whispered to the younger version of herself. "It's okay."
The little girl looked up, her eyes hollow.
> "They said I was too weird," she said. "They laughed. Mama said to stop talking to spiders. That I was scaring people."
She held up a crushed paper a story Spidey had once written, full of webs and magic and monsters who were kind.
> "She threw it away."
Spidey's heart cracked.
> "I remember," she said. "I never told anyone. But I cried for days."
The child nodded. "I stopped writing after that."
> "But I didn't," Spidey whispered. "I kept the stories. Inside. Quiet. But alive."
She reached out and took the child's hand.
The room melted away.
---
Spidey was back in the Root-Chamber, but a golden thread had stitched itself into her palm.
> "You faced it," Nyxi said. "That's one."
> "There's more?" Spidey asked, though she already knew.
Nyxi nodded.
> "The truth is not a thread. It's a web. To see it all, you must walk every strand."
---
The next path she took was the spiral into darkness.
Each step made the world colder. Shadows slithered up the walls. Whispers echoed not from spirits, but from her own mind.
"You don't care."
"You forgot them."
"You forgot who you were."
Spidey stumbled, heart pounding.
Nyxi darted beside her.
> "Don't stop. They are echoes. They want to root in you."
> "But they're right," Spidey choked. "I forgot so much. I—what if I don't deserve to remember?"
Nyxi's eyes glowed.
> "Then choose to remember anyway."
---
At the bottom of the spiral, she found a pool.
Still. Black. Reflective.
When she looked in, it didn't show her face.
It showed every person in her life.
Her father, fading into smoke.
The villagers, left behind in the ruins of their village.
Even her mother angry, sharp tongued, but once, long ago, she had sung her lullabies.
Spidey whispered into the pool.
> "I'm sorry."
And the pool whispered back.
> "Then don't forget them."
---
She dipped her fingers in.
Pain lanced up her arm but not the kind that wounded. The kind that stitched.
Another thread glowed into her palm a thread of sorrow, now made into strength.
---
By the time Spidey emerged from the Root-Chambers, she had walked all three trials.
The third one had no words. Just a doorway made of mirrors that showed her what the world would be like if she gave up now.
Empty skies.
A torn Web.
A lonely girl in a village that forgot her.
She didn't step inside.
She stitched it shut with a thought.
---
At the heart of the Chamber stood a loom.
Not broken. Not whole.
Waiting.
> "You are ready," Nyxi said.
> "To weave?"
> "To choose the thread that will define the next part of your journey."
Spidey stepped forward. She reached into her chest and this time, she didn't offer laughter, or memory.
She offered hope.
Hope that she was more than her pain. Hope that broken things could still be beautiful.
She wove the thread into the loom.
The Web shimmered far above, brighter than ever stronger, thicker, alive.
---
TO BE CONTINUED…
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