The Stitches that Bind Us

I breathe in the crisp autumn air as a breeze lightly tousles my blonde hair. My tranquil blue-eyed gaze drinks in the hustle and bustle of the marketplace, before drifting over to the woman beside me. Her copper hair is like a crown of flames as the sunlight hits it just right, and her hazel eyes seem to keenly take in our surroundings. A soft sigh escapes her. “Life is like a stitch. It hangs by a thread,” she muses, breaking the silence between us. Her words take me a bit by surprise. They are poetic in a way and yet spoken almost nonchalantly. “Whatever do you mean, m’lady?” I ask curiously.  She looks back over at me, the corner of her lips twitching upwards. She then reaches her hand out to me. “Take my hand, and I will show you the way,” she replies softly. Glancing down at her outstretched hand, my brows furrow slightly. As my gaze comes back up to meet hers, I suddenly become hyper aware of her close proximity to me. She’s close enough to where I can distinguish the golden brown that encircles her pupil from the halo of blue-green around the edges of her iris. I find that I am inexplicably entranced by the fathomless depths of her eyes. I blindly reach for her hand, a spark coursing through me when our fingers touch, and I feel as if I am cemented into place as her fingers lace with mine. That is until a sharp bite of pain going up my arm rudely awakens me, breaking whatever spell she has seemingly cast on me, at least if for the moment. I let out an audible gasp as I instinctively recoil my hand from her grasp. However, she quickly grabs my wrist before I can pull it away entirely, and her grip isn’t soft as it had been before. No, it’s firm, almost aggressive in manner, with her nails digging into my skin. I glance downwards with a grimace, only for my eyes to widen in horror as I can see black veins moving down her forearm, transferring across our joined hands, and then moving rapidly up my own arm. I begin to panic, but my body doesn’t reciprocate, feeling as if it is paralyzed by fear. My wide panic-stricken gaze comes up sharply to meet eyes that are now shockingly blood red and have an emblem somehow etched onto their surface. I let out a strangled gasp, and I frantically look about for help since my own feet refuse to budge. However, to my dismay, everyone around me seems blissfully unaware of my predicament and are simply going about their business as usual.  “No one can save you now,” a demonic voice suddenly fills my head, causing my heart to about jump out of my chest. The words are promptly punctuated by maniacal laughter. I grit my teeth before a scream is ripped from my lungs as the pain increases tenfold, bringing me to my knees. It feels as if my innermost parts are being ripped in two.  “You are mine now,” she hisses, her hot breath on my ear. And then, in the blink of an eye, the pain is gone, and everything appears to have returned to normal. I am once again standing side-by-side the woman, gazing out at the bustling crowds of the marketplace in a companionable silence. I look down at my arms and hands, inspecting them on all sides, but all I see is fair blemish free skin. I frown in confusion as I stare down at them. In the end, I begin to consider the possibility that I may actually be losing my mind. “Everything alright?” the woman’s voice suddenly pipes up, causing me to jump. I look over at her warily, half expecting to see those beady red eyes again. I let out a breathy exhale as to my relief my gaze meets hazel eyes, which I note appear to be tinged with genuine concern. “Yeah—I mean, I’m fine,” I reply awkwardly. It’s a lie really, but I’m not about to voice the alternative, that I might be going insane. I give her a weak attempt at a reassuring smile, before I look back out at the crowds. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a hint of what looks like amusement in her eyes. However, when I do a double take, it’s gone. I shake my head lightly. ‘Yeah, I’m definitely losing my mind,’ I think to myself. I take a deep breath as I try to focus on the people milling about rather than my growing sense of paranoia. There is a certain weariness to my blue eyes as I take in the sights of the marketplace. The square is packed, with people bumping shoulders as they go from one vendor to the next. It’s a miracle really that we were able to find a spot that was mostly unimpeded by the crowds. My gaze scans the area, taking in the various vendors that are trying to entice people into buying their wares. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, but nevertheless, I find that there is a certain intrigue to it all. I glance over at the woman beside me, before looking back out at the crowds one last time. I am about to call it a day when something catches my eye, stopping me in my tracks.  My mouth falls agape as my gaze trails after a woman, but it’s not her beauty that gives me pause. No, it’s that I can suddenly make out thin, glowing threads crisscrossing the woman’s body like the intricate stitches on a garment. I rapidly blink my eyes, thinking that it will somehow right my vision, but it only proves to be in vain. The stitches are still there, moving in unison with her body, as if they are an actual part of her clothes, or perhaps her body itself. In my peripheral vision, I catch more of these glowing threads, this time on someone else. My gaze flits to another person and another and another. Everyone in the crowd now has the odd stitch work adorning their bodies! My breaths begin to come in and out sharply, as I’m legitimately starting to freak out. I’m seeing things that I can’t explain, and truthfully, it terrifies me. “You see it now too, don’t you?” the woman inquires, breaking through my panic. I turn to her sharply, and my eyes promptly widen as I’m faced with a network of black threads ominously glowing below the surface of her skin. My gaze slowly travels up her body to meet her calm hazel eyes. “There’s no need to be scared. You have a gift, one that few can profess to have. All you needed was a little nudge to realize your potential,” she croons, her soothing voice taking some of the edge off of me, while at the same time also raising more questions for me. I flinch away as she then reaches for my hand. “Shh, it’s alright. I promise it won’t hurt this time around,” she soothes. I reluctantly let her take my hand in hers. Her touch is soft as she caresses my hand, and a tingle goes through me as she skims her fingertips over my palm. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m afraid it couldn’t be helped. It had to be done,” she says almost remorsefully.  “W-what did you d-do to me?” I stutter, a little distracted by the feel of her fingers drawing circles on my skin. She suddenly stops mid-stroke to meet my gaze with a look of bewilderment. “I showed you the truth, of course,” she replies, shaking her head lightly. She then gives a pointed look towards the crowds. I follow her gaze back out to the sea of glowing threads, and my brows draw together. I look at her again with uneasy skepticism. “Which is?” I ask in a quiet incredulous voice, freeing my hand from her grip. Her lips thin at my actions, and she straightens her back. Her hazel eyes give me a onceover, before she lets out a soft sigh and turns to face the crowds. “What you see before you are the very fabric of our existence. The sewn threads are the stitches that hold our bodies together, and at the very core of us, connecting our head to our heart, is a thread of the greatest significance. Look closely, and you will see it. It glows more brightly than the rest. That is the person’s life force, their soul, if you will,” she explains, before looking back over at me. I make a face at her words as I stare out at the people milling about. ‘Now you sound like the insane one,’ I think to myself dubiously. A frown soon tugs down on my features as another thought occurs to me. ‘How else would one explain all this though?’ I let out a small disheartened sigh. Nevertheless, I decide to try to investigate it for myself. My eyes squint as I focus on an individual and then attempt to pick through all their threads for the one that supposedly marks the person’s soul. It still seems like a preposterous notion to me, but I figure there’s no harm in seeing if there is at least an inkling of truth to her words. A small exhale of astonishment leaves me as I finally pinpoint it. It glows brilliantly from its position at the center of the jungle of threads, which keep it hidden from view at first glance. My gaze travels its length, seeing how one end connects to the person’s heart and the other connects to the person’s head just as she had indicated it would. My blue eyes then flit between the threads I see in the crowd and her threads. I quickly note that while everyone else has threads in a glowing shade of gold, hers for some reason are pitch black and give off an ominous fog like glow. I soon find myself staring at the thread that’s supposed to mark her soul. Tendrils of dark smoke seem to coil around it before branching outwards throughout and beyond the boundaries of her body. My eyes follow one tendril in particular as it stretches outwards, turning into a black thread that then connects to—me. My heart leaps inside my chest, and I stumble backwards. Conscious thought leaves me, and I’m filled with the insatiable need to flee. I trip and fall over my feet as I turn, and fueled by pure adrenaline, I take off at a sprint, heading in the direction of the nearest side street. However, I don’t get very far before some unseen force rips me off my feet, sending me sprawling backwards onto the hard ground. “Where do you think you’re going?” that demonic voice from earlier suddenly fills my head. Before I can hardly catch my breath, I feel something wrap around my throat and lift me up into the air. I desperately claw at what feels like invisible hands clenching around my throat to slowly cut off my airway. I’m spun around to face the direction I had come from, and that’s when I see her, the woman I had once called my companion. Her eyes are blood red and etched with that mysterious emblem again. She makes a tsking noise at me as she saunters over to my dangling form. “What part of ‘you are mine’ do you just not understand?” she exclaims sharply. Her voice is laced with annoyance, as if my fight for survival is her greatest inconvenience. Dark spots start to obscure my vision, and my attempts to free myself slowly weaken as I begin to feel lightheaded. “Let me make myself clearer then. You are mine, your body and your soul. All of you. I cut that little thread that is your soul and bound it to mine, and there’s no reversing that,” she continues on. She then gives a flick of her wrist, and I am released. I go crashing to the ground, a searing jolt of pain going through me. I cough and sputter, and I take in several gasping breaths, drawing in every precious bit of oxygen I can for fear it will be taken from me again all too soon. “Come along, darling. Your lesson is not quite done yet,” she states, holding out her hand for me. I glance down at it, before my gaze meets hers with a note of defiance in my blue eyes. However, it is quickly quelled by the piercing look she gives me. I begrudgingly take her hand and let her help me back onto my feet. As I allow her to lead me back towards where we were originally, the sounds of screams across the marketplace grab my attention. I start to lurch forward, but my legs feel as if they are being held into place. I glance down to see tendrils of black smoke encompassing my legs like a ball and chain. I look up sharply, meeting her red eyed gaze. “In time, you will come to submit to my authority,” she says as she reaches over to caress my face. I start to pull my face away from her hand, but she harshly grabs my chin and forces me to look straight ahead. “Or this will be the fate of all you hold dear.” All hell seems to break loose before my very eyes. People are screaming and running in a blind panic, causing those who fall down to be trampled to death, and above the din, I can hear ferocious growls and gurgling screams. I see flashes of black and red in between the breaks of the crowd, and bodies litter the already blood-soaked ground. Suddenly, a large black wolf catapults itself out into the open and snatches a fleeing citizen a few yards in front of me. I watch in helpless horror as the wolf knocks the person to the ground and viciously starts tearing away strips of flesh as the person cries out in pain all the while. I can see as each glowing thread snaps as muscles are torn and bones are broken. Before finally, the thread that is the person’s soul is ripped from their body as the wolf severs their spine with an unsavory crunch of its powerful jaws. It drops the now limp and heavily mutilated body and licks the blood off of its jowls before looking up at me with piercing red eyes. An involuntary shiver runs down my spine, and I feel sick to my stomach. And then I blink, and it’s all gone.  I feel a sense of deja vu as I look out at the marketplace that is bustling with life. I glance over to the copper haired woman beside me as she lets out a soft sigh. “Life is like a stitch. It hangs by a thread,” she says.