Chapter 5: First Weave
Chapter 5: First Weave
“The Weaver… That’s what the blue screen called it. ‘Entity of Somnus’,” Elle whispered, the words feeling alien and profane on her tongue. She stood in Arthur Pendelton’s study, the scent of old paper a flimsy shield against the encroaching dread. The abstract drawing of the swirling, many-eyed shadow in his book was a near-perfect portrait of the thing that had haunted her first nightmare.
Arthur closed the heavy tome, the thud echoing the finality of a gavel. “The System, you called it? I do not know of such things. Our ancestors spoke of insight, of instinct. Perhaps it is a new language for an ancient grammar.” He fixed her with his weary, knowledgeable eyes. “But you must understand this, child. That mark on your wrist, the Warden’s Eye… it is not a brand that marks you as prey. It is a mantle. It does not make you its target. It makes you its jailer.”
A jailer. Not a victim. The word sent a jolt through Elle’s exhaustion. For the first time since she’d woken with the sigil on her skin, a feeling other than terror began to surface: a fragile, desperate sliver of agency. Her desire, raw and immediate, was no longer just to survive, but to fight back. “How?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “What can I do? I’m an actress, not a… a warden.”
“The Weaver is a creature of the mind, of the Dreamscape,” Arthur explained, his voice taking on a professorial cadence. “It is made of thought, of emotion. You cannot fight it with fists, but with will.” He gestured to her wrist. “That is your focus. The wellspring of your power. The blood of the first wardens flows through you, and you must now learn to draw upon it. We will start with the simplest and most vital lesson: the First Weave. A protective ward.”
The obstacle was the chasm between who she was and what he was asking her to be. A ward? A weave? The words belonged in the fantasy scripts she sometimes auditioned for, not in her life. The memory of Liam’s skeptical face, so sure of his rational world, flashed in her mind. He would call this a delusion, a symptom of her breakdown. Doubt, cold and insidious, crept in. Could she really do this? Or was she, and this kind old man, both completely insane?
“I… I don’t know how,” she stammered, the weight of her own disbelief pressing down on her.
“You do,” Arthur insisted gently. He guided her to a simple wooden chair in the center of the room. “Acting is the art of channeling belief, is it not? You make an audience feel joy or terror by believing in it yourself. This is no different. The Dreamscape responds to intent. You must believe.”
She sat, her hands trembling in her lap. “What do I do?”
“Close your eyes. Breathe. Feel the sigil on your wrist. It is not just ink on skin; it is a part of you. Find the energy that resides there.”
Elle took a shaky breath and closed her eyes. The darkness behind her lids was not peaceful. It was populated by images of the shadow hound, its obsidian teeth bared, and the memory of its claws tearing into her arm. The throbbing pain in her bandaged wound was a potent reminder of her failure to escape.
As if sensing her struggle, the very atmosphere in the room began to change. A sudden, unnatural chill seeped through the floorboards, raising goosebumps on her arms. The comforting smell of cinnamon and old books was tainted by the familiar, foul scent of grave dirt and decay from the hunting ground. The Weaver was fighting back.
...so fragile... a whisper slithered at the edge of her hearing, the same sibilant voice that Ben had heard in his headphones. ...a little light in a great, hungry dark... you will break...
“Ignore the echoes,” Arthur’s voice cut through the psychic static, calm and firm. “It is weak in this world. A bully whispering from behind a locked door. Focus on your purpose. Why do you need this power? Not for yourself. Why?”
Her purpose. The question sliced through her fear. She saw Ben’s face, contorted in a seizure of pure terror. She saw the weary faces of the crew, all of them sleeping soundly in the asylum, their creative minds shining like beacons for a predator they couldn't see. She even saw Liam, stubborn, frustrating, brilliant Liam, pouring his entire soul into this film, completely blind to the danger he was courting.
A fierce, protective fire ignited in her chest, burning away the doubt. It wasn't just about her anymore. She was the only one who could see the wolf circling the flock.
She focused on that feeling, that raw, desperate need to protect them. She reached inward, not with her hand, but with her will, searching for the sigil. She felt it—not as a tingle, but as a deep, resonant hum, a dormant power source. She pulled.
A warmth spread from her wrist up her arm, chasing away the unnatural chill. It felt like liquid light flowing through her veins. She lifted her right hand, palm up, and imagined that energy pouring out of her. When she opened her eyes, a gasp caught in her throat.
A faint, shimmering thread of silver-blue light, no thicker than a spider’s silk, was spiraling up from the center of her palm. It was beautiful, ethereal, and real. She was doing it.
“Good,” Arthur breathed, his voice filled with awe. “Now, weave it. Give it form. Will it to become a shield.”
Back at the asylum, chaos reigned. Liam paced in front of the chapel set, his face a thundercloud. Elle’s unexplained absence had thrown the entire morning’s shoot schedule into disarray. He was angry, stressed, and underneath it all, deeply worried.
“Where the hell is she?” he muttered to his cinematographer, who just shrugged helplessly.
“Alright, forget it!” Liam yelled, his frustration boiling over. “We’ll get the reverse shots. I want the Klieg light moved five feet to the left to get a harsher shadow on the pews. Now!”
He stepped forward, directing the grips, positioning himself directly under the heavy, antique-style lamp they had rigged to a temporary scaffolding near the ceiling. He squinted up, analyzing the quality of the light, lost in his world of angles and shadows.
High above him, unnoticed, a thick layer of greasy, black ooze, like corrupted motor oil, seeped from the threads of a large bolt securing the lamp’s bracket. It wasn't rust; it was a physical manifestation of the Weaver’s encroaching influence. With a sickening, metallic groan, the corroded bolt gave way.
In the study, Elle felt a sudden, violent lurch in her gut, a psychic scream of imminent danger. She didn’t know its source, only that it was sharp, specific, and aimed at someone she cared about. An image of Liam’s face, looking up in confusion, flashed through her mind.
There was no more time for careful practice.
“NOW!” she screamed, shoving every ounce of her will, her fear, and her newfound protective fire into the glowing threads of light.
The delicate spiral of energy in her hand exploded outwards.
On set, time seemed to slow. The heavy Klieg light, weighing over a hundred pounds, plummeted from the ceiling. A grip screamed. Liam looked up, his eyes widening in shocked comprehension, frozen in place as a ton of metal and glass hurtled towards his head.
He was going to die.
A split second before impact, the air above him shimmered and warped. A translucent shield of silver-blue light snapped into existence, a foot above his head. For a heartbeat, the intricate pattern of the sleeping eye blazed at its center, impossibly bright.
CRASH!
The Klieg light smashed into the unseen barrier. The sound was not of metal hitting metal, but of shattering crystal and roaring energy. The ward held for a fraction of a second, deflecting the lamp’s trajectory with impossible force. It was flung sideways, crashing into the stone floor a dozen feet away, its housing crumpling and its bulb exploding in a shower of sparks and glass.
Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the shimmering shield vanished, leaving nothing but a faint scent of ozone and a stunned, absolute silence. Liam stood untouched, staring at the wreckage, then at the empty air where his salvation had just been.
In the antique shop, Elle cried out and collapsed back into the chair, the room spinning around her. A wave of exhaustion so profound it felt like a physical blow washed over her, leaving her gasping for breath, her muscles trembling. The light in her palm was gone.
Arthur Pendelton rushed to her side, his face pale but his eyes shining with a solemn respect.
“You did it,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “You have woven your first ward.” He looked towards the window, in the direction of the distant asylum. “The Weaver knows you are awake now. The true fight has just begun.”
Characters
Elara 'Elle' Vance
Liam Cole
