I didn’t have ti to scream at anyone, which usually ant things were already bad.
"Cinders, gather fla threads from every open hearth. Seal the periter ones last."
She nodded once and vanished across the courtyard, shouting in clipped bursts. I heard Relay cursing before I saw him—already halfway into the village’s half-broken relay shrine, elbow-deep in cracked mosscrete.
Thirteen minutes wasn’t a lot.
And the fire didn’t wait.
The first flicker ca at the eleven-minute mark. Nothing dramatic. Just a twitch in the air. A hesitation in how the wind moved through heat. Like the sky had second thoughts about what warmth was supposed to feel like.
The villagers felt it too.
So clutched candles like anchors. Others backed away from the main basin, whispering words that didn’t belong to any liturgy I’d taught. One of them—an older woman with soot-dark nails—held her hands above a pile of ash and whispered for forgiveness.
Cinders passed a handspan-wide ring of woven bark. Fla thread, coiled and twisted like a hungry loop.
"Ergency anchor," she said. "It’ll burn too fast. But it’ll give you five seconds of clean thread."
"Won’t need five," I said.
"Arrogant," she muttered.
Behind us, the system chirped. But not like usual. It didn’t feel personal.
[Flaprint Priority: Contested]
[Correction Signature Approaching – Unknown Alignnt]
[Periter Thread Stability: Declining]
Relay threw sothing. It didn’t land anywhere useful. Just bounced off a charred cart and rolled into a ditch.
"I can’t stabilize this," he said, fur puffed out.
He glared at , then dove back into the shrine. Bits of splintered relay flew as he carved sothing new. I didn’t check what it was. I trusted him to scream properly in his own language.
At nine minutes, the light began to curl.
Not dim, not bright. Heat bent around corners like water. I touched a fla at my side, and it recoiled. In fear. In doubt.
I don’t think it knew if it was mine anymore.
The rcenary—still watching—moved closer to the villagers. But didn’t help.
Cinders caught looking.
"They’re not here to interfere," she said. "Only to take notes."
"They’ll be real helpful when we’re ash and soone needs a report."
She smirked grimly.
Eight minutes.
The village’s flaprint—already wobbly from mimic interference—glitched at the northern node. A glyphline pulsed, then reversed. The basin flared up, then in. One of the kids scread.
I moved.
The fire paused.
Then leaned toward .
It wasn’t much.
Seven minutes.
Relay stumbled out of the shrine, his claws covered in soot and Won’t stop it. Might twist it just enough."
I nodded. "Will it hold?"
"No."
"Perfect."
The air trembled.
Then the system pinged again.
[Correction Pulse Inbound]
[Override Threshold Approaching – 88%]
[Anchors Required: Fla-Aligned, Intent-Clean]
"Intent clean?" I muttered.
Cinders arrived beside . Her apron was burned along the hem. She didn’t ntion it.
"We’re out of ti," she said.
We stood side by side, and for once, I didn’t have a speech.
I just reached forward.
Cinders mirrored .
The pulse arrived.
And nothing burned.
Not yet.
The correction pulse didn’t roar. It folded in.
Like the world took a breath inward and forgot how to exhale.
Every open fla in the village warped. Not out—in. Pulled toward the sa unseen center. Colors collapsed. The campfire turned gray at the edges. Heat twisted sideways.
Then sothing cut through the air.
Like a line being drawn with a burning needle, from sky to ground.
The shape dropped into the basin.
It didn’t walk. It arrived. Like it had always been part of the fire and just hadn’t stood up until now.
No face. No color. Just fla bent into a wrong outline—a smooth humanoid blur made from mirrored firethreads. Its limbs flexed like unfinished gestures. The center of its chest pulsed with a dull, fractured spiral.
I lunged without waiting.
Five steps. Slamd my heel into the anchor ring and lit it.
Fla burst up—real fla, mine—and I pulled a defensive hook through the ground, curling the thread into a half-shield.
The construct moved sideways.
No, it slid.
Its body didn’t pivot—just reoriented. Like it was deciding which direction to belong to.
Cinders didn’t hesitate. She swept in from the right with a snap-burst of trailspice powder, fingers trailing a narrow lick of heat-thread. Her foot caught the edge of the basin and she twisted, launching a spiral kick wrapped in smoke.
It connected.
The fla-thing staggered. Its chest flickered. But instead of breaking—
It caught the rhythm.
Not perfectly.
It swung back. Cinders ducked, but not fast enough. The return arc clipped her shoulder, and she grunted, rolling into a backpedal.
"It’s syncing!" I shouted.
I dropped low and dragged a sigil across the dust, just motion. Fla flowed behind my fingers, responding to intent alone.
The construct twitched. Mirrored .
I changed the pattern halfway through.
Looped when it expected a spike. Dropped into a flat press and kicked dust into its vision—if it even had any. While it flinched, I surged forward and drove my elbow into the center of its chest.
Contact.
It scread—not with sound, but with color.
Its outer limbs flared into sharp contrast, bright enough to sear afterimages into the air. One hand snapped into a mimic of my gesture—earlier that day, when I sealed the village basin.
"Oh no you don’t."
I grabbed its wrist, reversed the flow, and flared a cancel-thread through the joint. The limb ca off in a burst of twisting smoke. It didn’t bleed. It just spilled echoes.
Relay joined then, hurling a pair of anchoring shards wrapped in copper-salt bindings. They landed wide—but when he snapped his fingers, they sang. A tonal dissonance spun through the air.
The mimic flinched. Its shape vibrated. Lost cohesion.
Cinders took her shot.
She surged forward, pivoting off a cooking pot she’d left in the dirt—slamming one boot onto the rim to launch herself over the mimic. While airborne, she poured raw broth across her arm—superheated mid-flight—and lashed it down in a boiling arc across the construct’s shoulder.
It burned.
With pain. With confusion.
The construct reached up—tried to mimic the motion—and its own threads rejected it. Too chaotic.
It began to unravel.
That’s when I stepped in, again.
Motion clean. My foot planted, my hands traced the oldest flaprint we had. The one I made in the dark, alone, with nothing but stubborn belief.
I slamd it into the construct’s chest.
And it cracked.
The spiral at its center flared, hissed, then split in half. Light bled out like a punctured signal flare. Its whole body folded inward—not defeated. Just overwritten.
It collapsed, and the fla that made it dissolved into harmless curls of smoke.
We stood in silence.
Breathing hard. Dirt scorched around us. The camp’s flas slowly rekindling.
The system responded slower this ti.
Like it was processing more than one voice.
[Unauthorized Signature Overwritten]
[Echo Fragnt Terminated – Partial Recovery Achieved]
[Source Identifier: Echo Regent Threadline – Incomplete]
[System Caution: Further Contact Imminent]
Cinders exhaled slowly. Her hair still stead.
"Tell that’s the last one."
I didn’t answer.
Because it wasn’t.
And we all knew it.
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