Part 2: The Cold Awakening
With those final, chilling words, the seventeen men dissolved into the shadows. The blood vanished from the floor as if it had never been there, leaving behind a cold so intense it felt like the grave.
Jane remained on the floor, her body racked with violent, silent sobs. I looked at her, my heart hammering against my ribs. «Jane,» I whispered, my voice cracking. «What did you do? What wishes did you make to those things? Did you buy our wealth? Did you ask them to keep me from dying?»
She slowly looked up at me, her eyes hollow and dark. «I didn’t care about the money, and I didn’t care about the years,» she whispered, her voice devoid of life. «Don’t you remember ten years ago? The night you told me you didn’t love me anymore? The night you had your bags packed to leave me forever?»
A memory flickered in my mind—a cold Tuesday night, a suitcase, and a sudden, overwhelming change of heart that had kept me by her side for a decade.
«I couldn’t let you go,» she choked out. «The seventeen men… they were the keepers of your devotion. Every day they came to weave your love back into your heart. Those trousers were the only thing holding your soul to mine.»
As she spoke, a terrifying sensation washed over me. The warmth I had felt for Jane for the last ten years—the fierce, protective love I thought was mine—simply evaporated. It didn’t fade; it died instantly. I looked down at the woman I had cherished moments ago and felt…nothing. No anger, no pity, just a vast, icy void.
The spell was broken. The man who loved her was gone, murdered by his own hand in a fit of jealous rage. I turned away from her cries and walked toward the door, finally realizing that for ten years, I hadn’t been a husband—I had been a prisoner of the threads.
