Screaming Threads

'NOW'

Leroy thought as he clutched the knife tighter and jumped at the Priest, ducking under his arm and looping his legs around the Priest's waist.

From the suddenness of the action, the Priest lost his footing and started falling backward.

'This crazy kid,' he thought as he watched Leroy, whose face had now distorted beyond belief, showing multiple emotions at the same time, making it look like the face of a demon rather than a child's face.

While they were falling, Leroy tried to stab the Priest as fast as he could, aiming for the neck.

This time, though, the Priest had just enough time to move his arm so he could cover his neck. The knife came a split second later and got stabbed deep into the man's arm.

Finally, the Priest and Leroy landed on the ground with a thud, blood and dust mixing together.

"You bastard!" The Priest yelled as he tried to push Leroy off him, but the kid just wouldn't let go.

'I have to do something, fast, or I'll be dead if he's up on his feet.' Leroy thought, and then suddenly, an idea came to his head.

He clawed at the Priest's eyes using the hand he still had free, blinding him forever.

Screams of pain were heard as the Priest felt his eyes being clawed out.

Finally, Leroy felt like the Priest's push had gotten much weaker, so he grabbed the knife still stabbed in the Priest's arm and pulled it out, using the knife again to stab at the Priest's stomach repeatedly.

The screams stopped after a while, but Leroy didn't. No, he continued to stab the man over and over again. He didn't stop until his entire body had been covered in blood.

Getting up, Leroy looked down at what he had done.

'I'm sorry, it was either you or me, and I chose myself every time,' He thought even though guilt was tearing through his insides.

'I have to go. I don't have enough time as is,' Leroy thought as he started following the threads once again.

The red threads had already started combining into one. The further he went towards the source, the more threads combined together.

Leroy was almost running at this point as the thought that it was almost over repeated in his head.

A while later, all the threads had combined into one, all heading to one place.

Leroy could finally see the cause of his misery, the cause of his entire family's disappearance, the thing that had made him go against his lowest moral limits.

On the horizon, he could see a large clearing. It seemed to have been made by somehow erasing every building near it. Drawn on the ground was an enormous circular pattern with a crystal ball in the middle.

The crystal ball was yellow in color and a meter in diameter. It was shining as it made the countless threads that had combined together draw the pattern. The more the threads drew the pattern, the thinner they got.

Leroy had already gone to the building closest to the clearing and was now looking through a window to see if he could spot anyone around.

'There they are,' Leroy thought as he finally saw his last obstacle. Next to the crystal ball stood a woman with white hair cascading down her back. She wore the same clothes as all the other priests. However, Leroy couldn't see if she had any yellow stripes etched into them because of the distance.

She was holding her hands up with her eyes closed, her mouth opened so widely that it looked like her jaw had broken.

Leroy then started to hear something. It was an eerie sound that grated on his ear drums.

At first, it felt almost inviting, but that quickly faded away as Leroy started to hear a scream. No... it was like hundreds, if not thousands, of people were screaming together at once.

Leroy's ears started bleeding as he began to hold his hands over them, trying to mute the sounds as much as he could, but they just didn't stop.

Now it felt like they were hitting his very soul, as he started to vomit black blood.

'I have to stop her,' He thought while trying to hold himself together as best as he could and started running towards the woman, knife in hand.

It seemed like the woman was in a frozen state, unable to see and hear as constant screams pierced through her.

'Just a bit farther, come on, I can do this,' Leroy thought as he was halfway there, his vision going blurry, and now he felt like he couldn't even talk anymore as his throat had constricted so much.

As Leroy got closer, he could finally see what was happening more clearly.

The woman was using the crystal ball to bring the threads inside her abdomen, and then she was releasing them through her mouth. All the threads seemed to be separated once again through this process.

'The screams are people, they're screaming in pain, Arthur, Travis... they one of them,' Leroy thought as he gathered his strength once more so he could just go a little further, just a little more so that he could finally end this madness.

Finally, he arrived, only a few feet away from the woman. At this point, the screams had gotten so loud that Leroy thought the people were right next to him.

Gathering up what little power he had left in his body, Leroy brought the dagger to the woman's throat and stabbed her.

Light seemed to return to her eyes as she stared at Leroy, but it was too late. She couldn't recover from her arteries being pierced. The woman fell to her knees, and Leroy thought that it was finally over, but no...

The screams didn't stop. They only continued to get louder and louder.

The pain grew unbearable as Leroy clutched his heart. He felt like it was about to explode.

'It's just a step away, just one more step,' He thought as he slowly approached the crystal.

He raised both his arms up, the knife clenched by both his hands, and finally...

After hours of pain,

After almost losing his mind more than once,

After having to lose even what he called his bottom line,

He brought his arms down and struck the crystal ball. It strangely broke into thousands of pieces with just a single attack, almost as if exploding.

Leroy had Won.