Chapter 3: The Weight of Twelve loops

Twelve loops. A significant passage of time, even measured by the slow turning of cycles and Phases in the valley. Twelve loops had carved Omega into a figure defined more by absence than presence—no vibrant green color like his kin, no resonant energy signature humming in the shared quiet, no true sense of belonging. The Silvan sun, lifeblood to the others, merely scoured his pallid skin, highlighting the faint gray patterns swirling beneath—patterns that seemed to throb with a cold turbulence only he could feel, especially when the emptiness inside him gnawed sharpest. He was taller now, leaner, yet still visibly stunted beside Silvans technically younger but born whole and mature. The gauntness in his face came not just from lack of conventional sustenance but from twelve loops of existing as the village’s tolerated, pitied, and sometimes feared anomaly.

The loops between five and twelve had passed in a blur of growing awareness. He remembered standing at the edge of the communal moss garden around his ninth loop, watching the others effortlessly draw sustenance from the light, their forms radiating vitality. The ache inside him, the one the milk only dulled, had flared with unusual intensity that cycle. A fleeting memory surfaced—the strange, electric jolt from years before, the momentary warmth that had pushed back the emptiness after he’d crushed that beetle. It had felt foul, wrong, but the relief… that memory lingered, confusing and unwelcome. The ache now was deeper, different, less a void and more a insistent pull, as if something hollow within him actively craved… something he couldn’t name. The shame of that long-ago act still burned, tangled with the frustration of his unyielding difference.

Now, at twelve loops, the familiar energy deficit remained a constant companion, yet something new pressed deeper, sharper: that insistent pull centered behind his ribs—like a hook buried in his core, tugging relentlessly. It flared whenever he watched others bask effortlessly in sunlight, their green skin aglow with power he could never draw upon. Fragments of Aris’s hushed, late-cycle discussions with the other parents sometimes reached his ears: worried words about “unstable genesis code,” references to forgotten absorption paths – some changing the absorber, some carrying a spark intact, others consuming entirely, leaving only hollow ash. Was this instability the thing the hook tugged at?

The village flowed around him like a river diverging around a stone. Open curiosity from his early loops had hardened into cautious distance, sometimes bordering on aversion. He saw it clearly later that cycle near the moss-covered common green. Younger Silvans were engaged in a flowing game of ‘Light Weaving,’ passing shimmering energy threads between outstretched hands in complex, joyful patterns. Hope, a stubborn weed, warred with bitter experience as Omega took a tentative step forward, raising a pale hand in hesitant offering.

The game faltered instantly. A ripple of palpable unease spread through the players. One youngling, eyes wide with instinctual alarm, tugged another back. “Don’t,” the silent thought pulsed through the local shared consciousness, sharp with rejection. “His energy is… wrong. It feels empty.” They turned away pointedly, resuming their game with deliberate exclusion, leaving Omega frozen on the edge, the familiar cold of isolation settling over him like a shroud.

Even Orin’s acknowledgment was oblique – a single curt nod exchanged near the training grounds, pragmatic recognition, nothing more. These scant gestures, and Lira’s unwavering, fierce compassion, were his lifelines in a world that otherwise held him at arm’s length.

A gentle touch on his arm startled him from his bleak thoughts. Lira. Lines of worry seemed permanently etched around her kind eyes now, deepening whenever she looked at him. She handed him a bulb of purified water.

“You seem distant today, little sprout,” she murmured, her voice soft.

“Just tired,” he lied, accepting the bulb. Water could not ease the hook’s insistent pull. It felt sharper today, demanding.

“Always weary,” she sighed, settling beside him on a smooth stone, resuming her work weaving glowing fibers into intricate patterns, a silent offering of companionship. Omega sipped the water, forcing each swallow past the tightness in his throat. The valley’s background hum felt dissonant to his ears; sounds from the forest carried on the breeze seemed sharper, more agitated than before. Did the world itself sense his internal shift? Was he becoming a magnet for the subtle wrongness rumoured to be creeping at the edges of their sanctuary?

He closed his eyes, trying to focus on the water’s coolness and Lira’s steadying warmth beside him, but the hook pulsed beneath everything, a predator waiting to strike. Twilight’s lengthening shadows seemed to reach for him, darker than usual. A faint tremor rippled through the soil—so subtle Lira, absorbed in her weaving, likely missed it, yet Omega felt it echo deep within his bones, resonating with the pull inside him. Isolation and deficit were familiar burdens. This new, insistent craving was different—a tremor before an inevitable quake, threatening not only his fragile balance but the perceived stability of their sheltered world. Somewhere deep inside, the hook pulled again, sharp and demanding, and Omega feared Aris’s stories about consuming paths were no longer just words on brittle scrolls but the first notes of a dangerous fate closing in.