As the thimble in my palm rusts into a whirlpool, golden silkworms begin pushing their way out of my veins. They are not threads, but the Nine Meridians’ doomsday code, carved into flesh. What they weave inside my chest is no cocoon, but the doomsday totem my mother never finished embroidering.
The scar on the back of my neck suddenly burns. I see countless versions of myself in different timelines unravel into threads: one pair of hands is threading a needle, and the blood dripping from its tip stains my sleeve at this very moment; one heart is embedded in the core of a loom, its beat resonating with the thimble in my veins.
My body, now turning into a silkworm, is no more than a spare thread expelled by the loom of reincarnation. It is meant to stitch shut the gap that should have burned to ash, but with every pass of the needle, it twists new flesh and blood into the ashes of that fire in 1995.
