Speaker 1: Caloroga Shark Media Welcome to the Night Market, a special
Romance Weekly and Ghost Scary Stories crossover event. This is
episode three, What Binds Us? The whispers started before I
even made it home. At first, I thought they were
coming from my car, radio static voices bleeding through between stations.
But when I turned the radio off completely, they were
still there, emanating from the speakers, the air vents, the
very upholstery of my seats. Soft conversations in languages I
didn't recognize, punctuated by my name, spoken in tones that
made my skin crawl. Avenue Ava, Kim, She's coming home
to us soon. By the time I reached my apartment building,
the voices had multiplied into a chorus. They whispered from
the elevator buttons as I pressed them, echoed from the
fluorescent lights in the hallway, murmured from behind the doors
of my neighbors, Neighbors who should have been asleep at
two a m. But whose apartments now glowed with the
same amber light I'd seen spilling from the market. My
hands shook as I fumbled with my keys. The silver
thread in my chest pulsed with each whisper, growing warmer
and more insistent. I could feel something tugging on the
other end, not physically, but deeper than that. Something was
reeling me in like a fish on a line, and
every breath made the line shorter. I locked the door
behind me and sagged against it, but the relief lasted
only seconds. The whispers were inside my apartment, now coming
from the walls, the floor, the air itself, And when
I flicked on the lights, my reflection in the hallway
mirror made me scream. I was translucent, not completely. I
could still see myself clearly, but there was a quality
to my reflection that hadn't been there before, Like I
was a photograph that had been left in the sun
too long, slowly fading around the edges. I pressed my
hand against the mirror, and for a terrifying moment, I
could see through my palm to the wall behind it.
She's coming apart, one of the voices observed, with clinical interest.
The thread is drawing her essence back to us. Soon,
there won't be enough left to anchor her to this reality. No,
I whispered, backing away from the mirror. This isn't real.
I'm just tired, just stressed. People don't fade. People don't.
The lights flickered, and suddenly I wasn't in my apartment anymore.
I was standing in the market, surrounded by the familiar
maze of stalls and amber lanterns. But something was wrong
with the overlay. I could see both realities at once,
like a double exposed photograph. My kitchen table occupied the
same space as a stall selling bottled dreams. My couch
sat where a vendor hawked stolen youth, and through it
all the other customers wandered their eternal paths, their silver
threads glowing brighter in the darkness. This isn't possible, I
said aloud, but my voice echoed strangely, as if it
was coming from very far away. Everything is possible when
you belong to us, The collector's voice rumbled through both realities.
The boundaries between worlds grow thin for our collections. Soon
you won't need the new moon to visit. Soon, you
won't be able to leave at all. The overlay lasted
only a few seconds before my apartment snapped back into focus,
but the message was clear. I was being pulled into
the market's reality, whether I wanted to be or not.
The silver thread wasn't just connecting me to the collector.
It was slowly dragging me across the dimensional divide. I
spent the rest of the night huddled on my couch,
afraid to look in any reflective surface, afraid to close
my eyes in case I woke up somewhere else entirely,
But exhaustion eventually won, and I dozed fitfully. As dawn approached,
I woke up in the market, not my apartment, overlaid
with market imagery, the actual market, with the familiar sense
impossible spices, and the warm glow of lanterns overhead. I
was lying on the ground between two stools, and concerned
vendors were gathering around me, like I was some kind
of curiosity She's manifesting during daylight. A woman with moth
wings whispered to her companion, I've never seen the pool
work so quickly, new soul, the other replied, examining me
with eyes like black pearls. The collector must be very
hungry or very interested. I scrambled to my feet, panic,
clawing at my throat. How am I here? The market
only appears during the new moon. The market appears when
the collector wills it, the moth winged woman said gently,
for most that's only during the new moon, but for
special collections. She gestured to my chest, where the silver
thread was now visible, pulsing with its own light. The
rules bend. I followed the thread's path through the maze
of stalls, pushing past customers who watched me with expressions
of pity and hunger. Some reached out as I passed,
trying to touch the thread, and when they did, I
felt flashes of their memories, fragments of lives traded away,
peace by peace, until nothing remained but the endless search
for wholeness. A man who traded his ability to love
for perfect eloquence, now giving speeches to empty rooms. A
woman who sold her sense of time for eternal youth,
trapped in a single moment that stretched into forever. Children
who'd bartered their capacity for joy in exchange for adult wisdom,
now ancient in minds that would never again no wonder,
all of them connected to the web, all of them
feeding the thing that waited in the shadows. The thread
led me to kieran stall, where he stood with his
back to me, shoulders rigid with tension. He was talking
to someone I couldn't see. His voice, low and urgent
told you she wasn't ready. The integration period should be longer,
give her time to adjust. The collector grows impatient. Came
a voice like grinding stone. She carries flavors we have
not tasted in centuries. Her connections run deep, to family,
to craft, to dreams not yet abandoned. She will feed
us well. And when she's hollow, like the rest of them,
when there's nothing left to extract, you'll discard her and
move on to the next victim, as we always have,
as we always will. Your objections are noted and dismissed. Honey, merchant,
you have your own debts to consider. Kieran's hands clenched
into fists, and I could see silver threads extending from
his own body, dozens of them, far more than any
other customer. They wrapped around his arms like chains, connecting
him to the web with bonds that looked impossible to break. Kieran,
I called softly. He spun around, and the relief in
his eyes was overwhelming, but it was quickly replaced by
horror as he took in my translucent state. Ava. You
shouldn't be here, not during daylight. The polls shouldn't be
strong enough yet yet I stepped closer, studying the threads
that bound him. How long have you been planning this?
How long have you known exactly what would happen to me?
His expression crumbled longer than I want to admit, but
not by choice. I swear to you, I'm bound to
this place, trapped by debts I accumulated trying to save
someone else. He looked away, someone I loved. The grinding
voice spoke again, though I still couldn't see its source.
Tell her the story, honey, merchant. Tell her how you
came to us, full of noble intentions and foolish hope.
Perhaps she will learn from your mistakes. Kieran's jaw tightened,
but he began to speak, his voice hollow with old pain.
Her name was Elina, my fiance. She was dying cancer.
The doctor said there was nothing they could do. But
I'd heard rumors, stories about places where impossible things could
be brought for the right price. So I went looking.
The market around us seemed to darken as he spoke,
the amber light growing dim and cold. I found them
on a new moon in Barcelona, in an alley that
shouldn't have existed. They offered me a cure for Elena,
a vial of liquid starlight that would burn the cancer
from her body and restore her to perfect health. The
price was my freedom, ten years of service, feeding them customers,
luring the desperate and hungry into their web. My stomach clenched,
But you saved her. I thought I had his voice cracked.
The cure worked. Elena's cancer disappeared overnight, her strength returned,
her color came back. For three beautiful months, we planned
our wedding. We were going to have the ceremony in
her grandmother's garden, surrounded by roses and fairy lights. And
then he paused, struggling with the memory. Then she started
forgetting things, little things at first, where she'd put her keys,
the name of our favorite restaurant. But it got worse.
The cure hadn't just removed the cancer. It had removed
part of her soul, the part that held her memories,
her personality, everything that made her a lanor. By the end,
she looked at me like a stranger. She died six
months later, not from cancer, but from forgetting how to live.
Tears streamed down my face as the full horror of
his situation became clear, And your ten years of service
became forever, the grinding voice interjected with cruel satisfaction. The
contract specified that his service would end when the recipient
was fully healed, but since she died, the debt remains unpaid.
He has been with us for sixty ths three years now,
watching hundreds of souls make the same bargain he did
sixty three years. I looked at Kieran with new eyes,
seeing now the weight he carried, the ageless quality that
I'd mistaken for natural beauty. He'd been trapped here since
the nineteen sixties, forced to watch as person after person
fell into the same web that had claimed him. Why
didn't you warn me away more forcefully, I asked, Because
I can't, he said, simply. The threads prevent me from
directly interfering with the collector's will. I can offer warnings
express concern, but I cannot refuse a customer who insists
on making a trade. If I try, the silver threads
around his arms tightened and he gasped in pain. If
I try, the punishment is severe. The market shuddered around us,
and I realized with growing alarm that my apartment was
bleeding through again. I could see my kitchen, through the
honey stool, my bedroom door, overlapping with a vendor selling dreams.
The two realities were merging, and I was the catalyst.
What's happening. You're becoming a bridge, Kieran said urgently. The
thread is strong enough now to pull pieces of the
market into your world. Soon everyone you care about will
be at risk. The collector will be able to reach
them through you. The thought of my mother, my editor,
even my distant friends being pulled into this nightmare because
of my choices made me physically sick. But worse than
that was the growing certainty that I was running out
of time. My body was becoming more translucent by the minute,
and I could feel my thoughts becoming scattered, harder to
hold on to. There has to be a way to
break the connection, I said desperately. The grinding voice laughed,
a sound like bones breaking. The only way to break
the thread is death, and even then, the soul belongs
to us. Would you like to see the others who
tried The web in the shadows suddenly lit up with
thousands of points of light, Souls trapped within its structure,
still conscious, still suffering, unable to escape even in death.
Their whispers rose in a chorus of despair, calling out
warnings and pleas that fell on deaf ears. But Kieran
was studying me with an intensity that made my chest tight.
There might be another way, he said, slowly, something the
collector has never encountered before. Impossible, the voice snarled. We
have seen every form of resistance, every desperate gambit. Humans
are predictable in their selfishness. But what if someone chose
to share the burden instead of escape it. Kieran's storm
gray eyes locked onto mine. What if two people willingly
connected their threads, creating a bond stronger than the collector's control.
I felt something shift in the air around us, attention
that hadn't been there before. The grinding voice fell silent,
and even the other customers stopped their wandering to stare
at us. That's never been tried, i whispered, because no
one has ever cared enough about another person to risk it.
Kieran replied. The market feeds on isolation, on people so
desperate and alone that they'll trade anything for a moment
of connection. But genuine love, freely given. He reached out
toward me, his hand stopping just short of my cheek
that might be something it can't digest. The very air
seemed to recoil from the idea. The amber lanterns flickered,
the ground trembled, and the whispers from the web rose
to a shriek of rage. No, the collector's voice roared
through both realities. You will not poison our collection with
your sentiment. The girl belongs to us, as do you.
Any attempt to interfere will result in immediate collection of
all debts. But I was already reaching for Kieran's hand,
drawn by something deeper than desperation. Maybe it was the
way he'd tried to warn me despite the cost to himself.
Maybe it was the sixty three years of suffering I
could see in his eyes. Or maybe it was simply that,
in a place designed to isolate and consume, he was
the only real connection i'd found. Our fingers touched and
the world exploded into light. The market screamed, not just
the collector, but the very structure of the place itself,
as if something fundamental had been violated. My silver thread,
which had been pulling me steadily toward the web, suddenly
snapped taut and began to vibrate like a guitar string.
Kiiran's dozens of threads did the same, creating a harmony
that cut through the collector's roar like a blade. And then, impossibly,
our threads began to merge, not just connecting, actually weaving
together into something new, something that pulsed with its own
power instead of feeding the web. The sensation was indescribable,
like suddenly being able to see colours that had never
existed before. I could feel Kieran's thoughts, his memories, his
emotions flowing into me, while mine flowed into him sixty
three years of pain and regret, but also hope, stubborn,
hope that had never died despite everything he'd endured. This
is impossible. The collector's voice had lost its confidence, taking
on a note of what might have been fear. Bonds
forged in our realm belonged to us. You cannot, But
the merged thread was growing brighter, stronger, and where its
light touched the web, the structure began to unravel. Other
customers looked up in wonder as their own threads loosened,
some of them crying as they felt fragments of themselves returning.
We have to go, Kieran, said urgently, his voice now
carrying an echo that resonated in my bones. The collector
will try to sever the connection before it spreads. I nodded,
But as we turned to leave, the market around us
began to collapse, not physically structurally, The carefully maintained separation
between realities was breaking down, and I could see my apartment,
the alley, the normal world, all occupying the same space simultaneously.
It's following us, I gasped, as we ran toward what
might have been the exit. The connection is pulling it
into our world. Behind us, something vast and terrible was
moving through the collapsing dimensions, determined to reclaim what it
considered its property. The other customers scattered, some fading back
into the shadows, while others seemed to gain substance, becoming
more real than they'd been in years. We burst through
the gap between realities and stumbled into the alley, but
the amber light was spreading, spilling out into the normal
world like a infection. Street lights flickered and changed color.
Windows in nearby buildings began showing impossible views, forests that
had never existed, oceans under alien stars, markets from a
dozen different dimensions, all bleeding through at once. What have
we done? I whispered, watching Seattle transform around us. Kiran
squeezed my hand and I felt his determination flow through
our connection. We've given the others a chance for the
first time in centuries. Some of them might actually escape,
but the cost was becoming clear. By breaking the collector's
control over our threads, we'd also broken the barriers that
kept it contained to the new Moon. Now it was
free to hunt in our world, and it was very,
very angry. The whispering chorus that had followed me home
was nothing compared to what was coming now. I could
feel it approaching through the dimensions, a presence so vast
and hungry that reality itself was bending to accommodate it.
We need to find somewhere safe, I said, pulling Kieran
toward my car. There is nowhere safe, he replied, but
he followed anyway, not anymore. We're connected to it now,
all three of us. It will follow wherever we go.
As we drove through streets that flickered between normal Seattle
and impossible otherwhere, I realized he was right. The merged
thread in my chest wasn't just connecting us to each other,
it was still connected to the collector, creating a three
way bond that pulsed with tension and potential. We'd freed
ourselves from the web, but we'd also given our enemy
a direct path into our world. And, judging by the
way the sky was beginning to fracture, showing glimpses of
that terrible presence pressing against the boundaries of reality, we
had very little time before it arrived in full force.
The hunt was about to begin.