Speaker 1: Calaroga Shark Media Welcome to the Night Market, a special
Romance Weekly and Ghost Scary Stories crossover event. This is
episode four. The thread unbroken Seattle was coming apart at
the seams. As we drove through streets that flickered between
familiar neighborhoods and impossible otherwear, I watched my city transform
into something from a fever dream. Pike Place Market had
become a bizarre selling bottled screams and crystallized regret. The
space needle twisted into a spire that reached through multiple
dimensions simultaneously, its observation deck showing views of worlds that
had never existed, buildings phased in and out of reality
like architectural ghosts, and in the spaces between them, I
caught glimpses of the vast web spreading like a cancer
through the fabric of existence. It's not just Seattle, Kiran said,
his voice tight with barely controlled panic. Through our merged connection,
I could feel his emotions as clearly as my own,
sixty three years of guilt and self loathing, mixed with
a desperate hope that maybe finally he could make things right.
The dimensional barriers are collapsing, worldwide. Every market the Collector
has ever established is bleeding through. Simultaneously, the radio crackled
with emergency broadcasts in languages that shifted and changed as
I listened, reports of impossible phenomena from every major city,
London's Thames running backward through time, Tokyo skyscrapers growing like
living trees, Paris consumed by aurora that sang in voices
of the dead. The entire world was becoming a crossroads
between realities, and we were the reason why. We have
to stop this, I said, though I had no idea how.
Through the merged thread, I could feel the Collector approaching,
like a storm front made of hunger and rage. It
wasn't fully in our reality yet, but pieces of it
were seeping through shadows that moved wrong, whispers that came
from empty air, and worst of all, a sense of
vast intelligence focused on us with predatory intent. You cannot
stop what you have begun. The Collector's voice resonated through
every surface around us, car windows, street signs, even the
asphalt beneath our tires. You have broken the ancient compact,
poisoned our collection with your sentiment. Now all realities will
feed us until balance is restored. Keeran swerved to avoid
a section of road that had become a writhing mass
of silver threads, each one connected to a trapped soul
somewhere in the dimensional maze. There he pointed toward the
water front, where the space between worlds seemed thinnest. If
we're going to make a stand, it should be there
where all the threads converge. I could see what he meant.
Every silver thread from every trapped soul across multiple realities
was flowing toward a single point near Elliott Bay, creating
a nexus of supernatural energy that made my teeth ache
and my vision blur. The merged thread in my chest
pulled toward it like a compass needle, and I knew
with sickening certainty that this was where the collector intended
to anchor itself fully in our world. We abandoned the
car several blocks away, as the roads had become too
unstable to navigate. Buildings flickered between architectural styles from different
eras and dimensions, as Starbucks occupied the same space as
a medieval tavern selling liquid courage. An art gallery displayed
paintings that moved and changed, showing the memories of people
who traded them away decades ago, and everywhere, Threading through
the chaos. The other customers wandered in their eternal search
for wholeness. But something had changed in them since our
threads merged. Where before they'd moved like marionettes, now they
seemed more aware, more present. Some were even fighting back
against their connections, trying to tear free from the threads
that bound them. Look, I gasped, pointing toward a cluster
of customers who had surrounded one of the thread convergence points.
They were working together, their combined will creating visible disruptions
in the web structure. They're remembering how to resist. The
connection between us is spreading, Kiran said, with growing excitement.
It's showing them what genuine bonds look like, giving them
something to fight for beyond just their own escape. But
even as we watched, massive shadows began moving through the
dimensional cracks, the collector was sending its enforcers, beings of
pure absence that fed on the connections between souls. They
descended on the resisting customers like a plague, and where
they touched, people simply stopped, not dead, but empty, voided
of everything. That made them human enough. The Collector's voice
boomed across all realities simultaneously. We grow tired of this rebellion.
Surrender yourselves and we will be merciful in our consumption.
Continue to resist, and we will devour every soul in
every connected reality. The waterfront had become an amphitheater of
impossible geometries, with the thread convergence point at its center.
Thousands of silver threads rose from the water like a
fountain of liquid starlight, feeding into something that hurt to
look at directly. It was massive, beyond comprehension, not just
physically but conceptually, an entity that existed in the spaces
between thoughts, in the pores between heartbeats, in the void
between connections. It's beautiful, I whispered, and immediately hated my
self for the thought. That's how it feeds, Kieran said grimly.
It makes you want to be consumed, makes you believe
that being part of something larger is better than existing
as an individual. Through our connection, I felt his memories
of the first time he'd seen the Collector in its
full form, the overwhelming desire to simply let go, to
stop fighting and become part of something eternal and hungry.
Only his love for Elena had kept him anchored to
his individual identity, and even that had been slowly eroded
over sixty three years of forced servitude. Come, the Collector called,
its voice, now coming from our own throats. Join willingly,
and we will preserve the best parts of what you are.
Your love will become part of our collection, experienced by
countless souls across infinite realities. Is that not a greater
immortality than your brief individual existence? The offer was tempting
in a way that terrified me, to become part of
something vast and eternal, to have our connection preserved forever
in the cosmic web. But I could see what lay
beneath the beautiful promise. The thousands of souls trapped in
the web weren't experiencing love. They were batteries, their connections
harvested and consumed by something that could never truly understand
what it was destroying. No, I said aloud, surprised by
the strength in my own voice. You don't understand love
at all, You just consume it. The Collector's form shifted,
revealing aspects that made my sanity fray at the edges.
Too many eyes all of them, hungry mouths that spoke
in the voices of everyone who'd ever been consumed, limbs
that reached through dimensions, grasping for souls to add to
its collection. We understand perfectly, it snarled. Love is a
connection between souls. We collect connections. Therefore we collect love.
You collect the shadow of love. Kiran stepped forward, his
own voice, gaining strength from our merged bond, the memory
of connection after the souls themselves have been hollowed out.
But real love, the kind that chooses to share burdens
instead of escape them. That's something you've never tasted. Impossible.
We have consumed countless lovers, families, bonds of every description,
but never the two people who chose each other with
full knowledge of the cost. I added, understanding now what
made our connection different. Everyone else came to the market alone, desperate,
willing to trade away pieces of themselves. But we I
reached for Kieran's hand, feeling our merged thread pulse with
renewed power. We chose to bind ourselves together, to share
the burden instead of escaping it. The collector recoiled, as
if struck around us. The web shuddered, and I could
hear other trapped souls crying out as their threads loosened slightly.
You will not unmake what we have built. Our collection
spans millennia, feeds on the loneliness of billions two insignificant
humans cannot. But something was happening to the thread convergence
point where our merged connection touched it. The carefully organized
structure was becoming chaotic. Silver threads were tangling, breaking free
from their assigned patterns, even severing entirely, as trapped souls
remembered what it felt like to exist independently. It's working,
Kiran breathed. The connection is spreading, showing them how to
break free. But the Collector wasn't defenseless. With a row
that shattered windows across multiple realities, it began pulling on
every thread simultaneously, trying to drag all the escaping souls
back into its web. The strain was enormous. I could
feel it through our connection, like a physical weight trying
to crush us. And that's when I realized the true
scope of what we were facing. The Collector wasn't just
harvesting individuals, It was feeding on the very concept of
connection itself. Every friendship, every family bond, every moment of
love or understanding between any two souls anywhere. It was
a parasite on the fundamental force that bound consciousness together
across the universe. Now you begin to understand, it said,
sensing my realization. We are not merely a predator. We
are evolution. The universe trends toward entropy, toward isolation. We
simply accelerate the process. You're wrong, I said, even as
the weight of its hunger pressed down on us. Connection
is an entropy, It's the opposite. It's what creates meaning,
what builds complexity from chaos. Prove it. The challenge hit
like a physical blow. All around us. The threads were
being pulled taut again, The escaping souls dragged back toward
the web. Even our own merged connection was beginning to
fray under the pressure. And I could feel Kieran's growing
despair as sixty three years of failed resistance crashed over
him like a wave. I can't, he gasped, It's too strong.
I've tried for so long, and it just keeps growing,
keeps consuming. Maybe it's right, Maybe isolation is the natural state.
And all of this, he gestured to our merged thread
is just a beautiful lie we tell ourselves. That's when
I understood the Collector wasn't just powerful because of what
it had consumed. It was powerful because it embodied a
fundamental truth about existence. Everything did trend toward entropy. Connections
did decay, love did fade, people did grow apart and
die alone. But there was another truth, one that was
smaller and more fragile, but no less real. You're right
that connections break, I said, speaking to both Keran and
the Collector simultaneously. You're right that everything tends toward isolation.
But you're missing the point, the fact that connections are temporary,
that they require effort to maintain, that they can be lost.
That's exactly what makes them precious. I felt owur merged
thread pulse with renewed energy as I spoke, and suddenly
I could sense other connections throughout the web. Not the
harvested shadows the Collector had collected, but real bonds between
trapped souls who had found each other even in their imprisonment.
Every moment we choose to connect, despite the risk of loss,
every time we reach out, despite the certainty that everything ends.
That's not denial. Of entropy. That's defiance of it. That's
consciousness choosing to create meaning in the face of an
indifferent universe. The collector's form began to waver, its perfect
structure disrupted by something it couldn't process. Around us, the
web was unraveling, not because the connections were breaking, but
because they were transforming into something it couldn't control or consume.
This is not possible. It's not just possible, Kieran said,
his voice growing stronger as he caught on to what
I was trying to say. It's the most human thing
there is to love something, precisely because it can be lost,
to connect with someone, knowing that connection will require work
and sacrifice and eventual pain. Our merged thread was blazing,
now so bright it cast shadows in dimensions that had
never known light, and those shadows were touching other threads,
other trapped souls, showing them that they could choose something
besides eternal preservation or final dissolution. They could choose the messy, temporary,
absolutely precious experience of real connection. The web began to collapse,
not violently but gently, like a spider web touched by
morning dew. Souls that had been trapped for centuries millennia
eons began to remember what it felt like to exist
as individuals. Some chose to maintain connections with others they'd
met in their imprisonment. Some chose to face the darkness alone.
But for the first time in the Collector's existence, they
had a choice. No, The Collector's voice was fading, its
vast form becoming translucent as the source of its power dissolved.
Without the collection, without the preservation of connections, they will
all fade to nothing, maybe, I admitted, probably eventually, But
they'll fade as themselves, having chosen their own paths, and
some of them will choose to connect again, to build
new bonds, knowing full well that those bonds are temporary.
That's not defeat, that's victory. The last of the silver
threads dissolved into points of light that scattered across the
sky like stars. The dimensional barriers began to reassert themselves realities,
sorting back into their proper configurations. Seattle flickered back into
focus around us, looking almost normal, except for the sense
of vast space where the web had been, and in
that space barely perceptible. I felt something new forming, not
a web, designed to trap and consume, but a network
of voluntary connections, souls choosing to reach out to other
souls across the darkness, creating meaning through the simple act
of acknowledgment. The collector was gone, but the capacity for
connection remained, and that, I realized was exactly as it
should be. Kieran and I stood on the waterfront as
dawn broke over Elliott Bay. Our merged thread, now just
one among millions, no longer unique, but no longer alone either.
We were connected to each other by choice, bound by
shared experience and mutual decision to face whatever came next together.
What now, he asked. I considered the question, feeling through
our bond the echoes of all the souls we'd helped free,
all the connections that would form and fade and form
again across countless realities. There would be others like the collector,
entities that fed on isolation and despair, and there would
be people who needed help finding their way back to
genuine connection. Now we do the work, I said, Simply,
we help others. Remember that love isn't about possession or preservation.
It's about choosing to connect despite the cost. He smiled,
and through our merged thread. I felt his response before
he spoke it together together, the sun continued to rise
over a world that had been changed in ways most
people would never understand, but in coffee shops and bookstores,
in chants, encounters, and old friendships renewed in the small
moments where people chose to reach out instead of turn away.
The real magic was just beginning, connection by connection, choice
by choice, one fragile, precious, temporary bond at a time,