Poison Threads
Jenna Cravens

Prologue

    Following an aura thread is like following a scent; in fact, that’s basically what it is. All it takes is concentration and a small trace of the aura–more commonly termed as a scent–to take me into a world of thread. It’s like an endless white room, everything seems bleached to blend into each other, the angle where wall meets floor or ceiling doesn’t appear to exist. I am the only person there, always, and am surrounded by millions of thin, seemingly never-ending threads of different colors and smells, floating at different heights and angles.
    Each thread represents a different person, their life and their aura; they all intertwine at different times and places, different twists meaning different things. A simple cross, not even touching fibers together, is a simple meeting, just casually crossing the street, they probably don’t know one another. A loop means friends, to any degree, multiple loops means a relationship, and a braided thread (now a rope) implies marriage. Different colored threads will begin to fray out of this rope soon, implying children. Death is also seen in this room; the thread will simply cut off, staying positioned in mid air.
    My ability to enter this dimension displaying a person and their life in threads broadens to brushing the threads. Depending on the place I touch on the thread I am transported mentally to that exact moment in their life, whether it was twenty minutes ago or twelve years ago. If I can find where the thread is twisting in front I can find the person at that exact moment, though the task in finding the present part of a thread is difficult. To find a specific thread, or person, to begin with I must  have at least a faint scent, or a faint hint of their aura. From there I can trace their scent from other peoples’ threads. When people interact they leave very small traces of their aura behind, and that allows me to jump from thread to thread to find the person. One difficulty however, is that the person’s aura will linger on a separate thread for up to three months, the faintness of an aura dictates the time that’s elapsed since the person interacted with them. So to find a person at the present time I must trace their aura through other people’s threads, and depending on how often they interact, I could be leafing through people’s memories from three months ago. It’s much easier to find a strong aura that will lead me directly to the person at the present time, because that will be where it’s strongest: the present time.
    This world I enter, this dimension of weaving, interlocking threads, this realm is delicate. I can end millions of lives by simply snipping thread, or by stripping away memories, energy, and life as I strip a strand. This world holds the ultimate power, the power of life itself, of millions of lives.