He searched his body for the worst remaining pain.
Most of it was already gone.
He had always healed faster than he should have; now he suspected the threads had been working in secret for years.
With nothing left to mend, he would simply pretend.
Pretending to be fine, full, and happy had been a lifelong skill.
Pretending to be in agony was almost laughably easy by comparison.
Eyes shut, he forced the memory of last night’s broken arm into the left side —no, worse than last night.
Far worse.
The response was immediate.
His eyes flew open.
Unlike the previous night, when even a single hair of light had been a desperate struggle, the thread leapt down his left side as if it had been waiting.
It felt natural, inevitable—like untwisting an arm that had fallen asleep or straightening a leg gone numb.
Warm, yes, but no longer strange.
Compared to the grinding effort of the night before, this was like trying to lift a car and discovering it was made of foam.
An unconscious grin spread across his face as he watched the left arm… and then the grin faded.
He could not see the glow.
Last night the light had been glorious, vivid.
Why was it invisible now?
Too bright, perhaps?
He closed his eyes and caught only a faint sheen, nothing like the living thread he remembered.
The difference was pain.
Last night his entire body had been a map of hurt.
Today almost none remained.
Even the headache from the punch to his left eye had vanished.
He guided the thread upward along his neck, feeling the soft cracks and creaks dissolve under that heavenly heat.
The light must have already healed his eyes; that was why the glow no longer showed.
The thread continued climbing, sliding toward his brain.
White light exploded through blinding he could not even scream.
everything—so
The warmth was no longer merely inside his body.
The warmth was the world.
He never felt himself collapse back onto the stained mattress.
And he would not wake that day, not even when his torturers filled the house with their loud, ordinary lives.
Green.
The world was green, and it was fog—warm, living fog that pulsed and twisted around him.
How long had he been here?
Years?
Seconds?
He looked down.
His body was bare.
It did not trouble him.
No one else existed in this place.
Nothing existed except him and the warmth.
Then a quiet urgency stirred.
He stumbled forward.
Grass brushed his toes as the fog peeled back and a world unfolded.
Still green, yet somehow familiar.
It resembled the yard he had been forced to work until his hands bled, but it was not that yard.
The grass grew thick and endless in every direction.
Above him the green mist thinned, revealing a clear blue sky without a sun.
The air carried a sweet scent—the same fragrance as the single flower he had once found and tried to keep, before the Thin Woman noticed and destroyed it.
Lily.
Yes.
It smelled of lily blossoms, and the wind brushed his face like a careful hand.
Time slipped.
He lay in the grass and felt a small, distant guilt for simply existing in such peace.
Clouds drifted overhead, and inside them he saw images—fragments of the past, moments of hurt and sadness.
He frowned.
This was his sky.
No cloud had the right to darken it.
Here he felt strong, almost powerful.
He lifted his hands and considered.
Once, when he was even younger, he had found a snow-globe Dudley had thrown away.
He had played with the cracked, leaking thing for nearly an entire day before it was taken.
Even damaged, it had been beautiful.
He called for his thread.
From his palms came not thin hairs but thick green ropes.
He stared, startled, yet they felt like natural extensions of himself—the same light he had guided the night before, only stronger.
Controlling them was as easy as reaching for a cup of water left just out of sight.
Almost automatic.
One rope snared a cloud and drew it closer.
He leaned in.
The images swelled.
Thunder became voices.
A memory.
One of his Christmases—the year he had been caught peering at the tree through the crack in the cupboard door.
Not the worst memory, yet it had no business floating free in his sky.
Green threads wrapped the cloud, weaving it into a tight half-sphere.
With a small smile he closed his hands, and the cloud compressed into a perfect miniature snow-globe.
Tiny lettering appeared along the base, recording the time and the contents.
He looked around.
Snow-globes were interesting, but he did not want this one in constant view.
And what if someone entered this place and tried to destroy his things?
They always had before.
He needed a way to keep the wonder of this world while still protecting what mattered.
A secret place.
Like the cupboard that had become his entire existence, only this one would not be dark.
He pressed his palms to the grass.
It stretched for miles; it would be safe enough.
Rising, he spread his arms and drove the green ropes deep into the soil.
A broad square of turf lifted on an invisible hinge.
Polished wooden stairs descended into a gleaming white corridor.
A faint smile touched his mouth; his green eyes lit with quiet humour.
Hidden did not have to mean buried under piles of complicated toys the way Dudley’s room was.
Hidden only meant it could not be found.
He walked into the corridor and pulsed his light, sending it outward until the white wood hall stretched forever beneath the earth.
Even if someone dug above, they would never discover it.
The entrance had to be found first.
That was how the rest would work as well.
Turning sharply, he returned to the top of the stairs and pressed the edge.
The steps retracted smoothly into the wall, revealing what he had known would be waiting.
Hell.
The cupboard of hell.
He lengthened the door so he could enter without ducking and stepped into the small darkness.
A wave of threads transformed the walls into long shelves, each already labelled with times and emotions.
Carefully he set the snow-globe in a place that simply felt right.
Darkness like this belonged here—alone.
Not forgotten.
Forgetting had never worked; he had tried that with pain and hunger often enough.
This was better.