Alexander floated in midair, looking at the window in front of his vision quietly as he hummed alone. He was over the city he's come to learn is called Sliver City. He wasn't sure of the origin of the name, he didn't really care.

Over the past three days he floated along, testing and strengthening his threads by using them at every opportunity to mess with various things. People were tripped, or felt a light tap on their shoulder, but it was always him standing by and playing around. He's gotten better, although he's far from being able to fight with the threads. 

Finally, just as he opened his eyes after lying in the sky for a bit, this window appeared in front of him.

"This mission seems simple, but, it really isn't" he says to himself, a habit he's picked up from not communicating in a reasonable capacity with anyone or anything besides the system itself for a few days. 

He quietly moved and drummed his fingers on his own arm, thinking "I chose to be an eldritch being because I was worried about needing to have a presence. I give a chill to people, and can manipulate them. I lack presence, but certainly can leave an impression on someone. The question is, what do you mean by permanent?" he closed his eyes as he flipped in mid air, only opening them once he was looking at the ground.

He floated and stared down at the many people milling about "I'm sure I've given a lot of people scares lately, but in time they will forget, and I'll be something in the back of their memories. That's not what you mean by permanent impression obviously" he continued to drum his fingers.

He closed his eyes and relaxed, small blue marbles filling his vision, looking like a sea of tiny dots. He didn't spend all these days just messing with people, he also found that while on the surface all these souls appeared the same, they held patterns in them. 

Lines and shapes adorned the inside, and from his understanding, the fainter the pattern, the more likely it wasn't something being thought about. He came to know this, studying someone's soul after he stood right behind them and quietly saw how they reacted to him squeezing their hand. 

A bright black line appeared in his soul, but soon after he let go, it slowly faded to grey. By the next day, this same pattern was so faint he couldn't even find it. He didn't experiment beyond that, but it made it clear that what he did was something they already repressed or just didn't think about.

This meant he needed to be bigger, as big as he could be in this state.

Alexander began to smile, his eyes opening as he looked down at a particular person amid the crowd returning home "New or old right? Pardon me for deciding to go with the easier option then" he muttered, flying down to the person.

Troy carried a bag of groceries, ignoring people as he just made his way home. He walked up to an apartment building and only took half a minute to get to his door, open it, and walk in.

The apartment wasn't tiny, but it also wasn't large. He was just glad it had been pretty affordable, up until recently. 

It was the same day he came in to work, when he, had that thing happen. He shook his head and didn't think about it, he dismissed it as just being sicker than he thought, hallucinating. That metallic bottle with a mark? He threw it away, although the garbage disposal guy hadn't come yet, so it still sat there amidst his leftovers and junk mail.

It was all just his imagination mixed with his sickness, he told himself that, no point to think about it now. 

In any case, the same day he came in to work despite being sick, the boss fired him. Apparently, from one of his former co-workers, the higher up of the boss was coming in that day to do an inspection. So he elected to use him as a scapegoat, get him to come in to work, then fire the guy who came in sick to make it look like he cared about the safety of his other employees. 

It was cheap, and it really shouldn't have worked, but it did. He had plenty of savings, but he didn't know how long all of that would last. This was his last grocery trip, stocking up on all the stuff he could that was cheap and wouldn't spoil.

He began to put everything away, when he suddenly felt a chill and quickly whipped around. It felt just like that day, but by now he wasn't sick anymore. He slept so often now that he also couldn't be tired. He looked around his empty kitchen before taking a shaking breath. He turned back around, and stopped in his tracks.

Carved into the door of his cabinet was a unity symbol, it looked roughly cut, not like it was made with a knife or anything though. He stepped back, only to see it was on the counter as well, on the fridge. He felt a chill on his chest, and slowly moved a hand up, finding that his shirt even had the symbol cut into it. Barely it was held together by a few errant strings, and it wasn't deep enough that he had a cut on the skin.

"W-what, what the hell?" he looked around the room, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This wasn't real, he was just spiraling, when he opens his eyes it will all be back to normal. Just hallucinations, they weren't real. He opened his eyes, only to find both his hands were covering his eyes.

He tried to move then, and nearly fainted when he found he couldn't move them at all, just like how he couldn't move his legs on his own a couple days ago. He felt his legs beginning to move while a chill settled into his very spine. He didn't fight, it wouldn't work, he just let his body move.

Eventually he found himself sitting in his bedroom, the hands moved from his eyes, and he got back control of most of his body, only his right hand felt like it was ice cold. It moved, showcasing more dexterity than the steps he took as each finger curled around his nightstand and pulled out a journal he kept a long time ago.

Troy took a deep breath, his heart was racing and he felt sick again, sick to his stomach. The hand grabbed the journal and set it down, as well as grabbing the old pen inside of the drawer. 

The pages of it were flipped open, and the pen spun in his fingers before it moved down, with strength that didn't feel like his, the pen slowly carved into the paper rather than wrote. Once the carving finished, the chill left his hand. Leaving him to shakily grab the journal and see what was written, he closed the journal before he set it aside.

His eyes were glazed as he took another deep breath to try and steady his heart, before fainting onto his bed.

The man Alexander messed with three days ago was found by him, and he decided to target him. There were quite a few patterns darkened in his soul, showing his thoughts were all over the place. 

When he arrived at the guy's apartment he began to look around, humming to himself knowing that he wouldn't hear. 

"A journal, this could be useful, hmm. Nothing new past last year. Perfect, dredging up something only he should know about to send a message" he smiled and moved back, glancing to him in the kitchen.

He floated over, focusing to see his soul, it took a moment before it came into his vision. During this, he got a bit too close. When the man whipped around to meet him he knew he got close enough for him to feel a chill. 

His instincts flared up and he swiped with his strings, the end result being that he carved unity symbols into everything around his hand. It seemed to be the main way his threads left markings. He was just glad that he didn't attack with too much force in reality. He probably could have harmed him, and despite not caring that much, he'd rather not do that.

"Come on it's just a bit chilly, oh?" he watched as the man covered his eyes and looked to be trying to calm down, without really thinking he decided this to be the perfect opportunity to take control. Once the guy's eyes were opened he moved even closer than before as he began walking him to the bedroom.

He felt his arms and legs go limp, letting him just be moved easily "Wow, you don't want to fight really huh?" Alexander asked to himself, watching as a big black line slowly began to appear on his soul, and it appeared to begin growing into branches. 

Once inside the bedroom he grabbed his hand with all five threads, controlling it as easily as his own as it shadowed all his movements with the threads. Using it to take out the journal and pen, which he realizes was dried out, so he just pressed hard enough to leave marks instead. He didn't care if it went too deep, but he had enough control to make it clean. It didn't take him long to finish making a message before he finally let go. 

He moved back to see what would happen, the man's soul was slowly being carved by thin black lines, forming it's own pattern as he shakily grabbed the book. He wrote something simple 'I am dead, hello'  he assumed that would get a reaction, but he didn't expect the man to faint after closing the journal. 

He watched as his soul actually cracked a bit, and it looked like the dark lines were squeezing the life out of it and being burned into the surface rather than just be inside of it. They also weren't fading.

Alexander blinked "Well, that doesn't seem good. Better make sure he wakes up, wonder if he's eaten" he says. He looks to the kitchen "I mean, I think I know how to cook, what's the worst that can happen?" he decided to go there. Leaving the man passed out on the bed.