magisternihil's 100-word story for January 13, 2026

magisternihil wrote the following micro-story on Hectalex on January 13, 2026. Each story on Hectalex is inspired by a daily visual prompt and must be exactly 100 words.

Every system has a hub, or a number of hubs, but at some point there is a nexus, and once you find that, you can affect change across entire realities. I found it by. accident. I had abandoned finding the Hub and instead sought creepers, those corrupters that slowly infected neighbors. I should have looked for those all along. Under a bridge, in a snowy landscape, a child’s wind-up toy lay on its side, spinning in circles, sending ripples out to corrupt the Entirety. I’d call it an accident, but it never stops. This was intentional. A new search begins.

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