Microscopic worms in snake plant leaf cutting?

First of all, I am still pretty new, so I've probably made a million mistakes doing this already, one of them being probably the fact that I have messed with it so much.

Timeline:
Aug 18th – received snake plant leaf cutting. Planted in soil meant for tropical plants.
Aug 31st – read that leaves could be cut into multiple cuttings, did that and replanted in the same pot.
Sept 9th – organizing, and decided I'd rather watch the roots grow in water. Moved cuttings to water.

When I did this, I noticed the tiny cut little green silia type roots (or what I thought were roots) started looking like they were SWIMMING OUT. That's when I realized maybe they are actually tiny little almost microscopic worms?? After the water shocked them out of the plant they were motionless and dead.

I have a feeling this poor snake plant leaf has been through the ringer due to my ignorance and lack of research. Will it live now that all the "worms" are dead? Or were those actually just fibers that were helping the plant grow and I just actively took this plant's potential for new life away?

If they were worms, should the soil be pitched? Or is it still possible to re-use it? I wish I took a picture or video when it first happened because there wasn't much left today, but I did get a photo of the current state.