The word Continue flickered once and dissolved into the mist.
Silence followed.Not the kind of silence that waits for noise—the kind that's alive, curious, listening.
✦
[ System Notice : Realm Status – Unstable. ][ Energy Source Detected Beneath Author Layer. ]
Arjun's ember pulsed faintly in my chest. It's still down there.
"Still?" I asked.
Whatever you woke up—it hasn't stopped moving.
I looked down. The white surface under my boots rippled like water.A faint hum rolled through the air—steady, mechanical, almost like breathing.
✦
"Feels… alive."
Feels hungry, Arjun corrected.
"Great. Add that to the list."
✦
The horizon shifted.The sky darkened—not with clouds, but with lines of text forming above me, bending and crossing until they became shapes.
A paragraph floated past like a whale breaching from ink.Another followed—this one incomplete, its edges fraying into static.
[ Warning : Unwritten Entities Surfacing. ]
"Define 'unwritten,'" I muttered.
Things that were imagined but never made it to paper, Arjun said. Forgotten drafts. Dead ideas.
"So… ghosts."
Worse. They still think they have a story.
✦
The ground split open beneath me.Light poured out, and for the briefest instant, I saw eyes staring up from below—millions of them, wide and wordless, pressing against the thin layer of reality that separated idea from existence.
"Okay," I said softly. "That's new."
✦
The first one climbed out.It wasn't a creature, not really.It was a tangle of language—sentences woven into a shape that almost resembled a person.
Every word on its skin shifted constantly, rewriting faster than thought.Each time I blinked, it looked different.
"I know you," it said in ten voices. "You're the one who left us half-made."
✦
"I leave a lot of things half-made," I said. "Occupational hazard."
Its form flickered. "You wrote us, then erased us. We remember the pain of being undone."
Arjun's ember hissed. They're unstable! You can't reason with discarded narrative constructs!
"Then I'll improvise."
✦
The creature lunged.I drew the Inkblade on reflex. The blade hummed—a streak of light cutting through the fog.When it struck, the creature exploded into words, scattering into letters that rained down like ash.
But where they fell, the ground rippled again—each letter sprouting new shapes, new fragments.
They weren't dying. They were spreading.
✦
[ System Notice : Concept Infection Detected. ][ Source : Unwritten Entity – The Forgotten Draft. ]
I cursed under my breath.It wasn't trying to kill me—it was trying to rewrite me.
My arm started flickering, the text on my skin shifting randomly.Whole lines of code flickered through my veins: stray narration trying to overwrite my existence.
✦
Arjun's voice went sharp. You need to stabilize your syntax before—
"Before I become bad fanfiction?"
Exactly.
I drove the Inkblade into the ground.A pulse of energy surged outward, freezing the spreading text mid-motion.
[ Title Effect : The Anchor of Fractures Activated. ]
The letters stopped crawling. The realm steadied.
For now.
✦
"Okay," I said. "Let's agree not to do that again."
A low vibration answered from beneath the surface—like a chuckle made of thunder.
[ Warning : Major Entity Rising. ][ Designation : ??? — "The Thing Beneath the Blank." ]
Arjun whispered, You can't fight that. It's a concept too old to name.
"Everything has a name," I said. "It just hasn't heard me say it yet."
✦
The ground split open.Light poured upward—no color, no warmth, just blinding existence.And from it, something began to climb.
Not a body. Not even a shape.Just words. Endless, writhing words forming into something vaguely humanoid.
It towered above the realm, its voice shaking the air.
AUTHOR.
✦
I shielded my eyes. "That's a strong opener."
YOU WROTE ME OUT.
"Technically, I never wrote you in."
I WAS THE FIRST WORLD YOU ABANDONED.
Arjun went silent.The words rippled outward, striking like shockwaves. Every fragment, every forgotten paragraph around us bent toward the creature—its presence pulling the unmade together.
✦
[ Entity Classification : Proto-Narrative. ][ Nature : Self-Aware Concept of Abandonment. ][ Power Source : The Unwritten Realm. ]
It's the foundation, Arjun whispered. The sum of every unfinished story.
"Then it's my responsibility," I said.
✦
The creature leaned forward, its voice overlapping a thousand forgotten lines.YOU LEFT US EMPTY.
"Everyone leaves something empty," I said quietly. "That's how stories grow."
It paused.Then it laughed—a sound like tearing paper.
THEN WATCH WHAT GROWS FROM YOU.
The ground fractured again—and thousands of smaller shadows began to rise.
They came crawling out of the fissures — silhouettes made of phrases, half-broken ideas, dialogue that never found a speaker.Each one whispered a line I half-remembered writing and deleting.
"He stood at the edge of the world—""She never got to finish her sentence—""They waited for the author who never came—"
The air filled with the noise of unfinished lives.
✦
Arjun's ember was trembling. You can't fight that many! They're not alive—they're regrets given form!
"I've fought worse," I said. "At least these come with better dialogue."
I raised the Inkblade.Its light flickered, uncertain, almost apologetic.For a moment I thought it might refuse me.Then the blade hummed — low, like a heartbeat remembering courage.
✦
[ System Notice : Overclocking Narrative Authority... 43% → 78% ]
The surface beneath my feet turned transparent.Below me, an ocean of words swirled, each line a potential history.
I took a breath. "Alright then."
And I wrote.
✦
The air ignited in script.Sentences spun outward from me like comets, slamming into the rising shadows.Each one exploded into light, rewriting the fragments into dust.
But the more I erased, the more the Thing beneath the Blank fed.Every broken line sank back into its body, strengthening it.
It was eating my corrections.
✦
[ System Notice : Feedback Loop Detected. Reality Consumption Rate Increasing. ]
Arjun yelled, Stop! Every fix becomes fuel for it!
"Then maybe I should stop fixing."
I stopped writing.
For a single breath, everything froze.The Thing hesitated, as if confused.
YOU STOPPED.
"Yeah," I said. "Try existing without opposition."
✦
The air twisted.The creature wavered, edges blurring.Without contrast, without conflict, it couldn't maintain form.It was a story without tension — a god without purpose.
It began to collapse.
✦
But as it fell apart, something inside it shone — a small, steady light.A single, intact sentence pulsing like a heart.
Curiosity won over caution.I reached into the dissolving storm and pulled it free.
The words burned my palm:
"The story never hated being unfinished. It hated being forgotten."
✦
The Thing's voice faded into a whisper.Remember us, then.
And it was gone.
✦
Silence returned, gentle this time.The mist around me brightened, reforming the horizon.The fissures sealed. The ocean of text stilled.
[ System Notice : Entity Dissolved. Realm Stability Restored. ]
Arjun exhaled, a sound of relief. You survived another metaphor.
"Barely."
What did it leave you?
I opened my hand.The words etched themselves into my skin, glowing faintly gold.
[ New Title Acquired : The Keeper of Unfinished Tales ][ Effect : Forgotten stories no longer fade. You remember what the world forgets. ]
✦
The sky rippled once, as if acknowledging the change.Somewhere deep below, the Blank Realm sighed — less hostile now, almost grateful.
I looked around the quiet expanse."Guess even monsters just want closure."
That's your specialty, Arjun said.
I smiled faintly. "No. My specialty's opening doors I shouldn't."
✦
In the far distance, the mist shifted again — revealing the faint outline of something new.A structure. A city maybe, built of ink and light, sitting at the edge of the blank horizon.
A faint breeze carried a whisper:
The Readers are waiting.
✦
I tightened my grip on the Inkblade."Then let's not keep them bored."
And I walked toward the next chapter.