I looked around my apartment and realized it wasn't mine anymore.
The rain had stopped hours ago, but the smell of wet asphalt seemed to cling to the walls. The typewriter sat on the desk, ribbon moving on its own. The laptop glowed, the cursor blinking like a heartbeat I couldn't escape.
I was surrounded by words. Drafts stacked in piles, pages scattered across the floor. Every one of them carried him, Kane, O., whatever he had become — in every sentence, every comma, every space.
I picked up a page. The words moved as I touched it, rearranging themselves. My own handwriting, my own voice, but… not mine. Not really.
I tried to close the laptop. Tried to shut the typewriter. Tried to pretend I had a choice. But the story wasn't waiting for me anymore. It was waiting inside me.
"You write for the living," one line read. "Now you write for the dead."
I fell to my knees. My fingers pressed against my eyes. I whispered, trembling, "I can't do this anymore."
The words typed themselves faster. Clicking, clacking, snapping into place like someone else's heartbeat matched mine.
"You already started, A.K. It is mine now. Every chapter, every confession, every breath, I am here."
I tried to scream. The sound caught in my throat. My reflection in the laptop looked back at me, and I didn't recognize her. The eyes were mine, but the shadow behind them wasn't.
And then I realized: it didn't matter if I typed or didn't type. It didn't matter if I tried to stop. The story had me.
I was no longer just a writer. I was the story.
And somewhere in the darkness, he smiled.