The runes hung in the air like accusations.
Cold blue light pulsed softly, rhythm steady and patient, as if the void itself had all the time in the world. Seojun stared at them, breath shallow, waiting for the punchline. For the screen to glitch. For a voice to announce this was an immersive VR test, or a coma hallucination cooked up by an overworked brain.
Anything but *real*.
Then the runes moved.
The symbols unfolded outward, light rippling like disturbed water. Letters stretched, reassembled, layered atop one another until a translucent panel hovered before him—semi-transparent, elegant, unreal. Not a gamer's HUD. Not a stat screen.
It looked like a page torn from a novel and suspended in midair.
Prose scrolled across it in smooth, deliberate lines.
Cold.
Narrative.
As if the system wasn't *informing* him—but *telling his story for him*.
Seojun reached out, half-expecting his hand to pass through. His fingers brushed the edge. The surface shimmered, resistant but responsive, like touching a hologram made of glass.
He swallowed and read aloud.
> "In the wake of the Black Sun's eclipse, the false reality has ended. What was merely written now binds the world anew. Stories dictate fate. Those touched by narrative—writers, readers, dreamers—have been pulled into the Script."
A sharp, humorless snort escaped him.
"Oh, look," he said to the empty darkness, spreading his arms theatrically. "I got isekai'd into my own flop novel. No truck. No goddess. Just a discount void and ominous prose. Ten out of ten immersion. Zero for originality."
The panel didn't respond.
It kept scrolling, utterly indifferent to his sarcasm.
> "The Awakened must prove their worth through Trials—personal nightmares forged from the soul's deepest flaws. Clear them to ascend the Sequences. Unlock your Aspect—the role you were meant to play in the new narrative."
Seojun paced—or tried to. The void allowed only a tight, nervous circle. His sneakers scraped faintly against unseen ground.
"Aspects? Sequences?" he scoffed. "Someone's been binging web novels harder than I ever did. What's next—status windows? Skill trees?"
The panel shimmered.
A new section materialized.
**Aspect:** Dormant
**Sequence:** Unawakened
"…You've got to be kidding me."
The prose continued, merciless.
> "Survive the Trials. Awaken your true potential. Fail—and be erased from the page. Forgotten. Unwritten. As if you never existed."
He stopped.
Erased.
Forgotten.
The words slammed into him harder than any monster ever could.
Images flooded his mind, sharp and invasive.
Late nights at his desk. Fingers flying over keys in a rare, desperate flow. The finale of *Eclipse of Reality*, written months ago when exhaustion blurred into clarity. The protagonist alone. The forbidden text. Walls glitching. The black sun rising—perfect, merciless, ringed in dying light.
He'd smiled bitterly while writing it.
*If no one's going to read this anyway, I might as well end the world.*
Then the upload.
The dashboard.
The single new subscription.
The screen flickering.
The real black sun outside his window.
Seojun dropped to his knees.
The rough ground bit through his jeans, grounding him in pain he barely noticed.
"No," he whispered. "It was just a story. Just words."
But the panel loomed above him, its prose echoing his own themes too perfectly to ignore.
Stories bleeding into reality.
He'd obsessed over that idea—born from burnout, from resentment, from the quiet, ugly thought that *if someone really saw my work, maybe it would matter*. Maybe it would change something.
A hollow laugh tore out of him.
"So that's it?" His voice shook. "I ended the world because my novel bombed? Because I was tired and bitter and poured all my garbage into the ending?"
Guilt twisted in his chest, sharp enough to make him nauseous.
Billions gone.
Erased.
Because of him.
*Pathetic,* his inner voice whispered.
*World-ending hack writer. That's one hell of a bad review.*
His vision blurred. Tears burned, hot and furious. He wiped them away with the heel of his hand.
"What about everyone else?" he demanded the void. "My friends. The delivery guys. The readers—"
His throat tightened.
"Yeonji."
His one subscriber.
Had she been "touched by narrative" enough to survive?
Or had she been unwritten because she'd bothered to read his so-called garbage?
The panel waited, sections fading in and out like pages turning.
Seojun staggered to his feet.
"Who made you?" he demanded. "How do I get out? How do I go home?"
Silence.
Then a single, infuriating line appeared.
> **Knowledge is earned through ascension.**
He barked a laugh. "Great. You're as helpful as a beta reader who only says 'it's fine.'"
The glow dimmed slightly, as if dismissing him.
The void pressed closer now—heavier, more deliberate. This place wasn't empty by accident. It was designed. Observed. The system's presence felt everywhere and nowhere at once.
No voice.
No guide.
Just cold, watching text.
Loneliness sharpened into something lethal.
In his old life, isolation had been a choice—nights alone with a glowing screen. Here, it was absolute.
No audience.
No readers.
Just him.
And his mistakes.
Then the whispers began.
Soft.
Distant.
"…flop…"
Seojun stiffened.
"…trash…"
The voices layered over one another, distorted, crawling out of memory.
"…no one cares…"
His heart sank.
Online comments. Forum threads. The ones that had gutted him when he'd pretended not to care.
He spun, searching the darkness.
Nothing.
The whispers grew bolder, circling him like smoke.
"Hot garbage…"
"Give up…"
"Dropped at chapter five…"
The darkness thickened.
A shape emerged.
Mist coalesced into a wavering form—ethereal, half-real. A void-like mouth split its face, eyes glowing like flickering red cursors. It hovered before him, pulsing with malicious familiarity.
"Your story sucks," it hissed, voice stitched together from anonymous cruelty. "No views. No hearts. Forgotten author."
Rage flared, sudden and hot.
"Shut up," Seojun snarled. "You don't know—"
The wisp surged closer.
Cold seeped into his limbs. Strength drained away. His vision blurred at the edges, head splitting as doubt clawed into him.
This thing fed on him.
On his insecurity.
His knees buckled.
Panic snapped tight.
"Get away—!"
The wisp lunged.
Something inside him snapped back.
Instinct.
Frustration.
He stared at it the way he stared at a bad paragraph—wrong, out of place, dragging everything down.
*This doesn't belong.*
Underdeveloped.
Cliché.
Unnecessary.
*Delete.*
The thought burned, mental pressure building like a migraine. The wisp shrieked as its edges glitched, form pixelating, unraveling.
"Delete," he growled, forcing the word out.
The creature shattered.
Fragments dissolved into nothing.
Seojun collapsed forward, catching himself on shaking hands. His head throbbed, lungs burning—but the weakness was gone.
In its place—
Warmth.
A faint trickle of energy, settling deep in his chest like relief after finishing a brutal rewrite.
A soft *ping* echoed in his mind.
The panel flickered back to life.
> **Minor Anomaly Resolved.**
> **Potential Detected: Narrative Manipulation.**
> **Prepare for First Trial.**
Seojun laughed weakly, slumping onto his back.
"What the hell was that?" he muttered. "I… deleted it? Like revising a shitty draft?"
Exhaustion weighed him down—but beneath it, something dangerous sparked.
Excitement.
Power.
*His* power.
The void rumbled, distant and vast. Whispers returned—many this time. Growing.
Seojun pushed himself upright, wiping sweat from his brow. He was drained. Shaking.
But defiant.
"Fine," he said to the darkness. "If this is my bad dream—my story—I'm not letting it end like this."
The panel pulsed.
> **First Nightmare Trial Approaches.**
The glow intensified, casting shadows that shouldn't exist.
Seojun straightened, a crooked grin pulling at his lips as his sarcasm slid back into place like armor.
"Bring it on," he said quietly.
"Time for some revisions."