Chapter 2: The Girl Without a Reflection
The next day, Arin noticed something strange.
People had started… fading.
Not disappearing — but becoming less real.
He saw a girl in school sitting alone. No one talked to her. No one looked at her.
When she walked past a mirror… she had no reflection.
Her name was Elara.
Arin felt something pulling him toward her. When he finally spoke to her, she looked shocked — as if no one had spoken to her in years.
"You can see me?" she whispered.
"Yes," Arin said.
She smiled sadly. "Then you must be the Collector."
That night, Arin learned the truth.
The world was breaking — not physically, but emotionally. Dreams forgotten. Promises broken. Futures abandoned. They didn't vanish.
They became fragments.
And someone had to collect them.
Chapter 3: The Market of Lost Futures
Elara took Arin somewhere no one else could see.
Behind an abandoned railway station, at midnight, a door appeared in the fog.
Inside was a marketplace — glowing with blue lanterns.
Stalls displayed bottled laughter.
Old letters that were never sent.
Broken wedding rings.
Childhood drawings.
"These," Elara said softly, "are broken tomorrows."
Arin realized something terrifying.
Each object belonged to someone who had once hoped for something… and then gave up.
And then he saw his own name written on a glass bottle.
Inside it was his childhood dream: to become a storyteller.
He had forgotten it.
But the Market hadn't.
Suddenly the lanterns flickered.
A tall shadow stepped forward.
"The Collector has finally arrived."
Chapter 4: The Man Who Feeds on Regret
The shadow introduced himself as Morvain.
He was not human.
He fed on regret.
Every time someone gave up on their dreams, every time someone believed they were nothing — he grew stronger.
"You cannot save them," Morvain smiled. "People abandon themselves willingly."
Arin felt anger rising inside him.
"If they forgot their dreams," Arin said, "I will remind them."
Morvain laughed. "Then you must give them yours."
The rule was cruel.
To restore someone's broken tomorrow, Arin had to sacrifice a piece of his own future.
One by one, he began.
He returned courage to a failed musician.
Hope to a tired mother.
Ambition to a scared student.
Each time, he felt himself fading.
His memories blurred. His strength weakened.
Until finally, only one fragment remained.
His own dream.
Chapter 5: The Story That Saved the World
Morvain stood before him, triumphant.
"You have nothing left," he said.
Arin looked at the glass bottle in his trembling hands.
"My dream was never about success," he whispered.
"It was about telling stories that make people feel alive."
And so he did.
He told a story.
Not to the world.
But to Morvain.
A story about a lonely shadow who fed on regret because he had never known hope.
For the first time, Morvain hesitated.
And in that hesitation, the market began to glow.
The broken tomorrows rose into the sky like stars.
Arin's body began to disappear.
Elara ran to him.
"Why are you smiling?" she cried.
"Because," Arin whispered, "I remembered who I am."
The clock in his room struck 11:59 PM again.
Tick.
Time moved forward.
The next morning, the town felt different.
People laughed a little louder.
Dreamed a little bigger.
Believed a little more.
And on Arin's desk, there was a notebook.
On the first page, written in ink:
"Every broken tomorrow can be rewritten."