It began not with a step—
But with a rip.
A sound like intention tearing.
Across the Archive's sky—a vast canopy stitched from decades of discarded plotlines and recycled endings—a seam burst open. From it fell not stars, but annotations: scribbled edits, margins filled with crossed-out names, furious question marks that dripped ink like venom.
They hit the ground hard.
Exploded into glyphs.
And from those glyphs rose Sentences—shapes made of syntax and sharpened remorse. Some snarled with exclamation points for fangs. Others whispered doubt through broken ellipses.
The Palimpsest had spawned them.
Spawned Legibility Wraiths—manifestations of stories edited too many times by those who never lived them. Each Wraith bore a different scar: whiteout-crusted eyes, tongues stapled by citation marks, spines made of retracted headlines.
Their mission?
To overwrite.
Everything.
---
The Battle for the Unspoken Shelves
Ember moved first.
