The field shimmered like liquid silver beneath the moonlight — if it was a moon. Above them floated not a celestial body, but a glowing, circular page, turning slowly in the sky. Every time it flipped — whumfff… whumfff… — the world below changed.
A ripple passed over the landscape. Flowers blinked open, emitting phrases instead of petals.
"Beginnings often hide in endings."
"Ink remembers everything."
Mira stood slowly, her knees still weak. Her entire body felt like it was vibrating — like she'd stepped inside a dream where thoughts had weight, and emotions could carve mountains.
"This is my story?" she asked quietly.
Jace stood beside her, his expression unreadable. "Not just yours anymore. You started it. But once the ink awakens... it writes with you."
The air smelled like old paper, dust, and a hint of lavender. Overhead, birds made of folded poetry flapped past — fwip-fwip-fwip — leaving trails of stardust in their wake.
"I need answers," Mira said.
Jace nodded, then gestured toward a path that had appeared between the flowers. It pulsed with light, forming words that disappeared with every step.
Together they walked.
Tap… tap… swish.
The ground whispered beneath them, not like grass, but like parchment that sighed with every footfall.
Jace spoke first. "I remember being nothing. A name. An idea. Then... I woke up. You gave me shape."
"I didn't mean to summon you," Mira replied.
"You didn't," he said softly. "You remembered me. That was enough."
They reached a hill where an inkwell the size of a house sat half-submerged. From it flowed a river of glistening black ink, curling across the landscape like a living vine.
Mira knelt beside it, touched the surface.
Plip.
A small bubble rose. Inside it, an image formed — a memory.
She saw herself, years younger, curled on her bedroom floor, scribbling furiously in a notebook. Crying. Writing.
"The golden-eyed boy looked at her and didn't need to ask what was wrong. He simply was, and that was enough."
Mira gasped and let go. The ink reabsorbed the bubble — glorp — and went still.
"I remember writing that," she murmured. "After my mother went into the hospital."
Jace nodded. "That's when I first felt you. Not completely... just a whisper."
She stood again. "So... this place? It's made from my stories?"
"Partly," Jace said. "This is the Inkrealm — a dimension where imagination creates reality. But it's older than you. Older than me."
Mira frowned. "But why now? Why is it waking up?"
Before Jace could answer, the air cracked.
CRKKK-KRRAAAK!
A jagged bolt of dark ink tore through the sky — a rift forming like a wound, and from it descended dozens of strange figures. They were shaped like quills twisted into human forms, hollow-eyed, and dripping red punctuation.
Jace grabbed Mira's hand — GRAB!
"We have to move."
They ran.
THUMP-thump! TAP! CRUNCH!
The paper-path beneath them crinkled and bent with their speed. Behind, the strange creatures — Wordhunters — pursued with eerie silence, feet leaving no sound.
Then came a voice.
"STOP HER. SHE IS UNBOUND."
The words weren't spoken — they were written into the sky, giant letters scrawling themselves across the clouds in burning ink.
"Who's doing that?!" Mira shouted as they darted through a forest of paper trees, the leaves rattling like angry readers — shhhck-shhhck-shhck!
"The Binder," Jace said grimly. "He doesn't like free authors."
They burst into a clearing where an old stone tower stood — its bricks shaped from bound books, its door a giant cover titled The Forgotten Manuscript.
"Inside!" Jace shouted, slamming his palm against the door.
BOOM! The entrance swung open, and they tumbled in — CRASH!
Darkness swallowed them whole.
Then — click — a lantern lit itself, revealing shelves upon shelves of floating books, all spinning slowly mid-air.
Mira's breath hitched. "What is this place?"
"A Library of Lost Pages," Jace said, bolting the door behind them. "Stories abandoned, characters unwritten, endings left blank."
A book hovered in front of Mira, opened itself with a gentle fllip-flllip, and displayed only one line:
"The author loved me, once."
She felt something clench in her chest.
Jace approached her slowly. "This is what happens to stories that never get finished."
She looked at him — really looked. He wasn't just some magic-born character.
He was her character.
But he was also more now. Real. Solid. With thoughts and feelings she couldn't control.
Mira reached out. Her fingers hovered near his chest. "I don't even know if you have a heart."
Ba-dum.
She felt it. The pulse beneath his shirt.
Warm. Steady.
Jace looked down at her fingers and whispered, "You gave it to me."
Their eyes met — not with romantic electricity, but something deeper. A question neither had the courage to ask yet.
What are we now?
A loud BANG! shook the tower. Books dropped from the air — thud-thud-thud!
"They've found us," Jace said, voice tight.
Mira turned, a new resolve blooming in her.
"Then let's not hide," she said. "Let's write the next part ourselves."