Eight days left.
I stared at the words like they might blink, vanish, or rearrange themselves into something less final.
But they didn't.
They sat there, crisp and unbothered.
Like death notices never needed editing.
I touched the page. It felt warm. Not metaphorically. Not psychologically. It was warm, like a living thing. I jerked my hand back.
Outside, someone was mowing their lawn. Birds chirped. The world didn't care that a countdown had begun.
I didn't tell anyone.
Who do you even tell?
"Hey, I'm being stalked by a demonic manuscript that seems to know my browser history and childhood sins."
That's not a sentence you can say without someone dialing psych services. Or worse—believing you.
I went to work like normal.
Well, not "normal."
I stared at my screen for hours at the literary blog's office, pretending to write a review of some postmodern garbage about whales and orgasms. Meanwhile, all I could think about was the book. Not a book. The book.
I kept picturing it lying on my desk at home, waiting. Breathing. Flipping its own pages in the dark.
At lunch, I googled "cursed book that writes your life."
I got fanfiction. Creepypasta. A Reddit thread where some guy in Norway claimed a diary kept changing his handwriting.
One link stood out.
"The Palimpsest Society – Do Not Read This If You Value Your Mind."
It was a dead website. Just one page. Black screen. White text.
It read:
"Books are supposed to reveal truths.
But some books don't stop.
They reveal you."
Then coordinates.
And a sentence:
"Bring your copy. Or it will follow anyway."
I didn't sleep again.
Not just because of the countdown.
I started seeing things.
In mirrors, I'd blink and my reflection wouldn't. It just stood there, staring at me, mouth slightly open like it was about to ask something. Something terrible. Something true.
Once, I caught my own voice coming from the kitchen—reading. A calm monotone. Repeating the first line of the book: "This book is not meant to be finished." Over and over. I walked in. No one there.
Just the book. Open again. This time to a page titled:
"Day Two: Denial."
I started testing it.
I wrote a sentence on a blank piece of paper:
"Evan drinks black coffee."
Then waited.
The book flipped a page by itself.
New sentence appeared:
"He tries to trap the book with logic. The book yawns."
It was mocking me.
Like a thing that's seen every trick a million times before. Like it wasn't impressed anymore. Just bored and cruel.
On day three, I tried to destroy it.
First I set it on fire.
The flames licked the edges, the pages curled—
—but the words stayed.
I flipped through it after the fire died.
The pages had rewritten the burn marks.
They were still scorched, but now it said:
"He tried to kill it. It laughed."
I buried it in the woods.
Middle of the night, flashlight in my mouth, dirt on my knees. Six feet down. I pissed on it too, just to make a point.
Came home. Showered. Slept.
Woke up.
Book was back. Sitting on my chest. Open to a new line.
"Nice try. Six days left."
I started hearing things.
Voices in the walls. Not whispers. Reading. Always reading.
Sometimes I'd catch them mid-sentence, like I was dropping in on an audiobook already playing.
Once I heard my name. Not out loud. But deep. Internal. Like it was being read from inside me.
I punched the mirror that morning. Just to see if I'd bleed.
I did.
So I guess I was still real. For now.
On the fourth night, someone knocked.
Three short knocks.
I checked the peephole. Nothing.
Just as I turned away—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Same rhythm. This time from my bedroom window.
I live on the third floor.
I didn't open it.
But the book did.
It was lying on the floor now, open to a new chapter.
"Chapter 4: The Door Opens Both Ways."
And under it, scrawled in handwriting not mine:
"You let it in when you read."
By day five, my phone stopped working.
The screen only showed one word: READ.
Over and over, like a command line loop.
I turned it off. Battery still drained.
I smashed the SIM card with a hammer.
Didn't help.
That night, I dreamed of a library.
Endless shelves. No windows. No exit.
Every book had my name on it.
I opened one.
Inside were moments.
Me crying at ten.
Me lying at sixteen.
Me laughing while someone else hurt.
Each page bled when I turned it.
I tried to wake up. Couldn't.
In the dream, I screamed: "Who's writing this?!"
A voice answered:
"You."
Morning of day six, the door was open.
I don't remember unlocking it.
Footprints led in—muddy, barefoot, child-sized.
I followed them to the living room.
The book sat in the middle of the floor, as always.
But now, it was open to:
"Chapter 6: Complicity."
I read the first sentence.
"He reads not because he's forced. But because he wants to know how it ends."
God help me.
It was right.
Now I write this on day six, at 3:42 a.m.
There are still two days left.
But I can feel something… pulling.
Like the story wants to collapse in on itself.
Like it's waiting for the final paragraph.
And the worst part?
I still want to finish it.
I need to know.
What happens on day eight?
What happens to me?
What happens to the book… when the reader dies?