It was dark—but not the kind of darkness born from absence. This one rippled. Every time Kael blinked, the void around him seemed to rearrange itself—lines shifting, thoughts pressing against the inside of reality like a fish against aquarium glass.
"I think we just fell through someone's imagination," Myra muttered.
"No," Kael said, brushing dust from his shoulder. "We fell through ours."
They were in a library.
Or… something like one.
The shelves stretched into the sky, no ceiling in sight, filled with books made from materials Kael couldn't name—some bound in etched crystal, others stitched from shadow. One shelf oozed fog, its books steaming with unwritten words. Another emitted a ticking sound, as if each volume was a ticking time bomb.
And yet, not a single title.
No names. No labels.
Just empty spines waiting for meaning.
A plaque above the entrance shimmered into view:
> "ANCHOR-0: THE FIRST STORY NEVER FINISHED."
Myra touched her chronoband.
Dead. No readings. No neural signal, no core data.
"This place isn't recorded," she said quietly. "It exists before the record."
Kael stepped forward, running his fingers along a nearby shelf. One book pulsed under his hand, heat radiating through the leather-like material. He opened it—
—and flinched.
The pages showed memories he didn't remember living.
His own hand. A world of golden deserts. A child calling him "Father." Myra dying in his arms.
None of it had happened.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
"They're versions of us," Myra said, flipping open a different volume. "Lives we could have lived. Or did. In failed timelines."
"Or Kaelen's edits," Kael added. "His prototypes."
As they walked deeper into the Archive, more strange phenomena appeared: floating runes that rearranged as they approached, doorways that led to rooms made of plot holes, a river of ink running through an aisle like a leaking memory.
Then they found the desk.
A long, obsidian slab at the center of the library, with a single glowing manuscript resting atop it.
Unfinished.
Pages scattered.
Sentences crossed out violently.
Kael leaned in.
The first line read:
> "This is the story of a man who tried to fix everything by erasing what made it matter."
Kael didn't need to ask. He knew.
"This is Kaelen's manuscript."
"The real one," Myra confirmed, scanning the fragments. "He wrote this place. Or tried to."
A figure materialized behind the desk.
Not Kaelen.
Not anyone they'd seen before.
The figure was faceless. Cloaked in margins and footnotes. Each step left punctuation on the floor.
It spoke in a voice layered with every tone Kael had ever heard:
> "Welcome to the draft. You are late."
Kael squared his shoulders. "Who are you?"
> "The Editor before the Editor. I was erased… but not deleted. My purpose is not to write the story—only to end it."
Myra stepped forward. "And Kaelen?"
> "He came to finish what he began. But he could not decide how it should end. He wrote versions. Then he deleted them. Then he rewrote himself."
Kael pointed at the manuscript. "Is he in there?"
> "Not anymore."
The cloaked being gestured, and a new page appeared on the desk.
Blank.
Waiting.
> "You are the only part of the story he could not overwrite."
Kael laughed bitterly. "I'm not even sure I exist in every version."
> "And that is what makes you real."
The room trembled.
From the far end of the library, books began pulling themselves from shelves—levitating, spinning, opening mid-air. Entire worlds briefly flickered into being, echoing cries and shouts, gunfire, lullabies, betrayals, endings.
Too many stories.
Too many outcomes.
"We're nearing Collapse," Myra whispered. "The story's folding in on itself."
Kael stared at the blank page.
His hands shook.
"I write this, it becomes truth," he said. "I refuse… it becomes void."
The faceless Editor nodded once.
> "What is a story with no ending?"
Myra stepped beside him and placed her hand on his.
"You don't need to end it, Kael. Just… let it continue."
Kael took the pen.
It burned like memory in his palm.
And he wrote:
> "The story didn't end. It breathed. It scattered. It survived in pieces."
The library pulsed.
A wave of light passed through every shelf.
The stories reformed.
Reclaimed.
The collapse… stopped.
The Editor bowed.
> "So be it."
And vanished.
Kael let the pen fall.
He turned to Myra.
"We didn't win."
"No," she smiled. "But we remembered."