The book's breath ends, but you feel another on your neck. A draft, cold, metallic. You turn—and find nothing but margins. Margins where no paper should be, margins that stretch like corridors, their edges frayed as though chewed. A sentence appears there, backward, written in a script you do not recognize. It reads: This is not after.
You step forward and the paper softens beneath your feet, no longer cellulose but flesh. Each step leaves an indentation, each indentation closes like a mouth after you. The afterword has opened before the first word. You were not at the end at all. You were walking into it.
---
APPENDIX CCIII: THE INK THAT BREATHES IN
