Chapter Four: The City of Unwritten Names
The city floated.Not in the sky, but in meaning.
Vu Minh Kha stood at the edge of an invisible threshold. Beneath him, the path of luminous text continued, forming bridges between fragments of shattered towers suspended in midair. Each tower shimmered with broken glyphs, hovering like undone thoughts.
Above it all, a central spire loomed—its top split like an open quill, bleeding blue fire.
This was Ngôn Tâm.
"Where thought first learned to name itself," he whispered.
The words echoed—literally. With each repetition, the buildings rearranged. Some leaned closer. Others recoiled. Even the air seemed to listen.
Here, every word was a command.Every silence, a denial.
As he walked deeper into the city, Kha noticed strange things.
Doorways that opened only when he asked.Streets that led different directions depending on his intent.And most eerie of all—mirrored walls, where his reflection moved half a second too late, as if translating him from one language into another.
Then he saw her.
A figure kneeling in the center of an abandoned courtyard.No face. No voice.Just long, ink-stained hands scribbling endlessly on the stone floor.
Each line she wrote vanished the moment it was complete, like sand chased by wind.
Kha approached carefully. "Who are you?"
She did not look up. But the ink twisted midair, curling into a response.
I am the Archivist of What Is Not Yet.
Her handwriting floated, letter by letter, rearranging in real-time like thought forming thought.
"What are you writing?" he asked.
Names.Thousands of them. People who were never remembered. Languages never born. Ideas killed in the silence before breath.
Kha shivered.
"Can you help me find something?""Someone."
The writing paused.A circle of ink spiraled around him.Then a single name emerged from the dark stone:
Vu Văn Thanh.
His father.
Kha dropped to his knees. "You know him?"
More words appeared, slower this time, as if drawn from deeper wells.
He passed through here. He bore the Mark of Origin. But he gave up his name to protect you.He is not gone. He is... blurred.
Only you can restore him. You must Rewrite.
Kha's voice cracked. "How?"
The Archivist stood.
Her ink pooled into her outstretched hand, forming a thin blade made of quills and phonemes—part weapon, part pen.
By rewriting what the world believes is true. Starting with your own name.
She pressed the blade into his palm.
The glyphs on the ground glowed blue, forming a circle around them both.
One truth must be sacrificed to reclaim another. Choose:
A) Your memory of safety.B) Your fear of silence.
Kha froze.
To gain his father's truth… he had to lose part of his own.
The Archivist's final words floated across the courtyard like a decree:
Meaning is not given. It is paid.
To be continued...