Teaser: Mira left the page blank. But the story didn't overnight, her profile started updating itself new motives fake, memories, and one hell of a character sheet she never wrote.
Mira woke up in the middle of a sentence.
She hadn't meant to fall asleep in the ruins of the ballroom, but exhaustion from the glitch chase and the overwhelming absurdity of yesterday had knocked her out in one of the glitched sofas that smelled faintly of roses and old data.
Her eyes snapped open to the sound of quill scratching.
The floating pen above the blank "Character Draft Form" was moving.
She sat up fast, heart pounding, and saw words etching themselves on the page.
Not her words.
> Personality: Reserved but ambitious.
> Role: Foil to Heroine Type A.
> Motivation: Hidden jealousy.
> Event Trigger: Proximity to Male Lead.
"No, no, no—stop it," Mira muttered, grabbing the pen midair.
It twitched violently in her grasp like something alive, then froze.
The ink on the page pulsed faintly. The form tried to resist.
She tore the paper in half.
A small sound echoed through the room,
It wasn't loud but it was final.
The paper dissolved into white dust.
Behind her, someone chuckled.
"Tried to leave it blank, huh? Bold move."
Mira turned. A girl sat on the staircase railing, dressed in sharp violet boots and a coat that shifted colors depending on how you looked at it like static wrapped in fashion.
Her hair was short, spiky, and tinged with electric blue at the tips.
"I'm Elaria," the girl said with a lazy salute. "Last known villainess from a romantic fantasy that got axed halfway through production.
Turns out, my only crime was being more popular than the actual heroine."
Mira blinked. "How is that a crime?"
"In this world?" Elaria jumped down from the railing, landing gracefully.
"Popularity without approval is rebellion."
They walked slowly toward the half-lit side of the ballroom, where the glitching windowpanes shimmered between scenes sometimes showing a castle courtyard, other times a debug grid, Elaria tapped one with her knuckle.
"System doesn't like you," she said. "Blank forms? That's a red flag.
They think you're trying to hide narrative variables."
"I'm not hiding anything," Mira replied. "I don't even know who I am yet."
"That's worse." Elaria smirked. "They'll assign you something.
Probably a jealous rival, Maybe a tragic noble with dark secrets.
Anything that fills a trope gap."
Mira sighed and sat on the window ledge. "Is this what it's always like? Constant rewriting?"
"Depends who's watching," Elaria said.
"The author? The system? Or worse fan feedback loops."
The words made Mira's skin crawl.
"I thought this was just fiction."
Elaria sat beside her. "It is that's the point. You're fighting fiction with awareness.
That's like challenging a god with a spoon."
Mira looked down at her hands again.
No spoon, Just fingers that were starting to tremble not from fear, but from a strange, rising sense of urgency.
Like if she didn't act soon, she'd be rewritten permanently.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked.
Elaria shrugged. "I like you, You're a threat. And threats make things interesting."
Before Mira could respond, the window behind them flashed red.
A warning.
> [Narrative Enforcement Unit Deployed]
> [Target: Mira Elen]
> [Location: Corridor Delta-03]
"Shit," Elaria muttered, standing fast.
"They sent an enforcer."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," Elaria grabbed Mira's hand, "you're about to meet someone who still believes in the script."
---
(Next: Mira and Elaria run through a collapsing corridor of unfinished arcs, only to be intercepted by Kael Dravenhart the system's coldest enforcer, designed to restore narrative purity.
But there's something off about him too.)