Even after the end, the words kept writing. But some words do not rest once spoken. They bleed.
---
The ink on his forearm had not faded.
Darksun stood before the mirror of the old sanctuary, sleeves pushed back, his skin crawling with living text. It slithered just beneath the surface, reshaping itself each time he tried to read it. One phrase held — stubborn, defiant.
> "You were never meant to be."
His jaw tightened.
The Nameless Manuscript had written him back into existence — a line without a page, a paragraph stitched to a story already burned. He had no origin, no ending, only… continuation. That terrified the Archivists. That terrified him.
Behind him, Ashael sifted through half-decayed shelves. Scrolls cracked at her touch. She moved like someone who knew the weight of forgotten knowledge.
"You used the Manuscript again," she said without turning. "Did it take anything this time?"
Darksun didn't answer immediately. His fingers flexed.
"It took a memory," he said. "My brother's name."
Ashael paused. "You had a brother?"
"I don't know anymore."
---
He stepped away from the mirror. The candles sputtered as he passed, shadows stretching unnaturally long in his wake. The Manuscript didn't just allow him to rewrite scenes, skip moments, or bend fate — it fed on what was erased.
Each word written came with a cost.
Sometimes memories.
Sometimes time.
Sometimes blood.
"Is it getting worse?" she asked quietly.
"Yes."
---
The sanctuary trembled — subtly, like a sigh through stone.
Ashael looked up. "They're here."
Darksun moved to the arched window. Beyond the glass, the fog outside thickened, churning like a sea under moonless skies. Lanterns along the far alley blinked out one by one — not shattered, just… unlit, as though the concept of flame had been removed.
"Rewrite Agents," he murmured.
The ones sent when reality had been violated.
When something had survived too long.
---
He reached inside his coat. The parchment pulsed against his chest, warm and whispering.
> [Scene Construct: The Door Was Never Found]
[Ink Cost: 1 Memory Fragment]
[Confirm Rewrite?]
He hesitated.
Last time, he lost his mother's face.
This time… perhaps it would be the scent of rain. Or the warmth of fire.
Something human.
He pressed his hand to the Manuscript.
> Confirmed.
---
The sanctuary door vanished.
Not locked. Not barricaded.
It simply had never existed.
The outside world would search and circle but find only an unbroken wall of brick and time-worn runes.
Ashael exhaled. "We're hidden?"
"For now," Darksun replied, voice low.
But even as he said it, ink began to drip from the ceiling.
Black. Thick. Slow.
It pooled like blood onto the floorboards, forming words not written by him. Not by the Manuscript.
A message.
> You write without permission.
You bleed without belonging.
Cease.
Ashael backed away. "That's not from your book, is it?"
"No," Darksun said. "It's from theirs."
---
Suddenly, the ink ignited.
Not with fire, but with meaning. The words flared in his mind, slashing through thought and memory like glass through paper.
A vision struck him.
— A room of white. Endless bookshelves, burning.
— A man with no face writing with a finger dipped in his own blood.
— A quill made of bone.
— A chair, empty, but reserved for one title: The Final Author.
Darksun staggered. Blood trickled from his nose.
Ashael caught him. "What did they show you?"
"Where I'm not supposed to go."
---
Moments later, the air in the sanctuary snapped like glass under pressure. Something was trying to rewrite the scene — overwrite his protection.
The Manuscript reacted violently. Pages fluttered open without touch, and across them, new phrases burned into place.
> Author's Domain Breach Detected
Emergency Clause: Passive Narrative Layering Initiated
Reinforcing Scene: 'He Was Never Here.'
Darksun's vision blurred. The room distorted. Even his reflection began to fade from the mirror.
He grabbed Ashael's hand.
"We run."
"Where?"
He met her eyes. "To the one place left untouched."
Her voice trembled. "The Dead Library?"
"No," he said.
"The Footnote District."
---
The Footnote District — a lost zone beneath Nocthaven, sealed since the Collapse of Chapter Zero.
Where old scripts rot.
Where the failed gods whisper.
Where truths that never made it into the story are buried alive.
---
They moved quickly, vanishing into an alley as the fog twisted above them. Behind them, the sanctuary would soon vanish — rewritten into nothingness by the Rewrite Agents.
The Manuscript hummed at his side, hungrier than before.
And above the city, the frozen clocktower hand twitched.
3:08 AM.
For the first time in fifty years…
Time moved.
---
End of Chapter 2