It had taken Ethan hours to realize time wasn't moving.
The sky remained a deep, unchanging bruise above him. The buildings stood frozen in their decay—burned signs, shattered glass, crooked doors—but not a single speck of ash moved in the air. Even the distant birds circling the horizon never flapped their wings.
He was alone in a world that wasn't breathing.
No ticking clocks. No wind.
Just him.
And the book.
He didn't remember picking it up. But it was always in his hand.
He sat now on the cracked rooftop of what used to be a bank, staring at the cover:
> Observation Log: Subject EV-01
Every time he blinked, a new sentence appeared inside. But they weren't random anymore. The book was...watching his mind. Reflecting his suspicions. One step ahead.
Or one step behind—rewriting what already happened.
He couldn't tell anymore.
> Subject expresses early symptoms of fracture-level dissonance. Estimated integration: 4.7%.
Integration. Of what?
He wanted to scream. To burn the book. But every time he let it go, it was there again. Not teleporting. Not blinking. Just... always having been there.
As if it was part of him.
Still, even in the silence, Ethan knew something had changed.
Because now—he was no longer alone.
The Fog Appeared First.
It rolled in low and red, pouring through alleyways and subway exits like blood-shaped steam. Ethan noticed it while descending a broken stairwell. It had no sound, no temperature—but every breath he took near it made his thoughts slow, like the fog was thickening inside his mind.
That's when he saw him.
A silhouette.
A man standing motionless in the center of the intersection, coat fluttering slightly even though the air was still.
His features were hidden beneath a gas mask with round glass eyes. He held something in his gloved hands—a compass without a needle.
Ethan didn't move.
Neither did the man.
Then, the stranger raised the compass to his ear and listened to it.
It made no noise.
And yet the man nodded, as if hearing a voice Ethan couldn't.
That was when Ethan made a mistake.
He stepped into the fog.
The moment he did, his ears were filled with whispers.
Dozens. Hundreds. Pages flipping. Screams in reverse. Clocks melting into prayers. A voice—his own—begging for something he hadn't asked for yet.
And a sentence appeared in the book in his hand.
> First contact: Entity Classification—Witness-Level 1. Alias: "Cartographer."
The man in the fog looked up.
And the compass began to bleed.
"You're early," the man said.
His voice was hollow, like it echoed from inside the mask.
"Who are you?" Ethan asked, backing up.
"That depends," the man replied. "What time is it?"
"I don't—what?"
The Cartographer stepped closer, the fog parting for him like it feared touching him.
"No time, no orientation. Typical for first-stage Observers," the man said calmly, ignoring Ethan's panic. "You haven't been assigned a District yet. That means you're still bleeding between layers."
"District—?"
"The fragments. The worlds. The loops. Call them what you like. They all fold back eventually."
His compass trembled violently in his hand.
"Wait," Ethan interrupted. "You can see the book too?"
That made the man pause.
Then he tilted his head slowly.
"There is no book."
Ethan's breath caught. "It's right here—"
"There is no book," the man repeated firmly. "If you acknowledge it, it acknowledges you."
The moment he said it, Ethan's fingers went cold.
The book turned hot.
It flipped open.
New text burned itself into the page.
> Observer 01 has breached protocol. Observation Layer collapsing. Initiate migration?
"Migrati—?"
The Cartographer lunged and slammed the compass against Ethan's forehead.
Light tore through his vision.
Then he fell.
No, the world fell around him.
Colors were being erased. Reality stuttered like corrupted film. The street shattered into symbols. Clouds became words. Words became sentences.
And he saw the city for what it really was:
A paper-thin lie.
The fog wasn't fog.
It was unwritten space.
The book wasn't a log.
It was a script.
And someone—some thing—was still writing it.
Ethan awoke in a library made of bones.
He lay across a desk where a lamp flickered with red flame. The shelves around him spiraled infinitely upward, filled with volumes made of skin and iron. And standing at the end of the aisle—waiting—was the Cartographer.
His mask was gone now.
His face was not human.
Not in any way that mattered.
Eyes stitched shut. Mouth covered by a lock. Skin written with hundreds of names.
And one of those names was Ethan's.
Etched in a line across his neck.
"What am I?" Ethan whispered, voice cracking.
The Cartographer reached into the shelf and pulled out a blank book.
"The wrong question," he said.
Then handed Ethan a pen.