"Where are we going?" I asked, watching my steps. "And why does it feel like the chapter title changed without warning?"
Rin didn't look back. "Because it did. We're crossing into Archive jurisdiction."
"That's supposed to mean something to me?"
"You'll see."
We passed under an archway made of melted wax seals and inkblots. The texture of the air changed. Thicker. Tense. Like we were walking through words someone didn't want us to read.
And then the street opened up.
A vast courtyard unfolded before us—massive concentric rings of parchment slabs, each etched with glowing glyphs and annotations. In the center stood a tower. Tall. Quiet. And humming with the weight of too much memory.
Above the door, a sigil shimmered: a quill bound in chains.
The Index Vault.
Rin finally turned. "This is where the world keeps its forgotten truths."
Inside, the air was colder.
Shelves stretched into the sky, full of bound volumes and story scrolls. Floating catalogs spun slowly between aisles. Lanterns made from glowing character runes cast long shadows that moved even when we didn't.
"This place is… intense," I whispered.
"It's sacred," Rin replied. "But not religious. Just dangerous. Every name, every draft, every erased version of someone that never made it—stored here."
I stared. "Why bring me here?"
"Because I think you're a convergence," she said. "A stitch between stories. Someone pulled from the bleed and caught mid-draft. If I'm right…"
She trailed off.
"If you're right?" I prompted.
"…Then somewhere in here, something remembers you."
We descended into the Unscripted Wing—a sealed level of the vault, thick with pages that never found a plot. It wasn't quiet. Not really. The stories whispered as we passed.
"Once upon—"
"Never meant to—"
"Forgotten by—"
I felt my skin crawl.
At the end of the hall stood a black pedestal, bound with script locks.
Rin held up a slip of authorization.
"You had clearance?" I asked.
"I had favors," she muttered, slotting the slip into place.
The pedestal opened.
Inside: a half-written page. Yellowed. Edges burned. My name—Kairo—was scrawled at the top, followed by three words:
"He was never meant—"
Then nothing.
Just the curl of stopped ink.
I stared at it.
"That's… mine?"
Rin nodded. "Not a full file. Just a trace. A leftover. But it proves you didn't just spawn here."
I didn't speak. Couldn't. The page trembled like it didn't want to be read.
"What does it mean?" I asked. "That I wasn't meant to be here?"
"It means someone once tried to write you. And stopped. Which means you're not just Blank. You're interrupted."
Suddenly, the floor shifted.
A low hum rippled through the vault. One of the floating catalogs began spinning too fast. Scrolls unrolled themselves. The lanterns dimmed.
Rin tensed. "Someone's rewriting."
"What?"
"This place reacts to narrative shifts. Something out there—" she broke off, eyes narrowing—"is forcing an edit."
And then the alarm sounded.
A hollow chime. Followed by the Vault Warden's voice:
"Unauthorized meta-flux detected in Zone IX. Potential overwrite in progress. Restorers en route."
"Is this because of me?" I asked.
"Possibly," Rin said. "But we're not staying to find out."
We ran.
Past shelves that cracked. Past paper birds dropping midflight. Past a wall that peeled back to reveal a mirror image of us—lagging behind.
Reality was slurring its sentences.
And somewhere behind us, something crawled out of a broken index card.
Something scribbled.
Something searching.