The sun wasn't warm, not really. It was just trying.
It was late afternoon — the kind of hush that settles in the air when everything's waiting for something to end, but no one knows what.
Marshmello sat on the edge of the unnamed, half-sketched park — knees pulled to his chest, pen in hand, notebook forgotten beside him. No script today. No tangled timelines or universal repairs. Just the way the breeze moved, and how the girl across the grass tilted her head toward the light.
She wasn't real.
She wasn't supposed to be real.
But she had a name he hadn't written yet. A laugh he hadn't designed. A gaze that didn't belong in a world made of threads.
And yet — she looked at the sky like it was answering her.
And he, the boy who had written skies before, realized he'd never drawn one like that.
"Do you always stare at people when they're thinking?" she asked, without turning her head.
"I wasn't—" Marshmello blinked. "Okay, yes. I was."
She smiled, and he felt like something just clicked into place.
Not a story beat. Not destiny.
Just… that quiet click of existence. The one no one hears but everyone feels.
"Are you a writer?" she asked, looking down at his forgotten notebook.
Marshmello nodded, fingers tightening. "I used to be. Or… maybe I still am."
"And what do you write?"
He stared at the page, where a single sentence waited. Not from a plan. Just from his hand.
She was already real before I ever met her.
"I think I'm just trying to catch up," he said quietly.
She didn't laugh. She didn't question.
She just nodded, stood, and walked past him.
And just before her shadow left his feet, she whispered:
"Then write faster."