Samuel woke the next day with the stubborn determination of a man who refused to be defeated by spilled coffee and broken Wi-Fi.
"New day, new start," he told himself, pulling on his jacket. "And maybe maybe the universe will cut me a break."
He took a walk through the market district before heading anywhere to write. The brick-lined streets glistened from the previous night's rain, and early morning vendors were rolling up the steel shutters of their stalls.
At a corner, a street performer in a long, tattered coat was drawing a small crowd. The man's voice was low, almost theatrical, as he told some improvised story about a black-winged rider in the desert night.
Samuel froze mid step. That was exactly how he'd described Xirathul's entrance in The Ashen Rider down to the detail of the wind stirring dust around the boots.
The man glanced toward him and tipped his hat, as though recognizing an old friend.
Samuel blinked. Weird coincidence. He moved on.
At a secondhand bookstall, he picked up an old western novel. The cover illustration showed a lone rider with a dark scarf wrapped over the face. Another odd resemblance, but it wasn't like Samuel owned a monopoly on that image.
There are only so many ways to make a cowboy look mysterious, he thought, sliding the book back onto the shelf.
By midmorning, he found a quiet bench in the park and set up to write. It was going well two full paragraphs without interruption until a gust of wind sent a burst of dry leaves tumbling over his pages.
One large oak leaf landed dead center on his notebook. Its veins looked almost like jagged, branching scars the same shape he'd once sketched for Xirathul's strange burn mark in Chapter 4.
Samuel brushed it away, muttering, "Alright, God… I get it, You're having fun."
After lunch, he stopped by a hardware store to grab batteries for his desk lamp. While waiting at the counter, he noticed the clerk staring at his notepad.
"You draw that?" the man asked.
Samuel glanced down he'd been absentmindedly doodling a shadowy figure on horseback in the corner of the page.
"Yeah," Samuel said. "Just a character from something I'm writing."
The clerk smiled faintly. "Funny. Thought I saw a guy like that once, years ago. Out on the old highway at dusk. Gave me the chills."
Samuel chuckled awkwardly, paid for his batteries, and left without asking questions.
That evening, back at his desk, he reviewed what he'd written. And for a brief moment, he frowned.
The day's interruptions… the strange coincidences… the remarks from strangers…
They all seemed to line up with pieces of Xirathul's story.
He shook his head. "Nah. Just my brain looking for patterns. That's all."
He shut the notebook and turned out the light.