The relic pulsed like a heartbeat trying to sync with mine.Each throb left a faint afterimage in the air—ghostly words I couldn't quite read before they faded.
I didn't need to.Some memories are better felt than understood.
✦
[ System Notice : Divine Relic Active – The Pen's Memory ][ Warning : Temporal Bleed Risk : High ]
Arjun's ember flickered uneasily. You should put that thing away before it rewrites you.
"I tried. It hums louder when I ignore it."
Maybe it wants to be used.
"Or maybe it wants to see how much of me it can eat before I notice."
✦
The road had changed again.No more parchment fields or ink storms—just the city sprawled below under a pale dawn that looked afraid to rise.From this height, I could see the fractures glittering faintly in the streets, seams of light crawling beneath the stone like nervous veins.
I started down.Every step I took left faint script glowing in the dirt, the letters vanishing before I could read them.
✦
By the time I reached the outskirts, people had begun to gather near the repaired cathedral.The sky above it shimmered—the same spot I'd patched back together not long ago.
Now it was leaking again.
A thin ribbon of light spilled down like a tear, coiling through the air before vanishing into nothing.
[ System Notice : Narrative Leak Detected – Source Unknown ]
"Leaking already," I muttered. "Guess my warranty expired."
✦
A child tugged on my coat."Are you the one who fixed the sky?" she asked, wide-eyed.
"Temporarily," I said.
She smiled, missing a tooth. "Mom says you're the writer of worlds."
"Your mom needs better sources."
The girl giggled and ran back toward the crowd.For some reason, that sound hurt more than it should have.
✦
Arjun was quiet for once.I could feel his attention flickering between the people, the sky, and the relic in my hand.
Finally, he said softly, You're starting to blur again, Ishaan.
"Define blur."
Your outline. Your shadow's lagging two frames behind.
"Occupational hazard."
And the Pen's Memory—
"—isn't helping. I know."
✦
I stopped in front of the cathedral's door.It was open just enough for light to spill out—not warm sunlight, but the strange silver glow of script still trying to write itself.
Inside, I could hear whispers—not voices, but the sound of pens moving across paper in a language no one had invented yet.
Arjun's ember dimmed. Something's awake in there.
"Then I guess we knock."
✦
The interior had changed completely since I last saw it.The broken altar was gone.In its place stood a massive circle of glass, etched with countless runes—half divine, half mechanical.
Above it hovered a faint figure—translucent, flickering like a candle in wind.
I recognized it instantly.
The god.
✦
"Didn't you die?" I asked.
His voice echoed faintly through the air. "Death and deletion are rarely permanent in written worlds."
"I'm learning that the hard way."
"You hold my memory," he said. "That's why I can speak. A fragment of me remains where my pen once touched."
I looked at the glowing shard in my palm.The ink inside it swirled faster now, reacting to his presence.
✦
[ Relic Synchronization : 12 % → 34 % ]
"What happens at a hundred?" I asked.
"You remember everything I forgot."
Arjun hissed. That sounds like a trap.
"It's always a trap," I said. "The trick is knowing when to spring it."
✦
The god's form flickered again."You have a choice, Ishaan Reed. Use the Pen's Memory, and you'll see how every world ended. You'll know what the gods feared to write. But once seen, it cannot be unwritten."
"And if I don't?"
"The fractures spread. Until nothing remains worth repairing."
✦
It wasn't much of a choice.I placed the relic on the glass circle.The moment it touched, the entire cathedral shuddered.
Light erupted from the runes, flooding the air with golden dust.The shard split open like an eye, revealing a swirling storm of words inside—millions of them, written in every script I'd ever seen and some I hadn't.
Arjun shouted, Ishaan, wait!
But the world was already dissolving.
✦
The light consumed everything—walls, air, thought.For a moment, I couldn't tell if I was standing or falling.
Then I was inside the memory.
A place beyond time, filled with broken fragments of creation—floating islands of script, shattered stars, the faint echo of applause from an audience that no longer existed.
At the center of it all stood a table.And on that table… a pen.
The pen wasn't made of metal or wood.It was light — solid enough to cast a shadow, fragile enough to break a universe.Its tip was stained black, the kind of black that swallowed stars instead of ink.
I reached for it.Every memory I'd ever touched stirred, whispering across my skin.
Don't.
Arjun's voice, thin and distant, echoed from nowhere.That isn't a relic. It's a rewrite key.
✦
I stopped inches from the pen.It hovered above the table, trembling like it recognized me.
[ System Notice : Divine Artifact – Origin : Creator Class ][ Access Permission : Denied ]
"Denied," I murmured. "That's adorable."
✦
I took another step.The table cracked.Words spilled out of it like blood, forming sentences that twisted midair.
Every world begins with a lie.
The phrase repeated itself, looping faster until it blurred into a storm of text around me.
Arjun's voice cut through the noise. Ishaan, pull back!
"Can't. The story's showing me what it doesn't want seen."
✦
The storm broke open, and I fell—through memories that weren't mine.
I saw cities made of glass collapse beneath their own reflections.Mountains growing mouths to sing hymns to forgotten gods.A world where stories devoured their readers until only silence remained.
Each memory left a scar of light across my vision.
[ Memory Assimilation : 43 % ]
✦
Then the visions shifted.I saw him—the creator—sitting at his desk, quill in hand.But instead of writing, he hesitated.The blank page stared back, full of unmade worlds.
And over his shoulder, a shadow whispered.
Write faster. They're waiting.
✦
He tried.He wrote until his fingers bled, until the ink turned to ash, until his worlds began to demand endings.When he could no longer give them one, they rebelled.
The fracture began there.Not from hate or hubris—but exhaustion.
✦
[ Memory Assimilation : 72 % ]
The vision wavered.I saw a glimpse of myself at the edge of those collapsing worlds—not saving them, not fighting—just reading.
"You were always there," the god's voice whispered from the light."You were the reader that refused to stop."
✦
My pulse stuttered.The line between memory and present bent like molten glass.
"I'm not—"
"You are. You watched the stories end and begged for one more chapter."
The pen trembled.Light gathered at its tip, forming a single golden droplet that hovered in the air.
✦
The droplet fell.It landed on my hand and burned through the skin, merging with the marks already there.
[ System Notice : Integration Complete ][ New Title Earned – The Pen's Heir ][ Effect : You may witness and record divine memory. Writing carries consequence. ]
Arjun's voice broke through, shaking. Ishaan, get out before—
The world shattered again.
✦
I gasped as the cathedral reformed around me.The relic lay dormant on the glass circle, cracked but intact.The god's figure was gone.
Smoke rose from my palm where the marks glowed faintly in silver and gold.
Arjun was silent for a long time before finally whispering, What did you see?
"Everything."
And?
"They weren't writing stories for us. We were writing them for them."
✦
Outside, thunder rolled across the sky.But it wasn't weather—it was applause.
Faint, distant, endless.
I looked down at the relic and whispered, "Whose hands are holding the pen now?"
No answer came.Only another faint shimmer of light along the horizon, forming a single line in the air:
Every story writes back.
✦
I smiled, tired. "Then I guess it's my turn."
I pocketed the relic and stepped outside.The city was quiet again, but I could feel eyes on me—readers, gods, memories.They were all waiting.
"Let's give them something worth reading," I said.
And the wind turned the page.