The rain was tapping against the window of the old cafe, sounding like a thousand restless fingers. I sat in my usual corner, staring at a blank page that seemed to mock my existence. My notebook was a graveyard of unfinished ideas and hollow words.
"Write something," I whispered to myself, the grip on my pen tightening until my knuckles turned white. But the ink wouldn't flow. It was as if my soul had dried up along with my inspiration.
I was about to give up when I felt a strange chill. Across the street, an antique shop I had never noticed before seemed to shimmer through the fog. Something pulled me toward it—a silent, desperate urge.
Inside, amidst the suffocating smell of old paper and dust, lay a silver fountain pen with a cracked blue stone on its cap. It looked lonely. It looked like it belonged to me.
"That pen doesn't choose its owner based on skill," an old, raspy voice came from the shadows. The shopkeeper's eyes were like clouded glass. "It chooses based on the weight of the secrets you carry."
I bought it without a word. Back at the cafe, as I touched the nib to the paper, my hand moved on its own. I wasn't even looking at the page; my eyes were fixed on the waitress across the room who was laughing at a customer's joke.
The pen bled a brilliant, glowing blue—a color so deep it felt like looking into the ocean.
"Her smile is a cage," the paper read in a script that wasn't mine. "Underneath, she is drowning in a grief she cannot name."
I gasped, dropping the pen. The blue ink began to pulse on the paper like a tiny, luminous heartbeat. I looked at the waitress again. Her smile was still there, but for the first time, I saw the sadness in her eyes.
This wasn't just a pen. It was the Ink of Emotions. And my story was no longer a work of fiction.