The statues now walked.
Not with haste. Not with rage. But with a sorrow that bent the world around them. Each step echoed not in sound, but in memory — fragments of lost stories, erased identities, dreams unfinished. They converged toward Elías, drawn not to his presence, but to the echo of the name he carried.
The mirror-being stood still, tilting its head in rhythm with their march. Its blindfold bled ink.
"You carry the name as if you earned it," it said, its voice both behind and within him. "But a name is not owned. It is survived."
Tirian stood at Elías' side, hand trembling on the hilt of a blade too dull to matter.
"What is this place really?" he whispered. "Why does it feel like I've died here before?"
Elías didn't answer. The valley pulsed around them. It wasn't just land — it was manuscript. A terrain of forgotten drafts, stitched into ground by the desperation of things that once mattered.
The mirror-being stepped forward.
"You are being written, Elías," it said. "Even now, your breath is ink. Your steps — punctuation. And your silence?" It leaned close. "A cliffhanger."
Then it offered him the mirror.
He took it.
What he saw was not his reflection.
It was a thousand versions of himself — burning, screaming, worshipped, hunted, crowned, buried. In one, he wore wings of bone. In another, he had no face. In most… he died.
In only one, he stood alone — atop a mountain of ink — weeping.
"Why am I always alone?" he whispered.
The mirror-being tilted its head.
"Because you are the only one still becoming."
Behind them, the statues halted. The valley stilled.
Elías lowered the mirror.
"I don't want to become a god."
The being didn't flinch.
"Good," it said. "That means you still have time."
Then it turned away and walked into the crowd.
The statues parted for it.
Tirian stepped forward, eyes wide. "What now?"
Elías stared at the mirror once more — and this time, the reflection was his. Tired. Young. Wounded.
But still walking.
He dropped the mirror.
It shattered into dust.
Immediately, the ground beneath them trembled. The valley screamed, a long, thin shriek made not of sound, but narrative collapse.
The unfinished were awakening.
They no longer breathed as forgotten. They were rewriting.
And they wanted out.
"Elías," Tirian shouted, "RUN!"
They ran — across the page-field, through forests made of ink-thorns and punctuation vines. The world warped around them, trying to fold into a new chapter. But Elías wasn't ready.
Not yet.
They dove into a hollow carved from questions.
Literal ones.
The walls curved with spirals of "Why?" and "When?" and "Who?"—questions asked by dying worlds, sealed into rock.
Breathing hard, Tirian gasped, "Is it over?"
Elías didn't look back.
"No."
A voice whispered from the stone:
"A question left unanswered is a door left open."
And the wind howled — through that open door.
---
Question for the reader: If your story was being written by someone else… would you try to steal the pen?