I kept running.
Through collapsing chapters, fading memories, and broken narrative threads. The Binding Quill pulsed wildly in my hand like a compass spinning out of control. Pages tore beneath my feet. Whole paragraphs unraveled midair.
I had entered a place not meant to be read.
A transition draft.
Between worlds. Between truths. Between selves.
And then I hit something — a wall made of mirrors.
No, not mirrors.
Alternate versions of me.
Each pane showed another Arin Kael.One a tyrant. One a coward. One a legend. One dead.All written. All unfinished.
And behind them, a door.
Gold-edged. Locked with five glowing symbols: ink, fire, glass, blood, and memory.
I reached toward it—and then the world split.
I found myself in a white room.
Sterile. Silent.
A classroom?
No. Not quite.
Desks floated, gravity lost its rules, and on the blackboard were two names, side by side:
Arin KaelZane Ellister
I stared at the second name, and every muscle in my body went still.
Zane.
My childhood best friend.The only person I ever shared my stories with.The boy who disappeared… after we stopped writing together.
My co-author.
"You remembered me."
The voice came from the corner of the room.
He stepped forward slowly.
Zane Ellister—a little taller than I remembered. Still wearing that signature scarf he always drew into our characters. His eyes were a piercing shade of storm-gray, the kind that never let go of the truth.
But his expression?
Not warm. Not forgiving. Not kind.
Just… tired.
"You left me in the margins, Arin. Left our story. Left me."
"I didn't mean to—"
"You stopped writing. You stopped dreaming. But I didn't. I kept our world alive. I kept the characters going. While you ran away, I… evolved."
He lifted a hand.
And suddenly the walls flickered, showing cities we imagined together, characters we created, all now rewritten, darker, crueler, with Zane's new mark: a cracked hourglass bleeding ink.
"You… became a Ghostwriter," I whispered.
"No," Zane said. "I became The Editor."
The title hit like a thunderclap.
The Editor.A myth among corrupted drafts.Someone who could revise realities. Trim timelines. Redact emotions.
And Zane had taken the role.
"You're changing everything," I said. "Rewriting the original world."
"I'm fixing what you abandoned," he snapped. "Every time you hesitated, a character broke. Every time you gave up, a story shattered. I picked up the pieces. I stitched them into something new."
He gestured, and dozens of shattered Arin variants emerged behind him—some heroic, some monstrous, some sobbing.
"I'm not here to kill you, Arin. I'm here to merge you. Reunify every version into one absolute being—the true Author."
I backed away. "And if I refuse?"
His voice softened.
"Then I'll erase you. Kindly."
The room darkened.
Zane summoned his weapon—a red pen made of fractured timelines, its nib glowing with raw paradox.
I raised the Binding Quill.
We faced each other like old friends on opposite sides of a final sentence.
Then—
Clash.
Ink met paradox. Quill met editor's edge.
Words warped.
The room cracked into multiple overlapping realities:
In one, Zane was still my friend, crying as he fought.
In another, I had betrayed him and deserved this.
In another, neither of us had ever written a word—but we were still fighting.
Suddenly, I heard her voice.
Veyra.
"Don't let the Editor finish your sentence."
Her voice was coming through the Binding Quill.
I blinked.
And remembered—
Veyra wasn't a character we created.
She was born from our final unfinished project. The one Zane and I swore we'd never show anyone.
Project codename: "VE-YRA" — Variable Engine: Yielded Rewritten Avatar
A self-aware character meant to rewrite her own story if the Authors ever failed.
She wasn't just my companion.
She was the fail-safe.
My hand tightened around the Binding Quill.
"Let the character rewrite the Editor."
Light exploded from the Quill.
Zane froze mid-strike.
And behind him—Veyra appeared, blade drawn, eyes glowing with every timeline she'd hidden in.
"I'm not yours anymore," she whispered.
And struck.
Zane collapsed to one knee.
"I never wanted to fight you," I said. "But I won't let you overwrite everything."
He smiled faintly. "Then finish what you started."
The door appeared again.
The symbols unlocked—ink, fire, glass, blood, memory—all glowing now.
I walked toward it.
Zane whispered one final thing:
"Be careful. There's a chapter even we never wrote. And something inside it has started writing you."
I stepped through the door.
And saw the next title burn into the sky:
Chapter 11: The Authorhunter