When you open the door, it breathes out a word that was never printed. The sound has weight. It drapes over you like wet parchment, clinging to skin and thought alike. You step through, and the air thickens—letters drift like dust motes, forming half-sentences before falling apart.
The corridor you left behind collapses inward, folded neatly by invisible hands. You are inside a lung made of paper. Each breath you take rustles. Each exhale adds a paragraph to the walls. You understand too late that this room was never meant to be entered; it was meant to be read from within.
The word that escaped now hangs over you, trembling. You can almost decipher it before the ink shifts, crawling over itself in agitation. It recognizes you. The air grows colder, metallic, the same chill from the first breath on your neck. Something unseen inhales again, deeper this time. You are its sentence now—an ongoing clause waiting for its verb.
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APPENDIX CCXIX: THE AUTHOR'S MIRROR
