August woke up standing.
Which, honestly, was the first red flag. No pillow. No bed. Just… standing. Upright. On a bridge made of what looked like glass and felt like frozen breath. The kind of surface that didn't make sound when you stepped—just pressure. Like it was listening.
He blinked. "Okay. Either I fell asleep reading, or I'm in a very unlicensed Apple commercial."
Around him stretched mist—thick, violet, endless. No horizon. No up, no down. Just that weird, purple glow that coated everything in soft bruises. Like the whole world was under an ultraviolet light and being judged for how human it was.
There were no walls. No handrails. The bridge just stretched into nothing. Infinite forward. Infinite back. The only thing that wasn't purple or nightmare-fog was the man standing about twenty feet away.
August squinted. "Arthur?"
The figure didn't move.
He had the same shape—tall, scarred, arms folded behind his back like he'd just finished disappointing everyone in the room. But something was wrong. His hair was too neat. His skin had no burn. His eyes—no way Arthur ever had eyes that calm.
Still, August started walking toward him. "Hey, I know you. You're from the story. You're—"
"No, I'm not," the man said, softly.
August stopped.
"Come again?"
"You said I was Arthur. I'm not."
Silence stretched across the bridge like a rubber band about to snap. August stared at him, uncertain whether to laugh or just start yelling.
"Well, you look like him."
"That's unfortunate."
August blinked again, slower. "Okay, smartass. If you're not Arthur, then who are you?"
The figure didn't answer. He just looked out into the mist like he was admiring a museum exhibit no one else could see. Or like he was already bored with August.
This annoyed August. Deeply. Existentially.
"Alright," August muttered, hands on his hips. "So lemme get this straight. I fall asleep after rereading the story, and now I'm here. On a bridge. With a bootleg Arthur cosplayer who speaks in riddles. And this is supposed to be what? Purgatory? A dream? A mid-life crisis?"
The man didn't smile, but his mouth twitched.
"You talk a lot."
"Sorry, is that not part of the main character package?" August shot back. "Should I brood more?"
Stillness again.
Then the man turned slightly. Just enough for August to see that, yeah… those weren't Arthur's eyes. There was no light behind them. No weight. Just space.
"You don't know what this is," the man said.
"No," August said. "But I'm guessing you do."
The man's hands stayed folded behind his back as he walked—slow, deliberate, like he had all the time in the world to ruin someone's day.
August followed, because, well… what the hell else was he supposed to do?
"You're not Arthur," he repeated. "But you look like him."
"I look like a lot of things," the man replied.
"And you're not gonna explain how I got here?"
"No."
August exhaled. "You know, for someone who looks like he's about to hand me a world-shattering quest, you're kind of terrible at exposition."
The man stopped walking.
Then turned, slow and sharp, until they stood face to face.
"You want exposition?" he asked. "Fine. You fell asleep. You were thinking too hard about something that wasn't finished. You dreamed too deeply. Something answered."
"That's not an answer," August said. "That's a Tumblr post."
The man chuckled. "You're funnier than the last one."
August blinked. "The last one?"
"Never mind."
Another beat passed. August glanced down. The mist beneath the glass pulsed—like it was alive. No ground. No end. Just layers of color and vibration humming underneath him like a quiet warning.
"I still don't get what you want from me," August said. "If you're not Arthur, then why wear his face?"
The man's gaze sharpened. "Because you'd listen to this one."
"You think I wouldn't listen to anyone else?"
"I know you wouldn't."
There was something eerie about the way he said it. Not angry. Not smug. Just true—like he'd been in August's head before August even started talking.
"You're not making any sense," August muttered. "I'm just a kid who wrote a stupid story. I didn't ask to come here."
The man tilted his head. "Then why did you keep reading it?"
August blinked.
"I—I don't know. I liked it."
"Did you?"
"Yes."
"You liked the pain?"
"No."
"But you wrote it that way."
"I…" August hesitated. "I thought it was a good ending."
The man stepped closer. "You thought it was tragic. Which is not the same thing."
August flinched.
A pause.
Then the man said quietly, "You wouldn't like the real version of him."
August's voice dropped. "He's not real. He's fictional."
"He's more real than you."
And something about that—something about the way he said it—sent a cold pulse down August's back.
"I want to go back," August whispered. "I didn't mean to be here."
"But you are."
"I didn't ask for this."
"But you kept turning the page."
August's voice cracked. "Why are you doing this to me?"
The man didn't answer.
They stood at the edge of the bridge now. Beyond it, nothing. Just fog and that endless, eerie light beneath the glass floor. It felt too open to be safe, too quiet to be empty.
August stared down.
The man stood beside him.
Neither spoke for a moment.
Then August asked, low, "What do you want from me?"
The man's eyes stayed forward. "I want you to understand."
"Understand what?"
"That this isn't your story."
August turned toward him slowly. "Don't say that."
"You're a witness."
"Don't—"
"—not a participant."
"I wrote this damn story," August snapped. "I made the characters. I know what happens. I know how it ends."
"Then you know that it ends in blood."
August's breath caught.
"And if you think you can change it," the man said, "just by showing up and being kind… then you never understood what you wrote."
"You don't know me," August whispered.
The man finally turned.
His expression wasn't angry, or cruel, or mocking.
It was sad.
"You don't even know yourself."
August's hands curled at his sides.
"Then who are you?" he asked.
The man stepped forward. Not fast. Not slow. Just… inevitable.
"I'm the part of the story you buried," he said. "The one you didn't write. The one that slipped through when you stopped paying attention."
"You're not Arthur," August said again.
"Mm."
"You can't be."
"Then you forgot how he looks."
August blinked—and the man was gone.
Except he wasn't.
He was right there, nose to nose, so close that August could see the cracks beneath the surface of his eyes—like his whole body was made of glass trying not to shatter.
August stumbled back, heart racing.
The man grabbed the collar of his shirt—one-handed, casual—and lifted him.
No strain.
No effort.
Just air beneath his shoes, a mist-pit below, and the man holding him like dead weight.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said calmly.
"Sure doesn't feel like it," August gasped.
"I'm here to offer a choice."
August gritted his teeth. "Some choice."
The man's fingers tightened.
"If you truly believe," he said, "that this is just a story you can control… if you think you can wander through it, fix what's broken, save what's lost—without becoming a part of it—then you've already failed as a creator."
August stared at him.
And despite the fear clawing its way through his spine, he growled, "You don't understand anything. You think you're all-knowing, but you're just… wrong."
"Am I?"
"Yeah," August said, voice raw. "Drop me in. I'll fix it."
The man looked at August—not through him, not above him, but at him.
With interest. With disappointment. With something almost like… hope.
He didn't speak right away.
The silence stretched—just the two of them suspended on that impossible bridge, one dangling over the abyss, the other as still as the air.
Then the man chuckled.
Not loudly.
Not cruelly.
Just… like he knew something August didn't.
"You're bold," he said, finally. "I'll give you that."
"I mean it."
"I know."
August grit his teeth. "I don't care what you are. I don't care what this is. I don't care if this is some messed up dream or some divine punishment. Drop me in. I'll do better than you ever could."
The man tilted his head. "Better than Arthur?"
"You're not Arthur," August snapped.
The man didn't answer that. Instead, he smiled—small, unsettling.
"Then prove me wrong," he said.
And he let go.
August didn't scream.
He refused to.
The air howled past him as he fell—like the wind had a voice, and it was laughing. The glass bridge shrank above him, swallowed by fog, until it was just a memory. The purple mist surged up to meet him, swallowing his body, prickling along his skin like static.
Then—
Silence.
Darkness.
Pressure.
And—
A sudden shock—like cold lightning threading through his chest.
August gasped as a light—gold and violet—sparked beneath his skin. His back arched mid-fall. Something coiled inside him. Something new. Something wrong.
Or maybe right.
Maybe something that had been waiting for him all along.
His vision blurred.
The world flickered.
And then—
Light.
Crashing.
—
He slammed into something hard—metal—and pain erupted through his body like fireworks set off in reverse.
It wasn't death. But it hurt.
His ears rang. His ribs screamed. The breath punched from his lungs like his chest had collapsed.
He rolled, or maybe the world rolled him. He couldn't tell.
Above him, there was no sky—only thick, rusted pipes, cracked lights, and a ceiling that smelled like burnt copper.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then, dimly, he heard voices.
—
"—the hell was that?!"
"From the roof, I think—something just fell—"
"Go check! Go check!"
—
Footsteps thundered.
August couldn't move. His head lolled to the side, mouth slightly open, one eye fluttering half-shut from the blow.
Someone crouched next to him. A shadow. A hand touched his neck.
"He's alive."
"From where?"
"I don't know, man. But he's breathing."
"Doesn't look local."
"He's not. Look at his clothes."
Pause.
"What should we do?"
"…Take him inside."
August didn't speak.
He couldn't.
But right before he blacked out, he heard something else.
A voice.
Not from the room.
Not from the people.
Just a whisper from somewhere beneath everything:
Prove me wrong, August Philistine.
August woke to warmth.
A blanket—not his. The smell of old fabric softener. Wooden walls. Dim lighting. A kettle whistling softly in the background.
His ribs still ached. His left eye was swollen. But he was alive.
Somehow.
His first thought was: It worked.
His second: What the hell do I do now?
He sat up slowly, groaning. Every muscle in his body filed a complaint. A few screamed directly into his soul. But he forced his legs over the edge of the small cot and breathed through the pain.
The room was small—modest. Handcrafted shelves. A kettle on a rusted stove. A single couch pushed near a window that didn't quite close all the way.
Someone had bandaged his arm.
Someone had covered him.
Someone had kept him alive.
The door creaked open.
An old woman stepped in.
Her hair was wrapped in a faded scarf. Her face lined, weathered like leather softened by time. But her eyes? Sharp. Suspicious. Alive.
"You're awake," she said flatly.
August blinked. "Yeah. Uh. Sorry for… crashing?"
Her brow twitched. "Into my roof."
"Yeah. That."
She stepped closer and folded her arms. "You got a name, boy?"
He hesitated.
He didn't want to say it.
Not yet.
Because somehow, this was real. And that meant if he said his name too loudly—if someone important heard—whatever that thing was might come back to drag him deeper.
"…August," he said finally. "Just August."
The old woman stared at him for a long second. Then she nodded once and turned toward the kettle.
"Strange clothes," she muttered. "Stranger fall. You're not from here."
August's throat was dry. "No, ma'am."
She poured tea into a cracked mug and handed it to him.
He took it gratefully. "Thanks."
"You're lucky you landed where you did," she said. "City's crawling with Forsaken lately."
August froze mid-sip.
Forsaken.
It was real.
All of it.
He set the mug down carefully and looked up at her. "What city is this?"
She didn't answer immediately. She sat down across from him, watching like a hawk who'd seen too many rabbits lie.
Finally, she said:
"Edgeharbor."
He nearly choked.
Edgeharbor.
The last standing city before the Eastern Rift.
The first place Arthur ever appeared in the novel.
His heart pounded in his chest.
He looked down at his hands—no glow, no mark, no sign of anything. Just skin. Shaking slightly.
What the hell did he give me?
The old woman leaned back and crossed her arms again. "You're either a spy, a madman, or a very stupid boy. I'm not sure which yet."
August gave her a weak smile. "Can't I be all three?"
She snorted once. "Eat. Then figure out what you're doing next. You can't stay here."
August nodded.
He didn't know what tomorrow held.
Didn't know what that thing had put inside him.
Didn't know who he could trust.
But he knew one thing for sure.
Arthur was real.
And he was somewhere out there.