The knocking stopped.
Lena's apartment sank into a heavy, choking silence. The metal keys hanging from her neck turned ice-cold, burning twin marks into her skin. On her nightstand, the blood-written note shimmered in her peripheral vision—THEY MISSED ONE—each letter shining wet and fresh.
Then the doorknob began to turn.
Slow. Careful. Soundless.
Lena's breath caught. She wasn't imagining it. The brass knob twisted halfway—enough to test the lock, to feel for resistance.
Something was out there.
The broken keys in her hands began to tremble, humming like struck wires. A voice crawled up her arm—not through her ears, but straight"The Order comes for their lost page."
---
THE FIRST REVELATION
Lena rolled off the bed just as the door burst open—
Not from force, but from unraveling.
The wooden frame split apart with a noise like tearing paper, revealing not the hallway, but a long tunnel stacked with grotesque books. Their covers were made of stretched human skin. Their spines sewn tight with raw sinew. The air reeked of rot and iron.
Three robed figures stepped out.
They wore deep red hoods, their faces hidden behind masks of brittle parchment. Under their robes, Lena could see sentences squirming across their skin like worms under soil—moving too fast to read.
The lead figure pulled off its mask.
Lena's gut dropped.
It was Dr. Eli Varrick.
Or someone wearing what was left of him.
His lips were gone. Teeth grinned permanently. When he spoke, it wasn't with his mouth, but from the paper growing inside his throat:
"Keeper. The Order of the Unwritten welcomes you home."
The others removed their masks.
Jenna.
Dan.
Their eyes were empty pits swirling with black ink.
---
THE SECOND TRUTH
Lena crawled backward, gripping the broken key like a knife.
"You're not real," she rasped. "The book ate you."
Varrick tilted his head. The pages in his throat rustled.
"We're more real than ever. We're preserved."
Jenna stepped forward, her limbs jerking like a puppet on strings.
"The Collector lied," she said. "He doesn't collect stories. He digests them."
Dan's jaw unhinged wide, revealing a scroll coiled inside his chest cavity.
"But we found a way to survive," he said. "We became librarians."
The keys in Lena's hands burned hotter, and the sound they made drilled into her teeth.
Varrick reached out. His fingers were too long. The tips opened into sharp quills.
"Join us. The book is waking. It needs its last Keeper."
The apartment walls breathed, exhaling the stench of burned hair. At the cultists' feet, shadows formed silent words Lena couldn't read—but felt:
- Hunger.
- Belonging.
- Power.
Then Jenna spoke the one thing that nearly shattered her:
"We can bring Mira back."
---
THE THIRD TEST
Lena's vision blurred. The keys screamed in her hands.
"Don't listen."
A whisper came from her left.
The bathroom mirror.
Her reflection was standing on its own—mouth sewn shut with black thread, pressing inky palms against the glass. It left smeared words behind:
"ORDER LIES"
"THEY SERVE THE BOOKMARK"
"ASK WHAT HAPPENED TO ALISTAIR"
Varrick snapped his head toward the mirror.
"Silence, Witness."
He snapped his fingers.
The mirror shattered—but the shards didn't fall. They hovered, each reflecting a different nightmare:
- A library built from human bones
- The Collector pulling off his mask to show Lena's own face underneath
- Mira, the real Mira, screaming as pages sewed themselves into her skin
Lena's reflection mouthed one final warning:
"The keys don't open doors. They open books."
Then the cultists charged.
---
THE BLOOD RITUAL
Jenna grabbed Lena's wrist. Her fingers burned like dry ice, fusing skin to skin.
"The ritual needs three," she whispered. "A speaker. A scribe. And a sacrifice."
Dan's chest split wider. The scroll unrolled, showing a list of names—every one crossed out.
Except one.
LENA CARTER
Varrick pulled out a knife made from bone and obsidian.
"The original book demands blood," he said. "Sign, or become ink."
Lena's breath came sharp and fast. The keys were melting into her palms, searing metal merging with her flesh.
It hurt like hell—
But the pain cut through the fog.
She remembered what the Collector once told her:
"Some cages don't have keys. Some have mouths."
She glanced at the note on her nightstand:
THEY MISSED ONE.
Then she stopped resisting.
She looked beyond the cultists, into the tunnel of grotesque books.
And she smiled.
---
THE UNWRITTEN GAMBIT
"You're right," Lena said softly. "I should join you."
She stopped pulling away—and instead yanked Jenna forward, plunging both their fused hands into Dan's exposed chest.
The scroll screamed.
Dan convulsed as the parchment drank their limbs. Ink burst through his veins. Jenna shrieked as her skin peeled away, revealing pages beneath.
Varrick lunged, knife raised—
Lena twisted, and the blade sank straight into Dan instead.
Black ichor sprayed.
The scroll exploded into a tornado of paper scraps. Each one bore a single word:
"LIAR"
The apartment shook. The book tunnel collapsed with the sound of a hundred spines snapping.
Varrick screamed—
Then came undone, his body ripping into parchment that scattered like terrified birds.
Jenna was last.
She looked at Lena—not with hate, but something close to gratitude.
"Find the last page," she whispered. "Before the Collector does."
And she was gone.
---
THE AFTERMATH
Silence again.
Lena stood in what was left of her apartment. The keys were gone, absorbed into her hands. Only faint metal scars remained.
The doorway stood charred and crooked. On the floor, scraps of blank paper lay everywhere—each one marked by a single drop of blood.
And on the nightstand—
The note had changed.
Three new lines glistened beneath the old one:
THEY MISSED ONE
HE'S COMING
BURN IT ALL
From the hallway came a new sound.
Not knocking.
Writing.
The slow scratch of a quill on parchment, getting closer.
Every second.
---