The knocking stopped.
Silence filled Lena's apartment, thick and heavy like spilled ink. The crossed keys on her chest turned ice-cold, burning twin crescent marks into her skin. On her nightstand, the blood-written note pulsed at the edge of her vision—THEY MISSED ONE—each letter shining like a fresh wound.
Then the door handle moved.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Lena held her breath. She wasn't imagining it. The brass knob turned with eerie care, stopping just before the latch could click.
It was testing her.
Waiting.
The keys in her hands twitched. Their broken teeth vibrated like tuning forks. A whisper crawled up her arm—not through her ears, but straight into her bones:
"The Order comes for their lost page."
---
The First Revelation
Lena rolled off the bed just as the door burst open.
But it didn't break from force.
It came apart like it had been unstitched.
The wood split with a sound like tearing paper, revealing not the hallway—but a tunnel made of stacked books. Their covers were stretched human skin. Their spines were stitched with sinew. The air reeked of rotting parchment and rusted iron.
Three figures stepped through.
They wore hooded robes the color of dried blood. Their faces were hidden behind masks made of yellowed parchment. Beneath their skin, words squirmed like worms in soil—sentences Lena couldn't read, shifting too fast to follow.
The one in front removed its mask.
Lena's stomach dropped.
Dr. Eli Varrick.
Or something wearing what was left of him.
His lips were gone. His teeth were stuck in a permanent grin. When he spoke, the sound didn't come from his mouth—but from pages growing where his throat should be:
"Keeper. The Order of the Unwritten welcomes you home."
The other two removed their masks.
Jenna.
Dan.
Their eyes were hollow pits filled with swirling black ink.
---
The Second Truth
Lena scrambled backward, grabbing the broken key like a weapon.
"You're not real," she said through clenched teeth. "The book ate you."
Varrick tilted his head. Pages rustled inside his throat.
"We're more real than you. We're preserved."
Jenna stepped forward. Her movements were stiff, like her joints were pulled by invisible strings.
"The Collector lied," she said. "He doesn't collect stories. He digests them."
Dan's jaw opened wide—too wide. Inside his chest, a scroll uncoiled like a snake.
"But we found a way to stay whole," he said. "We became librarians."
Lena's heart pounded. The keys in her hands burned hotter, humming so loud her teeth ached.
Varrick reached out. His fingers were too long. The tips split into sharp quills.
"Join us. The original book is waking. It needs its final Keeper."
The walls of the apartment seemed to breathe, exhaling the smell of burning hair. Shadows gathered at the cultists' feet, forming words Lena couldn't read—but she could feel them:
Hunger.
Belonging.
Power.
Then Jenna said the one thing that nearly broke her:
"We can bring Mira back too."
---
The Third Test
Lena's vision blurred. The keys vibrated harder, their hum rising into a scream.
"Don't listen," hissed a voice from the left.
The bathroom mirror.
Her reflection stood inside it, separate from her. Its mouth was sewn shut with black thread. It pressed inky hands against the glass, leaving smeared warnings:
"ORDER LIES"
"THEY SERVE THE BOOKMARK"
"ASK WHAT HAPPENED TO ALISTAIR"
Varrick's head snapped toward the mirror.
"Silence, Witness."
He snapped his fingers—
The mirror shattered.
But the glass didn't fall. It hovered in the air, each shard showing a different nightmare:
- A library built from fused human bones
- The Collector's mask breaking open to reveal Lena's own face—aged, ancient
- Mira, the real Mira, screaming as pages stitched themselves into her skin
Lena's reflection mouthed one last warning before fading:
"The keys don't open doors. They open books."
Then the cultists moved.
---
The Blood Ritual
Jenna grabbed Lena's wrist. Her touch was freezing, burning like frostbite. Their skin fused together—binding them.
"The ritual needs three," Jenna said. "A speaker. A scribe. And a sacrifice."
Dan's chest opened wider. The scroll inside unrolled, revealing a list of names—all crossed out except one:
LENA CARTER
Varrick pulled out a knife made of bone and obsidian.
"The original book demands its due," he said. "Sign with blood, or become ink."
Lena gasped. The keys were melting into her palms, fusing with her flesh. The pain was unbearable—
But it cleared her mind.
She remembered what the Collector had told her:
"Some cages don't have keys. Some have mouths."
And the note on her nightstand:
THEY MISSED ONE.
Lena stopped fighting.
She looked past the cultists, into the tunnel of skin-bound books.
And she smiled.
---
The Unwritten Gambit
"You're right," Lena whispered. "I should join you."
She stopped resisting Jenna's grip—and yanked her forward, plunging their joined hands into Dan's chest.
The scroll screamed.
Dan's body shook as the parchment absorbed their fused arms. Ink flooded his veins like poison. Jenna screamed, her skin splitting open to reveal pages underneath.
Varrick lunged with the knife—
Lena twisted, letting the blade sink into Dan's back instead.
Black ichor sprayed.
The scroll exploded into a storm of paper scraps, each one glowing with a single word:
"LIAR"
The apartment shook. The tunnel of books collapsed with a sound like a hundred spines snapping.
Varrick screamed—
Then unraveled. His body peeled into sheets of parchment that scattered like birds.
Jenna was the last to go.
She looked at Lena with something like gratitude as the ink swallowed her.
"Find the last page," she whispered. "Before the Collector does."
Then she was gone.
---
The Aftermath
Lena sat in silence. The keys were gone—absorbed into her skin, leaving faint metallic scars across her palms.
The door hung crooked. The frame was scorched where the tunnel had been. The floor was covered in scraps of paper, each one blank except for a single drop of blood.
On her nightstand—
The note had changed.
Three new lines shimmered beneath the original:
THEY MISSED ONE
HE'S COMING
BURN IT ALL
From the hallway came a new sound.
Not knocking.
Writing.
The scratch of a quill on parchment, getting closer with every second.
---