The rain returned three days later—cold, silver, relentless.
Lucien stood at the edge of the rebuilt forest, watching the sky ripple like ink poured over glass. The trees bent unnaturally, their leaves flickering between real and drawn, as though the world were being redrafted line by line.
Sera, he whispered, something's wrong.
I feel it, she answered from the flower nestled in his coat pocket. Someone is writing again.
Lucien turned toward the horizon. Across the plains, black words began to appear midair, hanging like smoke. Each one drifted downward and burned itself into the soil.
He stepped closer. One of the words twisted before his eyes, reshaping into something alive—a wolf, its fur dripping with ink, eyes hollow but aware.
"Who wrote you?" Lucien asked.
The creature growled, the sound sharp like tearing paper.
You did not finish the story, it hissed. So another will.
Then it lunged.
Lucien rolled aside, the beast's claws slicing through a tree that turned instantly flat—like a ripped page. He summoned a line of energy through his hand, words glowing across his palm.
Erase.
The command flashed white. The wolf screamed and scattered into fading letters.
But more words were forming—hundreds now. Shapes, people, beasts. All made of letters he didn't write.
Sera, he gasped, they're using the same ink.
Then it's not a reader, she said softly. It's a rival author.
When the attack ended, Lucien was drenched in both rain and fear. The land was quiet again, but too quiet—like a page after something's been erased.
He found shelter in the ruins of an old tower. As the flower glowed dimly beside him, he spoke between shallow breaths.
"Another author means… someone outside the world?"
Yes. Someone who sees this place as fiction. As something to fix or destroy.
Lucien clenched his fists. "Then why target me?"
Because you broke the rule, she said. You stopped being a reader.
He froze. The words struck deep.
He had been a reader once—Evan Rylan, a college student who escaped his own dull life by devouring novels. Then he'd died. And woken up here, inside the body of the story's villain.
Now he was neither reader nor character. He was something in-between.
"Maybe," he murmured, "the new writer thinks this world should've stayed a tragedy."
Will you let them decide that?
Lucien smiled faintly, bitterly. "Not this time."
That night, the world itself began to glitch.
Stars bled words. Rivers whispered lines he didn't write. A half-finished sentence cut across the sky:
The villain never truly changes—
Lucien's mark flared in pain. He grabbed his arm, gritting his teeth. "They're rewriting me."
Fight it, Sera urged. Remember who you are!
"I'm not the villain," he growled.
Then prove it.
He raised his pen-blade, drawing in the air. Lines of light spiraled outward, forming a barrier of living text.
Rule One: Only I may shape this world through will.
Rule Two: Love outweighs narrative.
Rule Three: Sera lives.
The sky trembled. The invading words shattered against his rules, hissing like steam. But a single one slipped through—a thin, cruel line written in crimson ink.
Rule Zero: All worlds end.
The moment it appeared, the ground cracked. Mountains dissolved into sand. The air itself began to fold like paper.
Lucien! Sera cried. They're stronger!
He fell to one knee. "Then I'll write faster."
No. You'll write smarter.
Her voice deepened, resonating with the flower's light. Together, they reached out—not to fight the new author directly, but to trap their ink.
Lucien wrote a circle of mirrored words around himself, each a reflection of the intruder's sentence.
If all worlds end, then let this one restart forever.
The crimson line screamed, fracturing into hundreds of fragments that spiraled upward and vanished.
Silence.
For a heartbeat, the world was whole again.
When dawn came, Lucien sat by the tower's window, exhausted but alive. The flower rested on the sill, glowing faintly.
You fought well, Sera said.
He laughed weakly. "Feels like I'm fighting myself."
Maybe you are. The author could be another version of you—one who never died, one still angry about how the story ended.
Lucien stared at the horizon. "So… I'm fighting the me who never let go."
Then win, she whispered. For both of you.
He smiled sadly. "You sound like the heroine you used to be."
And you sound like the villain who learned to care.
For a moment, the broken world didn't feel so fragile.
That night, as he slept, a dream found him.
He stood in a library stretching forever, filled with countless books—each one glowing faintly. A hooded figure sat at a desk ahead, quill scratching furiously.
Lucien approached. "Who are you?"
The figure turned. His own face looked back. Older. Colder.
"I'm what you left behind," the double said. "The reader who lost everything when you stole the ending."
Lucien felt his stomach drop. "Evan Rylan."
The man smiled. "You shouldn't have survived the truck."
He slammed the quill onto the table. Instantly, ink bled across the floor, forming chains that snaked toward Lucien's feet.
"You made my favorite villain weak," Evan hissed. "Now I'll make him perfect again."
Lucien struggled as the ink wrapped around him. "You're destroying the world!"
"It was never real!"
The library shuddered. Books fell open, pages fluttering like wings.
Lucien shouted, "Then why are you so afraid to lose it?"
Evan froze. For a split second, his expression faltered—hurt, regret, confusion. Then the dream shattered.
Lucien woke in darkness, breathless. The mark on his hand burned like fire. Sera's voice was faint but steady.
It's begun.
He nodded. "The real war—the battle of pens."
You can't win by erasing him.
"I know," he whispered. "This time, I'll write a different ending."
Outside, the first crimson letters began to appear again on the horizon.
Lucien stood, lifting his pen-blade, and smiled.
"Then let's see whose story deserves to live."