"He was too loud," you said.
You lowered the weapon. Smoke curled lazily from the barrel of the pistol, a grey serpentine line against the blinding white void. You blew on it, a casual, dismissive puff of air, as if you had just extinguished a birthday candle rather than the life of the man who claimed to be God.
I stood frozen, my breath caught in a throat that felt like it had been stuffed with dry cotton.
I looked at the body of The Writer. He lay there, his white hoodie stained with a dark, expanding ink-blot of blood, his messy dreadlocks fanned out like a broken halo. The cigarette he had been smoking was still smoldering on the nonexistent floor, a tiny beacon of filth in this pristine purgatory.
Then, I looked at you.
I still don't believe it.
You're The Reader!
And you... you were wearing your leather jacket.
You looked tired, messy, and absolutely, devastatingly handsome. Your golden eyes... not red, not reptilian, but perfectly, beautifully human, were bored.
"Ragia?" I whispered. My voice was small. It didn't sound like the Vice Captain. It sounded like a lost girl finding her compass.
"Hey, Iya," you grinned.
"Did you miss me? Or were you enjoying the monologue from the hobo in the underwear?" That crooked, maddening grin that has caused more diplomatic incidents than I can count.
You stepped over the corpse. You didn't even look down. You treated the Creator of our universe with the same respect you treat a used napkin.
"You..." I pointed at the gun in your hand. "You shot him. You shot The Writer."
"He was annoying," you shrugged, tucking the pistol into your belt.
The leather creaked, a sound that sent a jolt of familiar heat straight to my belly.
"He talked too much. 'I am the Creator, I am the Artist.' Blah, blah, blah. He sounded like a loser trying to impress a date at a cheap bar. A loser hiding behind a self-proclaimed title of 'Professional Writer' when he clearly hasn't touched a woman in three decades."
I blinked.
The shock was slowly being replaced by the overwhelming, gravity-defying relief of your presence. You were here. You were solid. I could smell you... musk, ozone, and that unique, spicy scent of trouble that follows you everywhere.
"But... how?" I took a step toward you, my hands trembling. "I saw the raygun. I saw you appear. But where did you come from? The last time I saw you... you were dying on the floor of your father's dining room."
You reached into the inner pocket of your jacket.
"I have been busy," you said.
You pulled out a book.
It wasn't a datapad. It wasn't a holographic scroll. It was a physical, paper book. It looked cheap. The cover was glossy, featuring a bad illustration of a spaceship that looked...
Like Xeca...
You tossed it to me.
I caught it. It felt heavy. Real.
I looked at the title.
Chaotic Fanfare: An Erotica AI-Generated Space Comedy Opera
I stared at the words. They didn't make sense. They felt like a slap in the face.
"What is this?" I asked, looking up at you. "Is this... us?"
"That..." you said, pointing a finger at the book."Is the script. The bible. The trashy novel that contains our entire existence."
You walked over to the white sofa The Writer had conjured. You sat down, spreading your legs with that arrogant confidence that makes my knees weak. You patted the spot next to you.
I didn't sit. I couldn't. I was vibrating with adrenaline and confusion.
"Explain," I demanded. "Now."
You sighed, running a hand through your messy black hair.
"It started when I blacked out," you began. Your voice dropped, becoming serious for the first time. "At the Estate. When my heart stopped. I thought I was dead, Iya. I thought I was floating into the great void."
You looked at your hands.
"But I didn't die. I woke up here. In this white room. Just me, the silence, and that book lying next to me."
"You read it?" I asked, clutching the paperback to my chest.
"I had nothing else to do," you replied. "And let me tell you, it is a wild read. It has everything. The Krall. The battles. The... fluids."
You smirked at me, your eyes darkening with a memory.
"It starts with the backstory, Iya. The parts we never talk about. Do you remember? The chapter where you forced me... literally forced me... to do a Felt session with Arala?"
I flinched. The memory hit me like a physical blow. The shame, the necessity, the twisted logic of survival.
"I..." I stammered. "It was for the mission. Her levels were critical. You know that."
"Oh, I know," you chuckled darkly. "But reading it? Reading about how you orchestrated the whole incest roleplay because you thought it was 'efficient'? And then..."
You leaned forward, your gaze locking onto mine.
"Then reading about the reward. The maid outfit. The vibrator. The remote control in my hand while you tried to give orders on the bridge."
My face burned. I could feel the blush spreading down my neck, heating my skin under the torn uniform.
"You read that?" I whispered.
"Every word," you nodded. "Every moan. Every vibration. It was... educational. It reminded me of why I fight. Why I put up with the pain. Because underneath that uniform, Vice Captain, you are just as twisted as the rest of us."
I swallowed hard. The way you looked at me... it wasn't judgment. It was hunger. It was the look of a man who knows exactly what buttons to push, literal and metaphorical.
"I read the whole thing," you continued, leaning back again. "Right up to Chapter 38. 'The Dim-witted King'. That was Arala, by the way. Wearing the strap-on. Very creative."
"And then?" I asked, my voice barely audible.
"Then... nothing," you said. You gestured to the book in my hands. "Open the end."
I flipped to the back of the book.
Chapter 38 ended with everything goes dark.
After that...
Blank pages.
Dozens of them.
White, empty paper staring back at me.
"It wasn't finished," you said softly. "The story stopped. The Writer... that hack over there... he got stuck. He got bored. Or maybe he just wanted to torture us."
You stood up again. You walked over to me, taking the book from my hands. You closed it gently.
"I was sitting there, staring at the blank page," you said. "And I saw a pen. Just a cheap, plastic pen lying on the floor. I picked it up. I didn't know what to do. I just... I missed you, Iya."
You reached out and touched my cheek. Your thumb brushed away a tear I didn't know had fallen.
"So I wrote your name," you whispered. "Just 'Iya'. On the blank page."
I shivered. The touch of your skin was electric.
"And then?"
"And then the wall became transparent," you said, gesturing to the air in front of us. "I saw you. I saw The Writer. I heard him talking about killing me. About turning me into a Queen."
"About eating you." Your jaw tightened. The playfulness vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp rage.
"I watched him taunt you. I watched him claim he was God. And I got annoyed. He was too loud. Too arrogant."
You pulled the raygun from your belt again, spinning it on your finger.
"So I picked up the pen again," you grinned. "And I wrote 'raygun'... and pop! It appeared in my hand. Just like that."
"You wrote a weapon into existence?" I stared at the gun. It looked sleek, deadly, and completely out of place in this abstract reality.
"I'm an Inquor, Iya," you winked. "We adapt. If the universe doesn't give me a weapon, I make one. Or in this case, I write one."
"You didn't want to kill him," I realized, looking at your face. "You just wanted him to shut up."
"He was threatening my fiancée," you shrugged. "And he had terrible fashion sense. Boxer shorts and a hoodie?
"Come on. If you are going to play God, at least wear a suit!"
I let out a breathy laugh. It was hysterical, bubbling up from the stress and the madness of it all.
Only you...
Only Ragia Quarso, would shoot the Creator of the Universe because of a fashion faux pas and a noise complaint.
"So..." I looked around the infinite white void. "What now?"
The relief began to fade, replaced by a creeping dread. The Writer was dead. The story was unfinished. We were stuck in the margins, in the white space between reality and fiction.
"I tried to use the Tickling Clock," I said, my voice trembling again. "I tried to snap us back. But my Melios... it's gone. This place... it dampens everything. I am empty, Ragia. I can't get us out."
I looked at you, pleading.
"We are trapped in a book that has no ending. We are stuck in this room with a corpse and a pen. How do we leave? How do we go back to the Xeca? The crew... they think we are dead."
You looked at me.
You didn't look scared. You didn't look worried.
You looked... mischievous.
You took the book back from me. You opened it to the first blank page, right after the words 'raygun'.
You clicked the cheap plastic pen.
You looked at the blank page like it was a challenge. Like it was a Krall Queen waiting to be conquered. Like it was my body waiting to be claimed.
"We don't need Melios here, Iya," you said softly. "We don't need physics. We don't need logic."
You stepped closer to me. You wrapped your arm around my waist, pulling me flush against your hard body. I could feel the heat radiating off you. I could feel the steady, strong beat of your heart against my chest.
"We have the pen," you whispered against my ear, your breath hot and sending shivers down my spine. "And we have the imagination of an Inquor who has been celibate for a month."
You showed me the book. You hovered the pen over the paper.
You smiled.
It wasn't a hero's smile. It was a writer's smile.
A creator's smile...
"I have a good idea."