In Velvora, the dead don't always stay dead. Sometimes, they file complaints.
Velvora City Morgue – 3:17 AM
The fluorescent lights buzzed like drunk wasps.
Asher stood at the edge of a long, metal hallway lined with lockers, each labeled with a number and a tag. A short, balding man in a coffee-stained lab coat led him inside, chewing on a stick of cinnamon gum like it owed him money.
"Blackwood, huh?" the mortician grunted. "You're the one who found that cult, right? The Milkless freaks?"
Asher nodded. "Yeah. Pretty sure they tried to sacrifice me over a lactose intolerance."
The mortician smirked, then stopped in front of drawer #404.
"No records. No ID. But something about her—" he paused, unlocking the drawer, "felt… unfinished."
With a hiss of cold air, the slab slid out.
And there she was.
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The Corpse
A young woman. Maybe early twenties. Long, jet-black hair. Pale skin—too pale, like it was made of handmade parchment. Her body was pristine, unmarked by decay.
But her skin…It was covered in writing.
Tiny, delicate symbols. Circles and runes and words he almost recognized.
Asher's breath caught.
It was his handwriting.
Or at least, it looked like it.
The mortician scratched his head. "Never seen anything like it. Not even our Arcane Division wants to touch her."
Asher stepped closer.
Her eyes opened.
Just for a second.
Pale blue. Empty.
Then shut again.
The mortician didn't notice. He was busy trying to find his gum packet.
Asher backed away slowly.
"She's alive."
The mortician laughed. "Good one."
Asher didn't laugh.
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Flashback: Foreshadowing You Didn't Realize Was Foreshadowing
Two years ago.
An alleyway. A broken mirror. Asher on his knees, holding something in his hands.
A notebook. Pages torn. Covered in that same strange script.
A voice echoing in his head:
"Write it down before they erase it."
Then darkness.
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Velvora Transit – Midnight Train to Nope
Asher left the morgue without a word. Rachel met him outside, munching on a kebab.
"You look like you just kissed a banshee."
"Worse," he muttered. "I think a corpse is trying to tell me bedtime stories in my own handwriting."
Rachel blinked. "Okay, we definitely need therapy coupons."
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Later That Night – His Apartment (Somewhere Between Real and Not)
Asher's apartment was a hole-in-the-wall studio over a pawn shop run by a man who believed toasters were interdimensional spies.
It had everything he needed: a bed, a sink, and a massive corkboard filled with red string and regret.
He pinned a new photo: a zoomed-in shot of the girl's skin, right above her collarbone.
It read:
"The third door opens when the first lie is believed."
"What the hell does that mean?"
Rachel chimed in over comms. "Sounds like a cult slogan. Or a bad escape room."
Then the lights flickered.
And his mirror cracked.
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Creepy Event #2: The Paper Whisper
He stepped toward the mirror. The cracks spidered outwards, forming patterns—like runes.
Then he saw it.
The girl from the morgue.
Reflected behind him.
He spun. Nothing.
Back to the mirror.
Still there.
And now… she was smiling.
Her paper-skin lips moved silently.
Asher leaned closer.
And heard it—in his own voice:
"You wrote me. You forgot. But I remember everything."
Then—
CRASH.
The mirror shattered completely.
Shards flew across the room, slicing his cheek.
Blood trickled. Onto the floor.
Which absorbed it.
Literally.
The floor drank it like ink on parchment, and words began to form beneath his feet.
"Two timelines. One fracture. Fix it or become it."
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Rachel, Coming in Hot with a Baseball Bat
The door burst open.
Rachel stormed in, armed with a bat labeled "Therapy."
She stopped cold at the sight of the floor.
"…That's not normal."
"Nope," Asher said, wiping his face. "Apparently, I've got two timelines, I'm leaking between them, and I may have written a corpse who now lives in my mirror."
Rachel nodded slowly.
"...Okay. I'm gonna need something stronger than kebab."
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Meanwhile… in a Place That Shouldn't Exist Yet
Somewhere in the dark, a hooded council sat around a broken sundial.
Each of them wore a mask—one smiled, one wept, one bled ink.
A floating mirror above them rippled, showing Asher staring at his blood-soaked floor.
The smiling one whispered:
"He's waking up too fast."
The weeping one replied:
"It can't be stopped now. The Fourth Memory is awakening."
The bleeding one simply sighed.
"Let's send the Archivist. If he survives her… maybe he's ready."
They all nodded.
The sundial cracked.
[End of Chapter 3]
Preview of Next Chapter:
Chapter 4 – The Archivist Wears Red HeelsAsher finds himself stalked by a woman known only as "The Archivist"—a silent, unnervingly graceful assassin whose memory-magic turns his thoughts into weapons. But when he corners her, the truth she holds might break more than just his mind.