Kaien felt his heart race as his fingers trembled, hovering over the sealed scroll Lioren had given him. The quiet of his dorm room seemed to thicken, the air drawing taut as if the world itself was holding its breath. He could feel the weight of the challenge in the words written on the scroll—"Rewrite me if you can." It was a dare, an invitation to play with the very fabric of reality itself.
But this... this felt different.
He slowly peeled back the wax seal, the crack of the seal sounding far too loud in the silence of his room. As soon as the scroll unfurled, Kaien's breath hitched. It was one sentence—one simple line:
"Kaien Lior is not supposed to exist."
The words were stark, clean, and cold—like a judgment, a declaration. Kaien's mind struggled to grasp the meaning behind them. Was this some sort of cruel joke? How could he not exist? He was standing right here, wasn't he?
The air in his room rippled, as if reality itself was warping at the edges. Kaien stood frozen, staring at the line as if it were a riddle he couldn't solve. Then, without warning, the world around him began to shift.
First, there was a slight twitch, like a stutter in a poorly recorded video. One of the books on his shelf flickered and reappeared on the wrong side of the room for a fraction of a second before snapping back into place.
Then, the unthinkable happened.
A bird, which Kaien could see through his open window, froze mid-flight. Its wings were caught in a half-beat, suspended in the air as if it had been paused on a remote control. Kaien's breath caught in his throat. The bird hung there, its tiny eyes staring unblinkingly in his direction, frozen in time.
It wasn't just the bird. The world around him was faltering—things weren't right. He glanced at his desk, where his ink pot wobbled, then suddenly stilled, as though some unseen hand had just pressed pause on everything.
NPCs—students who walked the halls, those faceless individuals who had always felt so much like background characters—stuttered as they moved, their bodies jerking unnaturally, their eyes flicking between positions as though glitching through different stages of existence.
Everything around him felt... wrong.
In a panic, Kaien grabbed his pen and scribbled frantically onto the scroll.
"Everything is normal again."
It was a desperate plea—a wish, a command—and as soon as the ink left the page, the world snapped back into place with an audible click.
The bird resumed its flight as though nothing had happened. The NPCs continued their paths without further glitching. The light from the outside window was the same. Everything looked the same.
Except for one thing.
His roommate.
Kaien's eyes darted to his side, where his roommate's bed had always been. The bed was still there, neatly made. But the boy who normally occupied it—Jayce, a quiet, unremarkable student—was nowhere to be found.
Instead, lying on the bed, his back turned toward Kaien, was a new face. A stranger.
The boy was sleeping soundly, with sharp features and black hair that fell in a neat, disciplined manner. He wore the uniform of a student from a different faction, one Kaien didn't recognize. Who was this? This was not Jayce. This was someone entirely different.
A chill ran down Kaien's spine. What did this mean? Had the world rewritten itself around him, erasing his roommate as though he had never existed? Or had the change been a direct result of his panic-driven edit?
He had only written one line—"Everything is normal again." And yet, something had been lost in the process. A person. A piece of his reality had been rewritten, erased, or replaced.
Could he really change anything without consequence?
Still shaken, Kaien paced his room, running his fingers through his hair. He had thought he was in control, but now, the truth was becoming undeniable. Each stroke of his pen, each line he wrote, wasn't just altering his surroundings—it was reshaping the world in ways he couldn't predict.
Was he going mad? Was the scroll becoming too powerful, too unpredictable to control?
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Kaien froze, his heart skipping a beat. He wasn't expecting anyone. Slowly, he walked to the door and opened it.
Standing there, framed by the dim light from the hallway, was Professor Inkwell.
"Kaien," the professor said, his voice soft but heavy with meaning. "I need to speak with you."
Kaien's stomach churned. Why had Inkwell come here, of all places? Was it about his use of the scroll? His edits? He couldn't quite shake the feeling that the professor already knew more about what was going on than he let on.
"What's this about?" Kaien asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
Inkwell's eyes gleamed under the faint light. "You've been writing more than your story, haven't you? You've begun to write the world. You've started making changes... but you may not realize the weight of the lines you write. Narrative gravity resists such edits."
Kaien was about to respond, but before he could, Professor Inkwell smiled—a knowing, almost sad smile. The smile didn't reach his eyes. "And you've just started realizing that, haven't you?"
Kaien blinked, confusion washing over him. "What do you mean?"
Inkwell's smile deepened. "You've started writing, haven't you?"
His words felt like an icy splash of water, cutting through the fog in Kaien's mind. The implications of Inkwell's statement crashed over him with the force of a tidal wave.
Before Kaien could respond, Professor Inkwell handed him a small slip of parchment. It was sealed with a wax stamp, identical to the one on Lioren's scroll.
Kaien hesitated, his fingers trembling as he broke the seal. He unfolded the slip of parchment, which contained just one line:
"Kaien smiles with confidence."
As Kaien read the words, his heart skipped. He felt a sharp tug at his mind—a pull, almost like an invisible thread had been pulled taut. The moment he finished reading, he looked up at Inkwell, and something in the professor's demeanor changed.
The professor's face softened, and to Kaien's shock, Inkwell smiled—not just any smile, but a smile of understanding, of recognition.
"Ah," Inkwell said quietly, "You've started writing, haven't you?"
Kaien's heart skipped a beat.
Had he rewritten himself, too?
To be continued…