Chapter 16: A Whisper Through the Pages
The morning sun spilled over Dhaka's sleepy rooftops, bathing the room in soft gold. Abid sat at his worktable, a cup of lukewarm tea resting near his drawing pad. The steam had long since faded, but the scent of cardamom and ginger lingered in the air—comforting, familiar.
His stylus hovered just above the digital canvas, where a new panel of The Wind from Between Realms waited to be inked. He hadn't planned on drawing today, not after how deep the last story had reached into him. But sometimes, the urge came not from ambition or discipline, but something gentler—a quiet beckoning from the stories that wanted to be told.
[System Notification: "Passive Inspiration" boost activated. Mental fatigue reduced by 15%. Creative focus enhanced for 1 hour.]
"Thanks," Abid mumbled, as if the system could hear his gratitude. He had stopped questioning the mechanics of it long ago. If it gave him space to create and eased the aching loneliness, that was enough.
With practiced grace, his hand moved across the tablet. The rustle of leaves, the stillness of a forgotten shrine, the distant song of wind—these were things he could not draw literally, but he could feel them. He tried to capture that sensation in his lines.
The world on the screen began to bloom.
A boy standing at a cliff's edge, holding a paper talisman in one hand and a sealed letter in the other. Clouds drifted lazily across a sky tinged with the hues of sunset. Below, a forest whispered with wind that carried old voices.
It was peaceful, melancholic. A page full of silence that somehow said everything.
The chime of the system broke through the air, quiet but insistent.
[New Sale Confirmed: "The Wind from Between Realms" - 42 copies sold in Eldenborough Book Nook.]
[Reader Review Received: "It made me cry. I want to stand under the same trees the boy did."]
[Reader Review Received: "The spirit wind... is it real? I dreamed of it last night."]
Abid stared at the messages for a moment, letting them sink in. Not the numbers—he didn't care about those right now—but the reactions. His hand slowly returned to his side.
They had felt it too.
In another world, someone had opened his story and heard the same wind, seen the same cliff, walked beside the boy he had imagined. Not as words on a screen, but something real. Something living.
He let out a long breath and leaned back in his chair. The world outside his window moved on—children shouting in the alley, a vendor calling out the price of mangoes, a car sputtering down a narrow lane. But inside the room, time had become still.
There had been days, not so long ago, when he'd questioned whether art even mattered anymore.
But now—now he knew.
Later that day, he took a walk.
The air was warm, but not stifling. A breeze stirred the leaves overhead, and birds flickered between the buildings like falling ash. He wandered without direction, letting the city carry him.
Down one lane, he passed a small tea stall where two old men argued over a cricket match. On another, a boy sold roses from a plastic bucket, humming to himself. Life unfolded in these quiet, ordinary ways—and Abid found himself smiling at each turn.
By the time he returned, the sun was beginning to dip. Evening painted the sky with strokes of orange and purple, and the shadows stretched long across his floor.
He opened his dashboard again, not out of obligation, but curiosity.
The system screen had a new feature blinking faintly.
[System Update: Feature Unlocked – "Reader Echoes"]
[Description: Highly moved readers may leave behind emotional imprints. Collected echoes can influence your inspiration pool.]
A second notification followed:
[New Reader Echo Acquired:
Location: Virandor Highlands, Realm of Aestra
Emotion: Longing / Belonging / Hope]
[Would you like to visualize this echo?]
Abid hesitated only a moment.
"Yes," he whispered.
The screen shimmered.
A field appeared before his eyes—not in full detail, but like a memory. Tall grass swayed under an endless blue sky. Somewhere in the distance, bells chimed in the wind. And at the center, a figure stood. They weren't facing him, only gazing out across the world as if searching for something just beyond reach.
The feeling struck him deeply.
Not sorrow. Not joy.
Just the quiet ache of wanting to be understood.
When the vision faded, he found his hand resting on his chest, just above his heart.
"That was real," he murmured.
The system did not reply, but its silence said enough.
That night, Abid didn't draw. He sat with a notebook open, staring at the empty page by candlelight.
Not to plan.
Not to draft.
Just to listen.
He thought of the reader in Virandor, whoever they were. Someone who had picked up his manga and seen in it a piece of themselves. Someone who, maybe like him, had lived too long without anyone to talk to.
So he wrote.
A letter—not to be published, not to be sent—but just in case the system could carry it across the boundary of worlds.
"Dear friend," he began, "I felt your echo today."
"I don't know your name, or what kind of place the Highlands are, but I saw the sky you stood under. And I heard the wind. I hope you're okay."
He paused, tapped his pen twice against the desk, then continued.
"Sometimes I wonder if we are all just small leaves, carried by a breeze we can't control. But if this wind brought my story to you… then I'm grateful for it."
He signed it quietly.
—Abid
The candle flickered once, then stilled.
[System Notification: Letter archived in "Realm Correspondence". Reader Echo will be notified if resonance remains.]
Abid smiled.
It wasn't much.
But maybe—just maybe—it was enough.
At midnight, he returned to his tablet.
The story waited.
New pages, blank and trembling with potential.
He touched his stylus to the screen.
The wind from between realms rustled again, and Abid began to draw.