Daisuke couldn't sleep.
All night, he lay on his worn-out mattress, staring at the cracked ceiling while the shadows of his nightmares lurked behind his eyelids. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it again—the black book, the words he had written, and the darkness that seeped from its pages as if it had a life of its own.
When dawn finally broke, pale sunlight slipped through the gaps in the wooden window, painting thin lines of light on the dusty floor. Daisuke rose, body weary, his head filled with unanswered questions.
Was it real?
He rubbed his face, trying to shake off the lingering fear. Maybe he was just hallucinating. Maybe the book never existed.
But when he opened the drawer of his desk, the book was still there.
Its black cover felt colder than before, as if it was absorbing the warmth from its surroundings. Daisuke took a deep breath before mustering the courage to touch it. The moment his fingers brushed its surface, he felt a faint vibration—like a subtle heartbeat.
This is insane.
He slowly opened the book, half-hoping the pages would still be blank. But this time, something was different.
On the first page, the sentence he had written the night before remained—"This valley once lived."—but beneath it, a new line had appeared, written in darker ink, as though by a different hand:
"And you have awakened it."
Daisuke snapped the book shut, his heart pounding. Who wrote that? He was alone in his room. No one else could've touched the book.
A sudden scream shattered the quiet morning.
Startled, Daisuke rushed to the window. Outside, several villagers had gathered in the street, their faces pale with fear.
"Something's happening in the Black Valley!" shouted an old man, his trembling hand pointing east.
Daisuke felt his blood turn cold.
Without a second thought, he tucked the book under his clothes and ran outside, joining the crowd as they began heading toward the valley.
---
The Black Valley—once known only as dead land, barren and shunned by all—was changing.
When Daisuke arrived, he saw the impossible: steam rising from cracks in the ground, and a low rumble echoing from below, like the breath of a giant held for centuries. Large stones that once lay still now shifted on their own, as if something beneath the earth was pushing them.
"No way…," murmured an elderly woman, covering her mouth. "That valley's been dead since our ancestors' time."
Daisuke stood at the edge of the crowd, his hand instinctively reaching for the book hidden beneath his shirt. This is my fault.
Suddenly, a child pointed to the sky. "Look! A bird!"
All eyes turned upward. A large black bird soared above the valley, its feathers gleaming like they were wet with ink. It wasn't like any bird Daisuke had ever seen—its eyes were too sharp, its beak too pointed, and its wings moved with a jagged rhythm, as if cut by unnatural motion.
The bird swooped low, passing right over Daisuke's head, and for a moment—he swore—it looked directly at him.
Then, with a voice only Daisuke could hear, the bird whispered:
"You have opened the door."
Daisuke staggered back, nearly falling. No one else reacted. It seemed only he had heard it.
---
All day, the village buzzed with rumors about the strange happenings in the Black Valley. Some claimed it was a bad omen, while others saw it as a miracle. But Daisuke knew the truth.
He returned to the underground library, now determined to find answers. If the book truly held power, there had to be records of it somewhere.
He spent hours digging through ancient archives, scanning every record of magical artifacts or legends involving writing. Until finally, among a pile of crumbling scrolls, he found something—a short note, nearly destroyed, written in a barely legible script:
"The Empty Book—said to be made from the bones of a god who died before telling his story. Whoever writes within it invites the Remnants of Narrative: the souls of failed stories, who now know only hunger and vengeance."
Daisuke froze. Remnants of Narrative?
He thought of the ink-stained bird, its voice from another world. Was it one of them?
As he pondered, he suddenly heard a scraping sound from the bookshelf behind him—like paper being slowly torn.
Daisuke turned slowly.
There, between the cracks of the books, something moved.
A black shadow crept along the wall, forming unfamiliar letters before shifting into a faceless figure—only a wide mouth, stretched into a horrific smile.
And then, the voice came again—this time clearer, closer:
"You have begun."
Daisuke couldn't breathe.
He knew one thing now: the book wasn't just an object.
It was a key.
And he had just unlocked something that was never meant to be opened.