The library of Veridian had changed.
Where once there were towering oaken shelves and warm sunlight filtering through stained glass, now there stood blackened walls, flickering lanterns, and books that wept ink from their spines. Kiran walked among them like a ghost, his footsteps silent on the cracked marble. The scent of burning parchment lingered in the air, mingled with the sickly-sweet perfume of mildew and something rotting between the pages.
He clutched his chest as the glif-mark still burned faintly, pulsing like a wound that hadn't closed properly. He could hear it again—the whispering. Not in sound, but in meaning. Knowledge brushing against the edges of his sanity like moth wings soaked in blood.
He reached a section that should have never existed. The titles were written in shifting alphabets, twisting each time he blinked. One book hissed as he neared it. Another growled softly, teeth stitched into its spine.
"Looking for something particular, stranger?"
The voice came from behind the nearest shelf. Feminine. Calm. Too calm.
Kiran froze, hand hovering near a jagged volume wrapped in chains. He turned slowly. She stood in the flickering half-light, one hand on her hip, the other holding a lantern that didn't cast light but swallowed it.
She was beautiful in a way that unsettled the air—like symmetry forced upon a face not meant to hold it. Her eyes were twin pools of ink, shimmering with echoes. She wore a long coat made of pages stitched together, the text scrawled in dozens of dead languages.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice hoarse.
"Selena," she said with a wry smile. "And you're a long way from where you're supposed to be, Kiran."
He staggered back, mouth dry. "How do you know my name?"
She stepped forward, her boots making no sound. The lantern in her hand trembled, casting writhing shadows that clawed at the walls.
"Names are fragile things. Yours was never meant to be written here. You don't belong."
"I know that," Kiran snapped. "I've seen things. Heard things. I—I remember being revised. I remember ink in my veins. But I don't know what any of it means."
She studied him, her expression unreadable. "Then you're closer than most."
A screech shattered the silence. One of the books nearby exploded into a flurry of pages, each one bearing a different screaming face. They swarmed toward Kiran like paper locusts.
Selena moved without warning. She raised her hand, and the lantern howled. A vortex of black flame erupted from its core, consuming the shrieking pages mid-air. The stench of charred memories filled the library.
Kiran stared, heart pounding. "What the hell was that?"
She didn't answer immediately. She looked at the ashes, then at him.
"This place is feeding on you. The longer you stay, the more it remembers what you are."
He clenched his fists. "And what am I?"
She leaned close. He could smell the ink on her breath.
"You are a footnote given flesh. A broken clause made whole. A draft abandoned, then unearthed. You are not real in the way this world is real—but you are dangerous because of it."
His knees buckled. He sank to the floor, gasping. "I didn't choose any of this."
Selena knelt beside him, resting her lantern on the ground. "No. But choices aren't the only way destinies are made. Sometimes, all it takes is a miswritten word."
He looked at her, tears threatening. "What do I do?"
Before she could answer, the ground beneath them quaked. A groaning sound echoed from deep below—a sound like leather stretching over bone. The books began to vibrate, their bindings snapping one by one.
"We need to move," she said, standing. "They've found you again."
"Who?"
She offered her hand. "The Editors."
He took it. Her grip was ice.
They ran through the shifting stacks, corridors rewriting themselves in real-time. Doorways blinked in and out of existence. Walls bled letters that screamed when stepped on. Kiran barely kept pace, guided only by the tail of Selena's coat.
Then, suddenly, the corridor split open like a wound. A figure emerged from the tear—faceless, its head a smear of black correction fluid. It dragged a quill behind it, leaving a line of void in its wake.
Selena skidded to a stop. "Run!" she shouted.
Kiran turned, but the path behind was gone. Only pages remained, fluttering in a void of forgotten chapters.
The figure raised its hand. The quill rose with it, and the air around them fractured into sentence fragments, reality rearranging itself.
Then Selena did something he didn't expect.
She stepped between him and the figure, opened her coat, and screamed a word Kiran couldn't comprehend. The library convulsed. Every book on every shelf detonated into blinding light.
When Kiran could see again, the faceless figure was gone.
So was Selena.
Only her lantern remained, dim and humming.
And from deep below the floor, something ancient laughed with all the mouths it had borrowed.