August didn't remember walking home.
One minute he was staring at the sketchbook in a stairwell. The next, he was in his room. Door shut. Hoodie still damp from where he'd sweat through the sleeves.
He locked the door.
He didn't know why. Just—instinct.
Everything looked normal. Bed slightly messy. Chair tilted. A hoodie half-hanging off the closet door. The candle his mom bought him (jasmine-something) sat unlit by the windowsill.
But the air felt wrong.
Like a dream that hadn't ended.
Like something was still here with him, waiting for his attention.
He opened the sketchbook.
Arthur's page was gone.
Not blank—just gone. That part of the sketchbook was missing. Like someone had ripped it out without damaging the spine.
August flipped fast.
No Arthur. No silhouette. No ground. No cracks. Just white.
His hands trembled.
Then he turned to the final blank page.
And there it was.
A new drawing.
He hadn't made it. He would've remembered.
It was Arthur again—but closer. No longer kneeling. Standing, sword slung across his back, head slightly turned like someone had called his name.
The detail was sharper. The lines more confident. The kind of rendering he wanted to do—but couldn't have drawn in a haze.
There was writing beneath the image.
But not his writing.
Different pressure. Different linework. More elegant.
"If you're going to bring me back…"
A pause.
"Do it properly this time."
August sat down slowly, like his body wasn't quite his.
"…You're not real," he said aloud.
No one answered.
But the drawing shimmered—slightly—like the graphite caught light that wasn't in the room.
He flipped to the next blank page. Grabbed his pencil. Pressed it to paper.
"Okay," he whispered. "Let's see if I'm really losing it."
He started sketching.
Arthur again—but on his own terms now. Standing, coat flowing slightly, sword drawn. Eyes sharp. Conflicted. Alive.
This wasn't copying a memory anymore.
This was talking.
The lines moved easier than they ever had. The pencil glided. The shape filled itself in like it wanted to return.
And then—
Halfway through the sketch—
Arthur turned his head.
August hadn't drawn that.
The pencil dropped from his hand.
The figure on the page had shifted.
Just a little. Just enough.
Eyes meeting his.
And underneath, in that same unfamiliar handwriting:
"You remember me better than I thought."
August didn't sleep.
He tried.
Turned off the lights. Buried himself in blankets. Stared at the ceiling like it might explain things if he squinted hard enough.
But every time his eyes closed, he saw Arthur.
Not drawn. Not sketched. There.
Standing in the white space between memory and dream. Sword on his back. Head tilted like he was listening for something.
Like August.
The worst part?
It didn't feel like a dream.
It felt like a memory of something that hadn't happened yet.
When morning came, August felt like his head had been cracked open and someone had poured fog inside.
He didn't go to school.
He didn't tell his mom. Just faked a sore throat and a look of doom she recognized from all three of his sisters.
"You rest, baby," she said. "You're burning out."
He was.
But not the normal way.
He sat on the couch with a blanket wrapped around him and the sketchbook resting on his lap like a hot coal. He hadn't opened it again. Not since Arthur looked back.
He told himself he'd give it one more hour. Just one. And if nothing happened, if the world stayed still, he'd go back to normal. Go outside. Eat a fruit snack. Watch dumb videos.
And then he saw him.
Not on paper. Not in the sketchbook.
In the living room.
For one second.
Standing just past the TV, near the bookshelf.
Arthur.
Flickering—like bad signal. Like a picture failing to load.
He didn't move. Just looked at August.
Not angry.
Not sad.
Just… tired.
Then he was gone.
August didn't scream. He just stared.
His heart tried to punch a hole through his chest.
His hands curled into fists under the blanket.
Then, slowly, he opened the sketchbook.
New page.
New words.
Written in that same fine, precise handwriting:
"It's starting."
And beneath it, something else, shakier:
"You let the story remember itself."
August swallowed.
He picked up his pencil, breath uneven.
He wasn't asking if this was happening anymore.
He was asking why.
So he wrote:
Why me?
The answer came slow.
Faint.
But brutal:
"Because you were the only one who ever listened."
It happened sometime after lunch.
He hadn't eaten. Hadn't moved. Just sat there, sketchbook balanced on his knees like a doorway he was scared to open—but couldn't stop touching.
He'd read that last line a hundred times:
"Because you were the only one who ever listened."
It felt like grief wearing his handwriting. Like guilt turned into a voice.
He closed his eyes.
Not to sleep.
Just to stop seeing.
But the moment his lids shut—
he was elsewhere.
Not dreaming. Not imagining.
Standing.
On black soil.
Under a sky too quiet.
With no sun. No stars. No clouds. Just lightless gray.
He turned in place, breathing slow.
The air was thick. Heavy, like walking through old water. The horizon was flat, endless.
And ahead of him—
Arthur.
Not a drawing. Not flickering.
Arthur.
Standing at the edge of what looked like a ruin. Tower fragments half-sunken into earth. A broken blade stuck in the ground beside him.
His coat swayed slightly. His head was bowed.
Alive.
August opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
He stepped forward. The ground didn't make noise. No crunch. No echo. Just weight.
Arthur turned—slowly.
Looked at him.
Those same eyes.
August froze.
"You're not supposed to be here yet," Arthur said. His voice didn't echo, but it felt like it should've.
"I didn't mean to come here," August managed to whisper.
Arthur studied him.
Not cruelly.
But like someone trying to remember a face they once dreamed about.
"…Then you must be close," Arthur murmured. "Too close."
August took another step forward. "What is this place?"
Arthur tilted his head slightly. "You called it a world once. You gave it rules. Cities. Names. Then you killed it."
"I didn't mean to."
"I know."
There was no accusation in his voice. Just truth. Dry and old.
"I was just a kid," August said.
"You still are."
The wind moved. Soundless. Cold.
Arthur turned back toward the ruin. "You gave me a world, August. Then left me buried in it. I stayed because there was nowhere else to go."
August's throat tightened. "Why now? Why are you still—why are you here?"
Arthur didn't turn.
He just said:
"Because something else woke up with me."
And behind August—
something breathed in.
Long. Wet. Hollow.
He turned—too slow—
And saw a figure in the gray.
Far off. Watching.
Its shape wrong.
August gasped.
And woke up on the floor of his room.
Shaking. Cold. Sketchbook still open in front of him.
A new drawing there.
The ruin. Arthur. And in the corner—
A blurred shape.
Drawn in his own hand.
He hadn't drawn it.
But it was his linework.