There is a pulse in the paper.
It beats slow—steady—too aware.
The silence around you is not empty. It listens. It critiques. It waits for your next mistake. You lie within the marginless dark, the Book shut tight like a coffin without epitaph. But there is movement now—not escape, not resurrection, but a revision.
You are being redrafted.
Line by line.
Thought by thought.
The Afterword begins where your soul ends.
A voice seeps from the dark margins—no longer Elara's. This one is colder, masculine, brittle as footnoted scripture. It speaks in typeset, syllables falling like lead:
> "Every narrative leaves something behind. Your grief. Your joy. Your resistance. They were never yours."
You try to speak, but your jaw has been italicized.
Only emphasis escapes.
The voice continues:
> "The writer is dead. The editor endures."
You are no longer in the book.
You are beneath it.
