The figure stood at a distance, their smile neither welcoming nor hostile—just knowing.
Klein felt the weight of the quill in his hand. It was light, yet it anchored him to this space, as if it was the only thing keeping him from being erased.
The silence had broken. The world was no longer empty. But that did not mean it was safe.
Who are they?
The figure did not move, but Klein felt something shift. Their form flickered—one moment, a person in a long coat, another, a faceless silhouette, then a being with a thousand shifting hands, each holding a different quill, ink-dipped claws, or sharpened fingers.
They were rewriting themselves as he watched.
And Klein understood.
They were like him.
A creature that did not belong.
A being that existed outside of the story.
But there was a difference.
He had been dragged here.
They had been waiting.
—
The Page Before the Beginning
The ground beneath him was still nothing. But with every step forward, Klein noticed something forming.
Ink.
It seeped from the air, pooling beneath his feet, running in swirling, incomprehensible patterns. Words half-written, unfinished thoughts, concepts that dissolved before they could be read.
The figure finally moved.
"Do you know where you are?"
Klein did not answer immediately.
Did he?
A place outside the story. A space without narration, without prewritten fate.
The pages before they were filled.
The draft of existence itself.
The moment the thought settled, the figure's smile widened.
"Ah, you do understand."
Their voice was layered, carrying a chorus of possibilities.
Klein's fingers twitched. The quill in his hand pulsed.
The world around them was not stable.
It was waiting to be written.
And that was dangerous.
Because whoever wrote it first…
Would decide what it became.
—
Ink and Blood
"You don't belong here," the figure said. "Yet here you are."
Klein kept his eyes on them, cautious. "And you do?"
The figure laughed, though the sound came from everywhere at once. "No one belongs here. That's the point. This place is where things come before they exist. Where the ink dries before it's spilled."
Their eyes—if they had any—locked onto the quill in Klein's hand.
"You took it," they murmured. "The Quill of the Unwritten."
Klein resisted the urge to loosen his grip.
The Quill of the Unwritten.
A tool that could shape this space.
Had he truly pulled it from nothing? Or had it been waiting for someone to take it?
The figure tilted their head. "What do you think happens now?"
The ink around them pulsed. Klein could feel something else watching.
Not the figure.
Something deeper.
The void itself.
It wanted to be filled.
To be written.
And the quill in his hand—it was expecting him to do so.
Klein exhaled slowly.
"I think," he said, "that whatever happens next depends on who writes first."
The figure grinned.
"Exactly."
And then they moved.
—
A Battle for the Pen
Klein had expected an attack.
He hadn't expected the world itself to turn against him.
The ink surged, rising like liquid tendrils, reaching for him. They weren't just attacking—they were trying to overwrite him.
To turn him into words.
To erase his existence into the story itself.
Klein leapt back, but there was no solid ground to push from. The space shifted, dragging him in multiple directions. His own body blurred, as if parts of him were already being rewritten.
No. He wouldn't let that happen.
He tightened his grip on the quill.
And wrote.
"I remain."
The ink around him froze.
For a split second, the world stopped trying to consume him.
Klein took the opening.
He twisted, dragging the quill through the air—and reality split.
Not like a portal.
Not like a wound.
Like a blank page being torn open.
The figure lunged, but Klein was already moving, stepping through the gap.
—
A Story That Refuses to Be Written
Klein fell.
Not through space.
Not through time.
Through concept.
Through possibility.
He landed—if such a thing was possible—on another stretch of unwritten space. But this time, something was different.
There were marks here.
Failed words.
Attempts at writing that had been scratched out, erased before they could take form.
And in the center—
A chair.
An empty throne.
Klein didn't move closer.
He didn't need to.
He already knew what it was.
The seat of the one who wrote reality.
The place where the story began.
And there was no one in it.
Because the one who had once sat there…
Had left.
Had abandoned the pen.
Had let the world drift, unwritten.
And now—
Someone else wanted to take their place.
Klein exhaled.
His grip tightened around the quill.
"Not yet," he murmured.
And, carefully, he reached down—
And crossed out the throne.
---
End of Chapter 71.
---