Klein did not move immediately.
The embers of the burned book had long since faded, yet the scent of charred paper lingered in the air. The weight of what had just transpired still clung to him, thick and suffocating.
The Archive was silent once more, yet the hush felt different now—not merely empty, but watchful.
Somewhere, something had noticed.
Klein slowly turned toward his reflection.
"You knew what would happen," he said. His voice was calm, but his grip on his revolver remained firm.
The reflection looked at him, a faint, unreadable smile on his lips.
"I suspected."
"That's not an answer."
The reflection tilted his head slightly, his mismatched eyes glinting with something that might have been amusement—or exhaustion. "Would you have believed me if I had told you?"
Klein didn't reply.
Because the answer was no.
If his reflection had told him outright that something erased from existence was trying to return, he wouldn't have believed it—not fully. Not until he saw it with his own eyes.
The reflection took a step forward, his form flickering faintly in the dim light. "But now you've seen it. And you understand."
Klein exhaled through his nose. "Understand what?"
The reflection raised a hand, gesturing around them.
"The Archive doesn't just record. It binds."
Klein frowned.
The reflection continued, his voice quieter now, more measured.
"Everything written here is fixed. A law that cannot be undone. Even gods cannot easily alter what is recorded." He paused. "But what happens when something is unwritten?"
Klein's pulse quickened.
"It becomes an anomaly," he murmured.
The reflection smiled slightly. "Precisely."
Klein's thoughts churned. If the Archive was a place where everything was written, then anything removed from its pages—anything that should have existed but had been erased—would be an aberration.
A thing without a past, without an anchor.
A thing that should not be.
His grip on his gun tightened. "Then what was it?"
The reflection's smile faded.
"A fragment," he said. "A piece of something that once belonged. A piece that still remembers it was real."
Klein felt a chill creep up his spine.
"So it wasn't just a mindless entity."
"No." The reflection shook his head. "It was something that knew it had been erased. And it was trying to return."
Klein inhaled sharply.
The thing—whatever it had been—wasn't simply a mistake.
It was a being that had once existed.
And someone—something—had erased it.
He turned his gaze back to the empty space where the figure had stood. The darkness there was ordinary now, the air no longer heavy with that dreadful presence.
But the sense of unease did not fade.
Because if such a thing could happen to that entity—
What stopped it from happening to him?
—
The Page That Was Never Turned
Klein forced himself to move.
Lingering here would accomplish nothing. He had already spent too much time caught in thought, and if he stayed, he had the terrible feeling that the Archive would begin to notice him in ways he did not yet understand.
His reflection followed without a word.
Their footsteps were the only sound in the vast, endless expanse of shelves and tomes. The deeper they walked, the heavier the air became—not oppressive, but charged.
Like walking through a storm just before it breaks.
The books here were older. The bindings cracked, the covers faded to near-unreadability. Some were so ancient their pages seemed more woven from memory than paper.
And yet, despite their age, none bore dust.
Klein ran his fingers over the spine of one. Smooth. Unmarked.
Unchanging.
He didn't need to open them to know—whatever was recorded in these books had been sealed in permanence.
No hand had written over these words.
No fate had altered their course.
And that was when the thought struck him.
Could these books hold the fates of those who had been forgotten?
His breath hitched slightly.
Could the erased still exist here, within these pages?
His hand hovered over the book, a deep, instinctual urge telling him to open it.
But—
"No."
The reflection's voice cut through his thoughts.
Klein's fingers froze just before touching the cover.
He turned his gaze to his counterpart.
The reflection's face was unreadable, but there was an edge to his voice. "You don't want to see."
Klein's heartbeat picked up.
He narrowed his eyes. "What's in these books?"
The reflection hesitated—just for a second.
Then he sighed.
"These books do not record what is." His gaze drifted across the shelves. "They record what was supposed to be."
Klein's breath caught in his throat.
His mind raced.
If the Archive recorded all things—if its books were the immutable truth—then that meant…
These were the versions of reality that had never come to pass.
Alternate fates.
Possibilities that had been discarded.
Lives that had never been lived.
He swallowed, his throat dry. "Then the erased—"
The reflection nodded.
"This is where they go."
Klein took a slow step back from the shelves.
The weight of realization pressed against his chest.
These books were graves.
Not just for the erased, but for entire timelines, entire realities that had been cast aside.
And yet—
Something inside him whispered that not all of them were silent.
He turned his gaze forward.
At the end of the aisle, past the endless stretch of shelves, stood a single door.
A door that should not have been there.
Klein's pulse quickened.
He had not seen it before.
But it was there now.
Waiting.
—
The Door to the Unwritten
The reflection had also stopped.
His gaze was fixed on the door, his expression unreadable.
Neither of them spoke.
Because somehow, they both knew.
This was a threshold.
And whatever lay beyond—
It was not meant to be seen.
Klein exhaled. He steadied himself, his fingers brushing against the cold handle of the revolver at his waist.
Then, without another word—
He stepped forward.
The reflection followed.
The door creaked open.
And Klein stepped into the unknown.
---
End of Chapter 75.
---