The page was already written by the time Eiran placed his hand on the pen.
The ink wasn't dry. It still pulsed within the fibers of the paper, as if someone, or something, had poured it there just a second before.
But the room he was in was empty. Just like the rest of the house.
He was writing in an old, black journal, its edges worn by time. He couldn't remember buying it. Nor opening it before that morning. Yet when he found it on his desk, tied with a white ribbon, it had felt… normal.
On the page, the letters stared back at him.
"The writer who forgot. The one who dreams words before living them."
It was his handwriting. No doubt about it.
But the phrases…
They felt familiar, though he couldn't remember ever reading them.
He stopped. A dull throb in his temple.
Then a voice. Soft. Feminine. A whisper, barely there.
It didn't come from the room.
Or his head.
It was… inside the air.
"…and the writer, even forgetting, kept writing…"
Eiran turned around. Nothing.
The books on the shelves were in perfect order.
The photo of his mother was in place, but her face was blurred, as if someone had smudged it with a finger.
He leaned toward the page again.
The ink was moving. Not running, but reshaping itself, rewriting the sentences.
"Who writes when you're not here?"
He picked up the pen. Turned it in his fingers.
The tip was worn down, like it had been used a thousand times, not recently, but in every forgotten day.
He stood and walked to the window.
But instead of a street or neighbors, beyond the glass was… a white page.
A massive sheet of paper, on which letters began to appear, written in real time by an invisible hand:
"Eiran approaches the window."
He took a step back.
The words changed:
"Eiran is afraid."
He closed his eyes. Breathed deeply. Once. Twice. Three times.
Calmed himself.
Then opened them again.
The room was no longer the same.
A crack had formed in the wall. The clock was ticking backwards.
A book on the desk had changed titles: from "The Journal of Days" to "Stories Forgotten by Me."
The pen was now a quill. The ink—pulsing inside a tiny glass jar.
Eiran touched his temple. It burned.
He whispered:
— I don't remember dreaming this. Or writing it.
The voice returned. Closer now.
"Then… who did?"
The library he stood in… was no longer the same.
Everything familiar had been pulled backward through tired time—not like a broken clock, but like a memory unraveling.
The only things that still felt known were the photo of his mother, and the scent of old books dusted by age.
The desk beneath him felt older than the house itself.
The chair, carved in a medieval style, creaked as though it carried the weight of hundreds of forgotten stories.
There were no lights. Only the warm flicker of candles and a single gas lantern trembling in the corner.
Everything was in its place.
Except time.
It was as if he were living inside one of his own stories.
But couldn't remember ever writing it.
The quill slipped from his hand.
The ink jar shattered.
But no sound came.
The silence thickened. The air trembled, then bent, like heat over a desert.
And before he could blink, the library was gone.