The rain began with no clouds.
No warning. No thunder. Just water, cold and clean, pouring from an empty sky like a curtain being drawn across reality. It wasn't just unnatural. It felt… intentional. Like the act of erasure. Something was being rewritten.
Lyris stood at the doorway, his coat wrapped tight around his notebook. Not a single villager stirred. The silence wasn't peaceful. It was rehearsed.
Every drop of rain struck the ground with a soft consonant. Not a splash. Not a plop. More like a syllable. Half a word spoken through wet lips.
He tilted his head and listened.
Not madness. Not hallucination.
Language.
[System Alert: Atmospheric interference detected. Audio anomalies contain partial narrative code.]
The sky had begun speaking. In broken fragments. Like a story skipping lines, like a book read aloud from torn pages. There were no clouds, just pale light filtering through the nothing.
Lyris looked up. The rain touched his skin with deliberate breath. The system hummed in his thoughts.
[Recommendation: Shelter advised. Cognitive stability decreasing. Long-term exposure to narrative corruption may result in identity erosion.]
He didn't move. "What is it saying?"
[Parsing failed. Meaning unstable. Origin unclear.]
He took one step into the rain. The drops hit his skin like sentences collapsing mid-thought. One syllable stood out.
A name.
Not his. Not his brother's.
But familiar in a way that made his chest hurt.
Then, fog.
It rose from the ground, thick and silver, like a second skin for the village. His vision narrowed. The wooden houses, the stone road, the well in the center—they blurred.
He ran inside.
The fire took three tries to light. He stared into the flame, trying to find logic. That's what he always did: solve. Connect. Understand. This world refused him that.
He sat at the table, notebook open. He had drawn a map of the village, messy but honest. He circled the three points again:
The sealed chapel basement.
The silent basin in the forest.
The lake that no one in the village remembered visiting.
He connected them.
At the center—his house.
"Why here?" he muttered.
[Triadic anomaly convergence detected. Your position: narrative anchor.]
He stared at that message. Anchor.
[You hold continuity. Others… forget.]
"Why?"
[Because you remember how to question.]
He leaned back in his chair.
Remember.
The village clock struck five. But the sound didn't echo.
He walked upstairs. His brother's room was quiet. Too quiet.
The boy lay in bed, blanket pulled to his chin. Eyes closed. Breathing steady. Innocent.
But something was wrong.
Lyris had tucked him in the night before. The blanket was folded differently now. Precisely. Geometrically.
Like someone else had done it.
He stepped back. Closed the door. Stared at the wood for a moment longer than necessary.
The fog pressed against the windows.
He boiled water. Tapped his pen. Rewrote the same line four times:
"If this world is a story, who's the reader?"
Then another line forced its way onto the page. Not in his handwriting:
"Correction pending."
He slammed the book shut.
[System Alert: External influence detected. Narrative interference increasing. Authorial presence suspected.]
"Show me."
[Location trace unstable. Observation advised.]
He went outside again at dusk. The fog parted just enough to show movement.
People.
Frozen.
The child who always chased chickens—mid-run, eyes wide, motionless.
The baker—tray of bread balanced in one hand, unmoving.
A man drawing water—bucket stuck in midair. Not falling. Not suspended. Just… paused.
Time had stopped. Not just slowed. Not distorted. Stopped. But only for them.
Lyris walked. His footsteps echoed.
[System Locked. Temporal stasis in effect. External authorial force writing new parameters.]
"What does that mean?"
[The world is being edited.]
He turned slowly.
The well shimmered.
Its water no longer reflected the sky, but a blank parchment.
Then—floating ink:
"Would you like to submit a correction?"
He took a cautious step forward.
"A correction to what?"
[The current draft.]
He looked at his hands.
They were fading.
Not disappearing. Just—becoming outline.
His voice shook. "No."
He gripped the notebook against his chest.
"I'm not finished."
[Submission rejected. Subject retains narrative will.]
The fog pulled back.
Time resumed.
Laughter returned. A chicken clucked. The baker sneezed.
Everything moved.
Except Lyris. He stood still.
His heart thudded like a drum. The system pulsed against his skull.
[You are being overwritten.]
He staggered back inside and fell to the floor beside the fire.
He needed to anchor himself.
He opened the notebook.
He began writing again. Not a theory. Not a map.
Memory.
He remembered the mall in Japan. The bench. The cracked ceiling. The phone in his hand. The novel on screen, unfinished.
He had been writing the end of his final book when the earthquake struck.
Not a tragic ending. Not a twist.
Just a silence.
A sentence left undone:
"And the world he built turned on him, because—"
[System Query: Would you like to retrieve your final draft?]
His hand hovered.
"Yes."
[Loading fragment…]
A string of corrupted characters, then a line:
"—because even fiction hates a creator who abandons it."
He felt like vomiting.
He whispered, "I didn't abandon you."
[Statement received. Recognition pending.]
He turned to the fire.
Sat there for an hour.
Then wrote:
"Then let the abandoned return. Let the forgotten pick up the pen."
The system pulsed, slower now. Calmer. As if it had exhaled.
Then a whisper. Real. Not internal.
A voice outside the door:
"Page One."
He stood. Opened the door.
No one.
Just a blank piece of paper resting on the step.
He picked it up.
Nothing written.
But when he looked away and back—
A single word appeared.
"Begin."
He didn't sleep. He didn't feel tired.
He sat beside the fire and flipped through the notebook.
Pages were changing. Rearranging.
Lines written in his voice, but not by his hand.
"The writer who forgot he was real."
"A village rehearsed for readers who never arrived."
"The brother who wasn't."
That last one chilled him.
He stood up. Walked upstairs.
His brother was gone.
The bed was still warm.
But the room was empty.
He ran to the window. Fog everywhere. No footprints. No door opened.
[System Alert: Anomalous entity removed from foreground narrative.]
He froze.
"What did you say?"
[Subject: Maja. Status: Background suppression. Memory filter active.]
He clutched his head.
"No. No, he's real. He's real."
[Your memory conflicts with current canon. Do you accept revision?]
"No!"
He slammed the window shut.
He turned. The room flickered—just once. Like a candle struggling to stay lit.
He whispered his brother's name.
Nothing answered.
Only the sound of a page turning in the dark.