The scratching in the hallway stopped just outside Lena's door.
Not the hesitant pause of someone reconsidering a knock—the deliberate stillness of a predator listening for prey. The air thickened with the scent of old paper and something metallic, like a penny left to dissolve on the tongue.
Lena's hands ached where the keys had melted into her flesh. The scars pulsed in time with her heartbeat, each throb sending a jolt of ice through her veins. The note on her nightstand now bore a fourth line, the ink still glistening:
"THEY MISSED ONE"
"HE'S COMING"
"BURN IT ALL"
"BUT NOT YET"
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Then—
A wet, rhythmic sound.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Not water.
Something thicker.
Lena pressed her palm against the door. The wood was unnaturally cold, the grain shifting under her touch like lines of text rearranging themselves. She squinted—
And recoiled.
The door wasn't wood anymore.
It was skin.
Stretched taut, still breathing, the nailhead near the knob a puckered scar.
The dripping intensified.
Lena's reflection in the broken mirror shivered, its lips peeling back to reveal teeth made of tiny, bound books.
"Don't let him in," it mouthed. "He doesn't knock twice."
Then the door handle turned.
---
The Gallery of the Lost
The hallway wasn't there.
In its place stretched a cavernous gallery, its walls lined not with paintings but with frames of flesh—human faces stretched and mounted like canvases, their mouths moving in silent screams. The floor was a mosaic of finger bones, clicking like typewriter keys underfoot.
And at the center, atop a pedestal of fused spines, sat the Collector.
His porcelain mask was intact again, the word "LIAR" gleaming fresh as if just painted. His gloved hands rested on a glass case containing a single object:
A page.
Not parchment.
Skin.
Lena's breath hitched.
She knew that uneven edge, that faint mole near the corner.
Mira's forearm.
The Collector tilted his head. "You've been looking for this."
His voice was different—smoother, almost kind. It made Lena's skin crawl.
She stepped forward, her boots sticking slightly to the bone floor. "What did you do to her?"
The mask's painted smile widened. "Nothing she didn't ask for."
He tapped the glass. The fragment of Mira's skin twitched, revealing words burned into its surface:
"The last page is the first lie."
Then the gallery shifted.
---
The First Betrayal
The walls peeled back like stage curtains, revealing a memory that wasn't Lena's:
A younger Mira standing in this very room, her sleeve rolled up, a scalpel in her hand. The Collector's voice, gentle as a lover's: "Just a small piece. Enough to throw it off the scent." Mira's jaw tightening as she carved into her own forearm. The skin coming away too easily—because it wasn't her skin anymore. It was already paper.
Lena's stomach turned. "She gave you a fake page."
The Collector chuckled. "She gave me bait."
He snapped his fingers.
The memory dissolved into a newer one:
The original book lying open in a pool of black ink. The Collector reaching for it—only for the pages to rear up like a striking cobra. A scream. Then—nothing. Just the book, quietly dripping onto the floor.
"The last page isn't missing," the Collector said. "It's hiding."
He stepped closer. The scent of old books and formaldehyde rolled off him in waves.
"And it's written in a language even I can't read."
Lena's pulse pounded in her throat. The scars on her palms itched.
"What do you want?"
The mask cracked—just a hairline fracture.
"What all collectors want," he whispered. "The complete set."
Then the floor opened beneath her.
---
The Bone Catalog
Lena fell through darkness, the screams of the mounted faces fading above her. She landed in something soft and damp—
Moss?
No.
Hair.
A vast carpet of it, stretching endlessly in all directions. The ceiling was a lattice of interlocking ribs, from which hung thousands of glass jars—each containing a single, floating word suspended in murky fluid.
"Jenna."
"Dan."
"Varrick."
The Collector's voice echoed from everywhere at once:
"Every name the book has ever taken. Every story it's ever consumed."
Lena stood, her legs trembling. The hair beneath her feet shifted, revealing a stone pedestal.
On it lay a single, yellowed index card:
"Alistair Voss - Keeper #37 - Status: Archived"
A cold finger traced Lena's spine.
"He wasn't your grandfather," the Collector murmured. "He was your predecessor."
Lena's vision swam. The scars on her palms burned.
"Liar."
The Collector laughed—a sound like pages rustling.
"Then ask him."
He snapped his fingers—
And the jar labeled "Alistair" shattered.
---
The Unfinished Story
The fluid hit the hair-carpet with a hiss. The word "Alistair" dissolved into smoke, which coiled into the rough shape of a man.
His mouth was stitched shut with gold thread.
His eyes were two voids.
But when he saw Lena, he screamed through the stitches—a sound so raw it made the jars tremble.
The Collector waved a hand. The threads snapped.
Alistair's voice was a dry rasp:
"You weren't born. You were written."
Lena's breath caught.
"What?"
Alistair convulsed, his form flickering. "The book needed a new Keeper. So it created you. From scraps. From stories."
He reached for her—
And Lena remembered:
- A blank page in the original book, quivering like a living thing.
- Alistair's hand, steady as he wrote: "Lena Carter. Age 28. Keeper #38."
- The ink squirming, rearranging itself into a life, a past, a person.
The Collector's gloved hand landed on her shoulder.
"You're not real, little Keeper. You're just a character."
Then Alistair exploded into a storm of paper scraps, each one bearing the same word:
"LIAR"
---
The Last Page's Secret
Lena's knees hit the hair-carpet. The jars above her rattled, their contents sloshing violently.
The Collector crouched beside her, his mask inches from her face.
"The last page isn't Mira's," he whispered. "It's yours."
He pressed a finger to her sternum—
And pushed through.
No pain.
No blood.
Just a terrible, hollow unfolding as her skin peeled back like a book's cover, revealing—
Nothing.
An empty cavity where her heart should be.
The Collector sighed, almost disappointed.
"It's not here."
Then—
A sound.
From deep inside Lena's chest.
A rustling.
The Collector froze.
"Oh," he breathed. "It's not missing."
His fingers twitched toward her again—
And the rustling became a voice.
Not Lena's.
Mira's.
"Burn it all."
The Collector recoiled—
As Lena's ribs unfolded like a book.
---
The Aftermath
Fire erupted from Lena's chest.
Not normal fire.
Black fire.
The Collector screamed as the flames licked his mask, the porcelain blackening, the paint blistering. The jars overhead shattered, their precious words evaporating into smoke.
The hair-carpet twisted, forming desperate, writhing sentences:
"STOP"
"YOU'LL KILL US ALL"
"PLEASE"
Lena staggered to her feet, the fire spreading, her ribs aching where they'd bent into impossible shapes.
From the inferno, the Collector's voice emerged, raw and broken:
"You don't understand! Without the book, the stories vanish! The names disappear!"
Lena looked down at her own hands—
And watched them fade.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Becoming transparent.
The Collector laughed through the flames.
"You're killing yourself, Keeper."
Then the floor collapsed again.
---
The Final Whisper
Lena fell.
Not into darkness.
Into light.
She landed hard on cold tile, the fire gone, her ribs intact. The air smelled of antiseptic and old books.
A hospital.
No—
A morgue.
The walls were lined with stainless steel drawers, each labeled with a name she recognized:
Jenna Park
Daniel Reyes
Eli Varrick
At the center stood a single autopsy table.
On it lay Mira's body—her throat slit, her left forearm missing.
And perched on her chest, watching Lena with hollow eyes:
The Last Witness.
Its stitched mouth curled into a smile.
"Welcome to the real story," it whispered.
Then the morgue door creaked open.
---