The pen pressed harder.
"Finish it," it urged—not demanded.
Akash looked at the half-formed sentence trembling in the air. It promised closure. Meaning. Comfort.
He let it fade.
The universe bent inward, reacting like a muscle denied its reflex. Nothing broke. But everything noticed.
An unwritten sentence carried weight.
He felt it settle, dense and unresolved.
And the cycle, deprived of completion, faltered.
Fear was not meant for tools.
Yet the pen felt it bloom—slow, corrosive. Not fear of erasure, but of being unnecessary. If stories could pause, could refuse endings, then the pen was no longer sacred.
It was just useful.
And usefulness could end.
The pen shook, ink dripping into nothing.
Akash did not rebel loudly.
He simply chose differently.
He stepped aside from the path the story laid out. He neither destroyed nor corrected it. He let it face itself.
The story hesitated.
For the first time, it had no instructions.
And in that hesitation, something new—truly new—began to form.