Curiosity changed the gravity of everything.
Once the universe allowed itself to ask why, certainty began to lose mass. Events no longer rushed toward conclusions. They lingered, as if waiting to be understood rather than finished.
Akash felt this shift in his body. Breathing required attention now. Each step carried consequence, not because it was dangerous, but because it was chosen.
The pen struggled.
It drifted closer to Akash, slower than before, as if wading through invisible resistance. Ink no longer pooled eagerly at its tip. It had to be gathered, deliberately.
"I was made to know," the pen said. "Not knowing is… heavy."
Akash nodded. "Because knowing ends movement. Not knowing keeps it alive."
The pen tried to recall a time before certainty, but found only completed loops. It had never waited for understanding. It had only enforced it.
Around them, fragments of unfinished stories began to change. Some thinned and faded, content to rest. Others grew denser, developing texture, depth—possibility.
Akash touched one fragment and felt uncertainty press back. It was uncomfortable, but honest.
"Why didn't you stop earlier?" the pen asked, its voice almost small.
Akash considered this. "Because stopping requires permission. And I didn't know I had it."
Silence followed, not tense, not empty. A working silence.
The pen absorbed this moment. It realized something unsettling: ignorance was not absence. It was space.
For the first time, the pen did not attempt to fill that space.
It stayed.
And in staying, it began to change—not into a ruler of stories, but into a listener.
The universe noticed.
Nothing concluded.
Everything breathed.