It felt like someone was carving words directly into my skull.
Every nerve burned. My vision fractured into glitching text, sentences crawling across the edges of reality.
[Warning: Rewrite overload.] [Stability compromised.]
I gasped, clutching my head. The world tilted sideways, sounds echoing out of sync. Screams and roars twisted into warped syllables, like badly written dialogue.
This wasn't power. This was pain.
✦
The Dire Alpha lunged at Kael again. I could barely process it—my brain screaming like an overworked hard drive—but I saw Kael's counter. His fists slammed into the beast's jaw, snapping it sideways.
The crowd roared his name.
And me? I was on my knees, bleeding from my nose, fighting just to stay conscious.
✦
"Reed!"
A voice broke through the static.
I blinked. Dev Sharma stumbled toward me, face pale with terror. His hands shook, but he grabbed my arm anyway, trying to haul me upright.
"You're bleeding—what's happening to you?!"
I couldn't answer. The words wouldn't form. All I could manage was a broken laugh.
"Just… editing errors."
✦
Then came the whispers.
Not Mirae's broadcast. Not Kael's survivors.
The gods.
[A God of Battle sneers: 'Unworthy. Delete him.']
[A Trickster God claps with glee: 'Ohhh, a bug in the story! How fun!']
[A God of Stories leans in: 'The Quill bleeds ink already.']
Their voices pressed against my mind, heavy and suffocating.
I wasn't supposed to exist. They knew it.
✦
Kael's eyes flicked toward me mid-fight. He saw me staggering, nose bleeding, clutching my weapon like it was the only thing tethering me to reality.
And his expression… shifted.
Suspicion.
Recognition.
"You," he muttered, even as he ducked under the Alpha's swipe. "You're not normal."
Great. Just what I needed—the protagonist noticing me.
✦
The Dire Alpha howled. Its body pulsed with dark light as it devoured another fallen survivor, wounds knitting shut.
Kael cursed, pressing the attack, but even he couldn't stop its regeneration.
Mirae's voice boomed across the broadcast, all too delighted.
"Ooooh, viewers, this is juicy! Our Hero is barely holding on, the Lone Quill is bleeding out, and the Boss is healing faster than they can hurt it! Will Earth's first scenario end in a TPK? Place your bets, place your bets!"
The dimensional chat exploded with gambling.
Meanwhile, I spat blood onto the concrete, forcing myself upright.
Because if Kael fell, so did everyone. And if I fell…
Then my story ended here.
✦
I gripped my pen-blade.
The Rewrite window flickered again, faint and cracked like a broken screen.
Sentence: Ishaan Reed collapsed, trampled by the hound. > Rewrite? (Y/N)
My finger hovered. My head throbbed. Every instinct screamed don't.
Because each Rewrite shredded me apart inside.
But I pressed Y.
Sentence: Ishaan Reed staggered forward, still standing.
Reality buckled—but I stayed on my feet.
Barely.
✦
Kael struck again, driving the Alpha back a step.
And for the first time, our eyes met not in rivalry, but in something else.
Recognition.
That we were both carrying something beyond what anyone else here could imagine.
The crowd chanted his name. Mirae hyped him. The gods debated me.
And I—bleeding, trembling, half-broken—realized the truth.
This power wasn't free.
Every word I rewrote had a price.
And sooner or later, the bill would come due.