Chapter 6 — The Library of Shadows
Jane didn't sleep that night.
Her laptop sat open on the desk, its glow painting her face pale and haunted. On the screen was the folder she'd stolen: a sprawling archive of voices. Thousands of drafts, fragments, whole novels that had been sealed away in WebNovel's vaults. The names on the files ranged from recognizable pen names to strings of numbers—the detritus of authors who'd once dreamed of being read.
She clicked on one at random.
A dark fantasy with only three chapters. The prose was raw, uneven, but full of aching ambition. The author had written a dedication on the first page: "For Mom, who says I should try."
Jane's throat tightened.
She clicked another. A romance, unfinished, its characters caught mid-argument, their love story halted forever because someone had decided it wasn't profitable. She could almost feel the writer's heartbeat in the sentences.
Another: a sprawling sci-fi epic, hundreds of thousands of words long, that had never been published. A hidden lifetime of work.
She leaned back in her chair, staring at the mountain of silenced voices.
It felt like standing in a graveyard where the dead were still breathing, trapped beneath the soil, begging to be heard.
And she had the shovel.
---
The next day, Marta showed up unannounced. She wore a leather jacket despite the humid weather, her hair pulled back in a severe knot. She looked like someone who'd been waiting for Jane to reach a decision.
"Well?" Marta asked, sliding into the chair opposite Jane. "Did you see it?"
Jane nodded slowly. "It's… it's like a library. A library they buried."
Marta smirked. "A library of shadows."
"Yes," Jane whispered, the phrase digging into her chest.
"So?" Marta's eyes glittered. "Do we crack it open?"
Jane hesitated. "If I release this, Marta… it's not just me anymore. These are other people's stories. Some of them might not want their drafts exposed. Some might… some might be ashamed of what they wrote."
"And some," Marta said evenly, "might cry with joy to see their words alive again. Imagine logging on and finding out the story you thought had been deleted, rejected, silenced—was suddenly out there, being read, being loved. You'd be a hero to them, Jane."
"A hero," Jane repeated hollowly. She didn't feel like one. She felt like a thief holding treasures that weren't hers.
But Marta leaned closer, voice soft, coaxing. "Or you could let WebNovel keep playing god. They decide who gets to be read. They decide who gets buried. Isn't that why you started this? To make them pay for deciding you weren't worthy?"
Jane flinched. The words struck like arrows.
---
She spent the afternoon pacing her apartment. The rain outside beat against the windows like restless fingers.
Her mind raced with images:
Her own characters locked in digital chains until she freed them.
Other authors crying with joy as their lost novels resurfaced.
Journalists writing headlines: "Leaked Archive Exposes Suppression of Thousands of Writers."
WebNovel scrambling to explain why they'd hoarded voices like a dragon with jewels.
But there were darker visions too:
An author suing her for exposing personal drafts never meant to see daylight.
Family secrets embedded in unfinished works, suddenly made public.
A wave of chaos where stolen words were twisted, plagiarized, mocked.
Her stomach churned.
At 2 a.m., Jane sat at her desk again, staring at the folder. Her hands hovered over the keyboard.
She opened a draft at random.
It was a simple coming-of-age story. The first line read:
"I don't know if anyone will ever read this, but I need to write it anyway."
Tears blurred Jane's vision. She whispered aloud, to the empty room: "I read it."
And in that moment, she made her decision.
---
The leak had to be careful. Surgical. Not a reckless dump onto the internet where anyone could exploit it. She needed to curate, to prove the existence of the library without burning every author trapped inside.
With Marta's help, she began to copy selected files—snippets of novels, first chapters, evidence of the hidden archive. Enough to show the world what WebNovel was hoarding, but not enough to betray every writer's privacy.
"This is how we control the narrative," Marta said, her fingers flying across her own laptop. "We don't look like criminals. We look like whistleblowers. The saviors of silenced voices."
Jane nodded, though her chest still felt tight.
They released the first batch at dawn.
Twenty excerpts. Each with the metadata intact—dates, usernames, proof that the files came from within WebNovel's system. Alongside them, Jane wrote a statement:
> "For every writer who has been told 'not good enough,' there are thousands of stories buried, silenced, hidden away. This is not about me. This is about all of us. WebNovel is not a library. It is a vault. And it locks away our dreams."
They sent it to independent journalists. They posted it anonymously on forums where writers gathered. They pushed it to Twitter, where hashtags sparked like fire:
#LibraryOfShadows
#VoicesUnburied
#WebNovelExposed
The reaction was instantaneous.
Writers gasped as they recognized abandoned drafts—proof that the platform had kept copies of rejected works instead of deleting them. Readers demanded answers: Why were these stories hidden? Who decided they weren't worthy?
Some authors cried publicly on livestreams, overwhelmed to see their words again. One woman wrote: "That was mine. I thought it was gone forever. Thank you."
But not everyone was grateful.
Another author raged: "Those were my private drafts. They weren't ready. This is theft."
The internet divided—praise and fury clashing in equal measure.
And in the middle of it, WebNovel reeled.
The company released a statement within hours:
> "We are investigating the unauthorized disclosure of internal files. These were backups, not intended for publication. We value our authors' privacy and will pursue all legal remedies against those responsible.
Jane read the statement with her pulse hammering.
"They're coming for us," she whispered.
Marta smiled coldly. "Let them. They'll have to admit the library exists first. And once they do, the world will demand answers."
Jane wasn't so sure. She could already imagine the lawsuits, the subpoenas, the headlines naming her.
But when she logged onto a forum later that night and saw dozens of writers sharing their "buried" first chapters—some cheering, some weeping, some angry—she realized something profound:
The war was no longer hers alone.
The shadows had voices now.
And they would not be silent again.