The Blackthorn Codex
Episode 5 — The Last Erased Line
He had become the paper.
He felt his skin tighten, his veins stretch into black lines, his breath thin out into erasures. And when his eyes closed, he saw only white margins.
The child's laughter rang out one last time, but it no longer sounded like mockery. More like a sigh of relief.
---
Silence returned, but it was no longer the same.
Not a peaceful silence, but the muffled, dense silence of a closed room underground. Leander no longer saw the attic. It was still there, and yet it was no longer. The light swayed slowly, as if filtered through heavy water.
He still held the quill. But it no longer pricked him.
The ink on his arm had dried, then dissipated, as if absorbed by his skin. No trace. As if the Codex had never written through him.
But on the table, the pages turned.
They turned on their own, one by one, with a discreet whisper. Each page revealed a name. Hundreds. Strangers. Children. Old people. Symbols engraved in blood. Then suddenly, a page with nothing on it. Blank.
And before his eyes, a line appeared.
A single one.
"Erase what you were written on."
Léandre remained frozen. He didn't understand. Erase what? The Codex? Himself? The origin? Was it an offering or a warning? He reread the sentence, over and over again. But the letters were already beginning to fade on their own. As if they were only meant to remain in reality for a few seconds. Like a fragile confession.
The page became blank again.
And he knew.
Someone else was writing with him. Someone older. Someone who already knew how this book ended.
He stood up.
The mirror vibrated again. More strongly this time. It pulsed. With each beat, a shadow appeared behind him, in his own reflection. A slender, blurred figure, faceless, but with clear hands. Human hands. Hands that imitated him with monstrous precision.
Léandre raised his hand. The shadow raised his, but with a delay.
Not a mirror.
An observer.
He stepped back. But the reflection remained frozen.
There was a crack in the image. An almost invisible crease, on the left. He approached it. Touched the surface. It wasn't glass. It was taut paper. The mirror was a page. A page turned over.
He pulled.
And behind the mirror, he found a door.
No lock. No handle. Just a line etched in the black wood:
"Do you want to erase? Start by opening it."
He stood motionless for a long time. The air in the attic seemed to have disappeared. Everything had become dense, frozen, like ink frozen in a scream. He placed both hands on the door. It wasn't cold. It was warm, like living skin.
It gave way without a sound.
Behind, darkness.
Not night. Not the absence of light. A full, textured darkness, as if the space had been written with ink blacker than reality.
And in that darkness, he felt a presence.
Not hostile.
Not familiar either.
Just... there.
A breath.
He entered.
There was no floor. He walked on a memory. Each step awakened images he'd never seen. A forest of open urns. A church filled with books sealed with blood. A child's bedroom where every toy whispered his name.
Then a voice.
Not loud. Not clear. But ancient.
"You weren't supposed to find me."
Léandre didn't answer. He couldn't see anything, but the voice circled him like a slow blade. He felt his heart beat out of rhythm.
"You want to erase the book. But it created you."
"I never wanted this," he replied.
"That's not what you want. It's what you wrote."
The voice fell silent. Space flickered.
And before him, a giant page appeared in the void. Suspended. Trembling.
It bore a single sentence.
"The author is just a character who doesn't yet know it."
Then, at the bottom, a word:
Signature: Léandre.
But the handwriting wasn't his.
And only then did he understand.
Someone had signed in his place. From the beginning.