Light. Pressure. A lurching drop like missing a step on a cosmic staircase.
Then—
Reality slammed back into existence.
Ne Job hit the floor face-first.
Again.
Yue landed in a controlled slide, heels digging into polished stone.
Auditor Null simply appeared, as if the concept of gravity did not apply to creatures who held clipboards made of primordial law.
Ne Job groaned. "Okay… okay… did we pick the door that teleports us through a washing machine?"
Yue ignored him. Her attention flicked around the vast hall surrounding them.
This wasn't the Rebirth Bureau.
This wasn't any Bureau.
It was—
"…the Drafting Chamber," she whispered.
Null's mask swiveled toward her. "Correct."
Ne Job gasped. "THE what-now Chamber?"
"The place," Yue said slowly, "where new laws are written. Where stories and departments are formed before being assigned to their realms."
Ne Job looked around.
The room stretched into impossible distances, filled with titanic floating scrolls the length of mountains. Quills the size of warships looped overhead like hunting birds. Platforms and walkways spiraled in ways that broke geometry on purpose. Every surface glowed with half-written sentences pulsing like heartbeats.
It was the birthplace of bureaucracy itself.
Ne Job pointed upward. "Is that scroll breathing? I think it's breathing. Yue it's breathing—"
"Yes," she said calmly.
"It is alive. Don't poke it."
He lowered his hand.
---
Null's Explanation (In the Least Comforting Way Possible)
Auditor Null floated a few inches above the floor.
"This environment is suitable for observation," they said.
"Your presence here does not violate any active directives."
"That's a fancy way of saying you haven't decided to erase us yet," Ne Job muttered.
"I have not," Null confirmed in the same tone someone would use to confirm receipt of a mailed potato.
Yue crossed her arms. "So what happens now?"
"Now," Null said, "I analyze."
Ne Job made a face. "Analyze what? We don't do anything special! We just trip over divine disasters and try to survive!"
Null's quill twitched.
"That is precisely the anomaly."
Yue sighed. "This will be a long day."
---
A New Problem Arrives (Uninvited and Loud)
A deep rumble rolled through the Drafting Chamber.
Not the soft, serene hum of the living scrolls.
Not the sharp bite of Null's quill.
This was a growl.
The kind that made the air vibrate.
The kind that made Ne Job instinctively hide behind Yue.
A massive scroll unfurled across the nearest platform.
Words carved themselves into existence:
DRAFT REVISION ALERT
Unauthorized Entities Detected in Foundational Blueprint Sector
Deploying Enforcement Construct: Proofreader-Class
Ne Job squeaked. "You summoned a WHAT?"
Yue's face drained of color. "…A Proofreader."
Null simply stated: "We should move."
Ne Job screamed, "YES WE SHOULD MOVE—WHY ARE WE STILL HERE?!"
Because the Proofreader had arrived.
---
The Proofreader
It emerged like a nightmare shaped from grammar rage.
A towering construct—half statue, half quill—its body composed of shifting ink lines and red markup symbols. Eyes glowed like molten punctuation. Four mechanical arms extended outward, each ending in a quill-blade dripping with correction fluid that hissed as it hit the ground.
The construct screeched:
"ERROR DETECTED. NARRATIVE LOOSE. ENFORCING STRUCTURAL CORRECTION."
Ne Job turned to Null. "Did YOU call that?!"
"No."
"Does it want to kill us?!"
"Yes."
Ne Job grabbed Yue's sleeve. "Do something!"
Yue already was.
Her manual snapped open with a crack, runes flaring.
"Ne Job, stay close. It's going to target the anomaly—"
The Proofreader's quill-blades all pointed directly at Ne Job.
"—which is you," she finished flatly.
Ne Job screamed, "WHY AM I ALWAYS THE ANOMALY?!"
"Because you chose Door Three," Null said.
---
The Chase
The Proofreader launched forward like an ink-powered meteor.
Yue yanked Ne Job sideways, sliding him across the polished drafting floor. A quill-blade slashed where he'd been, leaving a sizzling line of corrected reality behind it.
Null floated backward calmly, quill spinning.
Yue shouted, "Null—if you can do anything—now is the time!"
"I am observing."
"OBSERVE FASTER!!" Ne Job bellowed as he ran for his life.
The Proofreader slammed down, sending shockwaves of red markup symbols exploding outward.
"STRUCTURAL INCONSISTENCY. REMOVE. REMOVE."
Ne Job tripped. Yue caught him by the back of his robe, pulled him upright, and shoved him behind a pillar.
"Stay behind me!"
Ne Job peeked around her. "That thing is editing the ROOM!"
Indeed—everywhere the Proofreader struck, text rewrote itself. Platforms rearranged. Walls shifted. Sentences reshaped into sharp, weaponized grammar.
This wasn't a fight.
This was a cosmic revision session gone feral.
---
Yue Takes the Lead
Yue's aura flared, manual glowing bright.
"Constructs like this rely on pattern stability," she muttered.
"I can disrupt its syntax, but only briefly."
Ne Job blinked. "You can fight a grammar kaiju?!"
"I studied the manual."
"You study EVERYTHING! Why do you study everything?!"
"Because you don't!"
"FAIR."
She slammed her manual shut.
"Ne Job—on my mark, run left."
"Left?"
"Left."
"What is left in a four-dimensional drafting hall?!"
"NE JOB!"
"OKAY LEFT!"
Yue launched forward.
Light and ink clashed.
She struck the Proofreader with a burst of raw directive force, momentarily staggering the construct. The red markup symbols around its body flickered.
"GO!" she shouted.
Ne Job bolted.
---
Null Interferes… for Science
As the Proofreader regained its balance and turned toward Ne Job, Null lifted a finger.
A single line of text appeared in midair.
[PAUSE]
Reality hiccuped.
The Proofreader froze for exactly 0.07 seconds.
Yue seized the moment, dragging Ne Job into a safer alcove.
Ne Job gasped. "Null! You helped!"
"I did not help," Null corrected.
"I observed how the anomaly responds under minimal intervention."
"You paused a DEATH ROBOT!"
"Yes."
"For SCIENCE?!"
"Yes."
Ne Job screamed, "THIS IS NOT A LAB!"
Null tilted their head. "It appears to be functioning as one."
---
The Construct Adapts
The Proofreader rebooted.
Red light intensified.
"CORRECTION OVERRIDE MODE: ACTIVE."
Yue swore under her breath. "It's adapting."
Ne Job grabbed her hand, panicked. "We need to leave! Door! Portal! Window! ANYTHING!"
Null raised a hand again.
A new line of text appeared.
[PATH GENERATION: INITIATE]
A corridor rippled into existence—a narrow bridge of half-written text.
"Proceed," Null said. "I will continue observing."
Yue grabbed Ne Job and dragged him onto the path.
Behind them, the Proofreader shrieked and charged.
Corrections rained down like red lightning.
Sentences warped.
Platforms folded inward.
The entire Drafting Chamber shook.
Ne Job shouted over the noise:
"IF WE SURVIVE THIS, WE ARE NEVER FILLING OUT FEEDBACK FORMS AGAIN!"
Yue shouted back:
"WE NEVER FILLED THEM OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE!"
The Proofreader lunged—
Ink blades inches from Ne Job—
Yue pulled him through the final ripple—
And the world snapped white—
---
End of Chapter 159 — "Three Walk Into a Story (And the Story Screams)"