Moments later,
The evening market pulsed with life - a thick, humid blend of damp asphalt, the pungent, earthy scent of spices, and the heavy sweetness of overripe fruit from the vendors' stalls.
It was here, amidst the organized chaos of the street, that the blinding glow of Rina Vale's phone screen cut through the sudden, suffocating darkness that had descended over her personal world.
She stood frozen, a grocery bag hanging forgotten in her trembling hand, as her mind became a frantic, buzzing kaleidoscope of disbelief and sharp, electric adrenaline. The text message was devastatingly simple, yet it held the impossible, overwhelming weight of a world-shattering promise.
"You also feel that Lumira died an unjust death, just like me? Then let's see how you change the story."
Her heart, which moments ago had felt like a dead, leaden weight of despair, began to pound a frantic, furious rhythm against her ribs. This didn't feel like a prank or the work of some random, bored troll. The message was too deliberate, too knowing, too utterly relevant to her pain.
It had to be from the author. The same elusive person who had created her favorite story. The same heartless architect who had just broken her world into a million jagged pieces.
She reread the seven words, her eyes darting across the screen as if they might melt, might reform into a cruel joke she could dismiss. But they remained, stark and unblinking against the white background. Let's see how you change the story.
What did that even mean? Was this a trick? Was the author mocking her desperate outpouring? A fresh wave of indignation, hot and intensely bitter, rose in her throat, choking her.
"You coward!" she spat out loud, wishing the author was standing in front of her so she could punch the arrogant face she had conjured in her mind.
Her own words, sent in a fit of pure, chaotic rage minutes before, echoed in her memory. Had she gone too far? Should she apologize for the insults?
But what if... the author genuinely meant it? What if this was an actual invitation? A single, blinding spark of impossible hope ignited deep within her, warming the cold dread.
Without allowing herself time to think through the utter absurdity, she typed a shaky, one-word reply.
"Who are you?"
The ellipses appeared instantly, signaling a reply was being typed, and soon the text arrived.
"The author, but you knew that. I'm a coward for letting her die, right?"
The directness of the response was disarming, almost aggressive. He was holding up her own accusation like a mirror, forcing her to look at her rage and her grief. Rina's hands flew over the keyboard, driven by a need to justify her anger.
"She deserved better. She deserved a 'Thank You.' She deserved to be loved. She didn't deserve to die for nothing. Not for this crushing betrayal."
"I know. I didn't want to do it."
These six words struck Rina with the force of a physical blow, silencing the furious protest in her mind. Her brow furrowed in confusion. He didn't want to? This was the architect of the world she had immersed herself in for three years.
The seemingly all-powerful creator of every twist, every turn, every beautiful, agonizing moment. Why would he not want to write his own ending?
A torrent of desperate questions poured out of her, unedited and raw.
"What do you mean? Why did you do it then? Why did you make her suffer and die so utterly alone?!"
There followed a long, agonizing pause. So long that Rina was sure he had blocked her, that this brief, insane connection was over, vanished like smoke. Her stomach twisted into a knot of cold, sick dread. She clutched her phone so tightly her knuckles went white, a desperate, physical attempt to keep the moment from slipping away forever.
Then, a new message popped up. It was a long block of text, too much to see at a glance, requiring her to scroll down to read the full context.
"My publisher forced my hand. They said the Lumira plotline wasn't 'commercially viable.' They wanted a 'clean' ending, a simple narrative where the hero saves the day, and the 'evil witch' gets her predictable comeuppance. They didn't understand the nuance of her character, the complex layers of her sacrifice and her broken heart. They just saw a villain who needed to be killed for the sake of the male lead's 'saintess' girlfriend. I fought them, fought hard, but I couldn't win. They own the intellectual property. I'm just a writer working under a contract, Rina. Not a god."
A massive wave of understanding, followed by a fierce, protective sympathy, washed over Rina. The author, a figure she had elevated to the status of an all-powerful, cruel god in her mind, was suddenly human.
He was just another person caught in a restrictive system, powerless against forces bigger than himself—exactly like her, an insignificant cashier fighting against the demands of her mother and the overwhelming indifference of the world. The burning rage she had felt moments ago vanished, replaced by a quiet, determined empathy that resonated with her own deep-seated frustration.
"That's not fair," she typed, the simplicity of the statement holding immense weight.
"I know. That's why I need your help. This isn't just about Lumira. It's about every character who gets a bad, unjust ending because they're not the conventional hero. It's about a world that deserves a better story than the simple, corporate narrative they were given. I wrote a different ending. A real ending, the one that respected her sacrifice, but it's locked away. The publisher owns all the rights, so I can't share it publicly or even hint at it. But I can share it with someone who truly gets the story. Someone who understood and fought for Mira when no one else would."
The full weight of his proposition settled over her. Rina Vale, cashier and invisible college first-year student, wasn't just a reader anymore. She had been chosen. She was being invited to be a secret collaborator in a clandestine literary rebellion.
"What exactly do I have to do?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly even though she was only texting.
"I need your help. I have an unfinished, completely unedited draft of the new novel I wanted to write. It's not a full chapter; it's more of a blueprint, a new starting point, and a secret path. I can send it to you. I need you to finish it, to make it your own, to breathe the soul back into it, but I'll guide you, of course. I'll be your co-author and mentor, secretly."
Rina's mind spun, the world around her tilting. This was absolutely insane. She was a nobody, a girl who wept over fiction, not someone who wrote it. But a voice, strong and insistent, a whisper that sounded strangely like the fierce determination of Lumira, urged her onward.
"She's not cruel, she's desperately lonely… to be loved!"
She had seen that deep-seated desperation, that profound need to be seen and believed, not just in Lumira, but now, surprisingly, in the author's words too. It was the same desperation that had made Lumira a hero. It was the desperate need to be seen and believed.
"Okay. Send it to me," she committed, the words leaving her fingers before any rational thought could stop them.
The phone vibrated immediately with a notification from an unknown number. It was a PDF file. The file name flashed across the screen: 'Chapter 313 - A_Duskbane_Legacy.'
Rina's hands trembled violently as she tapped the file. The screen went white, then loaded. The first line of the document, the beginning of a future, flashed into view:
"The air in the hidden library of Aetherion Academy tasted of ancient parchment and dusty motes dancing in the moonlight. Lumira's eyes, a tired, crystalline purple, flickered open, her body aching with a profound, soul-deep exhaustion, but she was alive."
Rina gasped, a choked wet sound, and fresh hot tears streamed down her face once more. But this time, they weren't for death; they were for life. A second chance. A story that, against all odds and the cynical forces of commerce, was still going.
Her thumb flew to the keyboard, a single, determined thought blazing in her mind. She wouldn't let Lumira be alone this time. She would give her a new, authentic ending.
"Okay. I'll change the story," she sent back.
The crowd pushed around her, but Rina was oblivious, her mind hollowed out by the dizzying reality of the stranger's words. Change the story. The phone in her hand felt like a live wire, pulsing with energy, and as she began to walk home, she clutched it so tightly her knuckles went white.
Then came the final message. It landed like a precise, physical blow, snapping her instantly out of her stupor.
"Maybe, maybe not. Good luck, Rina Esther Vale."
Her stomach twisted violently, cold and hard. Nobody called her that. Nobody knew her full name. Esther was a relic of her estranged grandmother, a middle name she had meticulously hidden from everyone she knew. The noise of the market carried on around her, but for Rina, the world had decisively tilted off its axis. Her pulse hammered mercilessly, each beat urging her to run, to throw the device into the gutter, to erase the messages before anyone else could see this terrifying secret.
It was because she was so completely consumed by that final, deeply unnerving line that she didn't see the road until it was tragically too late.
A child, no older than six, stood frozen in the middle of the street, completely paralyzed in the twin glare of a speeding, massive green truck barreling towards her.
"No!" The scream tore from Rina's lungs, raw and desperate.
Her grocery bag slipped from her grip, the vegetables scattering across the slick asphalt. Her body surged forward, propelled by a primal, unthinking surge of adrenaline. She collided with the little girl, shoving her just as the truck lunged impossibly closer.
The air filled with the metallic shriek of overstressed brakes and the acrid, sickening stench of burning rubber. Rina shoved with all her remaining strength, her palms striking the girl's small shoulders. The child toppled backward, tumbling onto the sidewalk, out of the truck's path.
And then the truck struck Rina instead. The impact stole the world, detonating a pain through her body that was bright and savage, like a thousand white-hot knives driven into her all at once. She was weightless for an instant, a pathetic ragdoll, then she was hurled across the pavement, coming to rest, crumpled and utterly broken, against the concrete curb.
Her gaze, desperate and failing, sought the child. The little girl sat upright on the sidewalk, completely unhurt, her dark eyes fixed on Rina with an unblinking, unsettling intensity. She was safe. That was enough. A faint, quiet relief flickered in Rina's breaking chest.
"It was worth it," she whispered, her voice a raw, blood-soaked rasp. "At least she is—"
Her words withered, dying in her throat, as she watched the child smile.
It was not the smile of an innocent little girl. It stretched too wide, too sharp at the corners, like cracks splitting fine porcelain. In the depths of the child's dark eyes, a chilling darkness swirled, a void that was bottomless, hungry, and utterly all-knowing.
The girl rose slowly and stepped toward the broken body sprawled across the asphalt. She crouched beside Rina. Her hair spilled forward until it brushed cold and strangely dry against Rina's bloodied cheek.
"Hello, Rina Vale," she whispered. Her voice was soft and melodic, yet it rang with echoes of something vast, ancient, and merciless.
"Rejoice. You have passed the test."
Rina's failing heart lurched, then seized. Terror, pure and absolute, surged through her, but her body was too broken to resist the strange figure, her lungs too shattered to muster a final scream. Her vision dimmed rapidly, darkness closing in at the edges like ink spreading through clean water.
Her heart stuttered once, twice… then ceased its desperate, futile beating.