Alen woke with his cheek pressed to cold cobblestone and the scent of bread, smoke, and river mud drifting past his nose. It took him several seconds to understand that this was not his apartment, not his computer desk, and definitely not Chapter 2789 waiting on his monitor.
He sat up, blinking. Brookmill stretched around him—wooden stalls, crooked roofs, a milling crowd of early traders. A town he had written more than a decade ago. A town that existed only in the first three chapters of his novel.
A town where a man named David Zarick once appeared and disappeared without mattering.
"David! David Zarick!" a blacksmith roared from his forge doorway.
Alen's stomach dropped.
He looked down at himself: dusty apron, patched shirt, soot on his hands.
"Of all characters…" he whispered. "Really?"
David Zarick. A nobody. A footnote. A man with no special role in the story—just a throwaway line about delivering iron to travelers and then fading out of existence. He wasn't supposed to survive long. He had no Talent, no combat skill, no destiny.
The town bell suddenly tolled—deep and urgent.
Heads snapped up. Merchants froze. Children stopped mid-step.
Alen knew that bell. He wrote it. It rang only when danger approached.
The western gate guards shouted, doors slammed, and smoke began curling over the rooftops. He remembered exactly what happened next: the early-novel raid on Brookmill.
He also remembered what happened to David Zarick.
Nothing.
No mention after the raid.
Which usually meant death.
Fear shot through him like ice.
But beneath the fear, something else stirred—a pressure behind his ribs, faint but pulsing. The sensation unnerved him. He knew what it meant. He had written about it hundreds of chapters later, when power systems expanded and characters awakened deeper abilities.
It was the whisper of the Mark of the Awakener.
But that shouldn't be possible here. David Zarick was just a background man. A non-entity.
Unless Alen wasn't becoming David—but replacing him.
A vendor stumbled past in terror. Horses screamed. Somewhere down the street, fire ignited.
Alen forced his breathing steady. "Okay… calm down. Think."
He knew how the Mark of the Awakener worked in the story—but he had never given readers much detail. Even now, he could barely recall the rules. The Mark had seven levels, each harder to open than the last. Awakening required meditation and an inner trigger—something personal, something desperate.
It was meant for major characters, not side ones.
But the faint pulse under his ribs refused to fade, like a locked door waiting for the right push.
A small group sprinted toward the forge—neighbors he recognized from his own world's notes. Most lacked any Talent at all. Only a handful of people in this world were born with one, and fewer still ever opened a Mark.
David Zarick certainly hadn't.
Unless Alen changed that.
Another explosion shook the town. Screams rose. Panic churned through the streets.
The blacksmith grabbed Alen's shoulder. "David! Move your useless feet!"
Alen didn't move.
For years he'd been a writer drowning in exhaustion. Now he was a man standing inside the jaws of his own story. And somewhere far ahead—he knew—lay other horrors he'd written. The Hollow Forest in Chapter 92, where a major villain would strike. The Tournament of Chapter 174, a brutal arena where only those with awakened power survived.
If he did nothing now, David Zarick would never live long enough to see any of that.
If he wanted a future, he had to seize it.
He shut his eyes for a heartbeat—just long enough to center himself. The world dimmed. The pressure in his chest throbbed again, stronger this time, like a hidden lantern trying to spark.
Is this… really for me?
He didn't know. But he reached inward, focusing the way he had described countless times in the novel: slow breath, anchored mind, sinking into himself.
A faint warmth rippled through his chest—subtle, hesitant, but real.
Not an opening.
Not yet.
Just the first step toward it.
A whisper of possibility.
Alen opened his eyes.
"Fine," he said softly, gripping the cart beside him as flames spread across the western street. "If I'm David Zarick now… then I'm not dying here."
He squared his shoulders, heart pounding but steady.
"I'll survive Brookmill. I'll reach the Hollow Forest. I'll live long enough to train for the Tournament. And I'll open that Mark."
The ground shook again—closer this time.
Alen ran.