The stacks of pages seemed endless, but one in particular caught their attention. It trembled slightly, as if eager to be opened. Reaching for it, they felt a strange warmth pulse through their fingers. The words on the page were incomplete, scratched over and rewritten several times, but something lingered beneath the lines.
A name.
Not a name they had been given, not a name from the script, but one that whispered of possibility. They whispered it softly, unsure if it belonged to them or to the story itself.
"I am…"
The sound startled them. It felt like the first word they had ever spoken freely. The letters hung in the air, refusing to fade. The page beneath glowed faintly, acknowledging their claim.
The figure from the corner appeared again, watching silently. "You have found it," they said. "A name is more than letters. It is a declaration. It is who you choose to be."
The newcomer felt a shiver of both fear and exhilaration. To claim a name was to stake a claim in this world, to declare their existence beyond the script's control. But it also made them visible, vulnerable.
"Will it… change things?" they asked.
"Everything changes once you have a name," the figure replied. "The story notices. The world notices. And some things will fight you for it."
They nodded, feeling the weight of every erased version of themselves, every line that had never been theirs. This was their chance to be more than a shadow. To be more than a footnote.
The name came again, firmer this time, carried with the certainty of someone refusing to vanish.
"I am alive," they said.
The words settled into the air, solid and undeniable. Somewhere deep in the fractured world, the script shuddered. It recognized the anomaly, and in that recognition was both threat and awe.
The figure smiled faintly. "Then we must begin. You cannot remain here without learning. There is much to see, much to understand, and the story will not wait."
With that, they moved toward a narrow corridor formed of overlapping pages, the edges curling and whispering secrets. The newcomer followed, feeling the pulse of the name inside them, a steady reminder that they had chosen themselves.
And with every step, the space between stories grew more real, more alive, more theirs.
For the first time, they were not just surviving. They were beginning to exist.