Silence. But not the kind that comforts. This silence choked.
It was the kind that made your breath feel like a sin. The kind that said:"You are not supposed to be here."
Kael Arclight awoke not with a gasp, but a stagger. He opened his eyes to a colorless void. Not black, not grey. Just… absence.
A room without corners. A floor that reflected nothing. A ceiling that didn't exist. And yet he was not falling. His heart should've been racing, but it wasn't beating. His breath should've been panicked, but there was no air.
His name…He reached for it, deep in the fog of his mind but there was only smoke and static. A pulse cold and synthetic echoed from nowhere. ❝System initializing... searching for assigned fate thread…❞
Kael turned. No voice had spoken. The words… just hung in the air, glowing blue, rotating slowly like a mechanical prayer. Then a sharp beep.
A flicker.
❝ERROR. Thread not found.❞
❝Assigning temporary ID…❞
❝FAILED.❞
❝Designation: NULL. Fate class UNWRITTEN.❞
He staggered back, pulse still missing. A strange light traced over his skin lines like scanner beams dissecting his soul. The light showed no identity, no value, no origin. He existed. But the world… didn't want him to. His legs trembled. His knees hit the ground soundlessly like even gravity wasn't convinced he should be here. Then came the cold. Not wind. Not temperature. A feeling. Like someone had erased the warmth from existence and left a whisper behind. Kael looked around.
Nothing. No exit. No walls. No voice to answer the rising scream in his throat. He pressed his hand to his chest. No heartbeat. And yet the pain throbbed.
"I shouldn't be here."
He whispered it, and the room didn't echo. The silence absorbed it, swallowed his fear like it had been waiting. And then a sound. Tick.So soft. So sharp. Like a pin piercing fabric. Then another. Tick. Tick. Tick.
It wasn't coming from a clock. It was coming from inside him. He collapsed forward, holding his ribs eyes wide. That's when the next message appeared. ❝Narracode Engine: Dormant. Awaiting Sovereign Command.❞
Kael froze. He didn't know what that meant. He didn't know where he was. He didn't even know his own name… But that word. Sovereign It struck something. Like an echo from a life he hadn't lived yet. And somewhere far beyond the white room,
someone laughed.
The ticking in his chest grew louder. Not rhythmic like a heartbeat. No. It was irregular like a countdown from a broken clock. Each tick felt like something snapping inside him, something uncoiling from the inside out. ❝Thread Class: NULL. Soul Designation: Rejected.❞
❝Identity Status: Ghost Variable.❞
❝System: Forced Integration in progress...❞
Kael flinched as a string of symbols burst into view glyphs he couldn't read, forming rings of code around his body. They flickered like dying neon, syncing with that internal ticking. His skin burned but not from heat.
From unwelcome attachment. ❝Narracode Engine: Bonding with host consciousness.❞
❝Cognitive Lock engaged. You may now remember... what must never be remembered.❞
He gritted his teeth. What the hell does that mean?! As if in answer, the mirror rose from the void. It didn't ascend from the ground. It just… appeared. Like reality had always meant for it to be there, just waited for the moment Kael would be too broken to resist looking. He stared into it. And the mirror stared back But the reflection wasn't his. The boy in the glass had his face. His body. His eyes. But not his fear. Not his confusion. Not his soul. That version stood tall. Confident. Eyes glowing with power. A jagged cloak around his shoulders, a mark on his neck glowing gold. That Kael... was ready for war.
❝Existence Conflict Detected.❞
❝Do not make eye contact with your alternate self. Risk Level: 99%.❞
Kael stumbled backward.
"W-What is this?! That's not me"The glyphs surged brighter and a static-choked voice entered his head. Not mechanical. Not synthetic.
Familiar.
Low. Smooth. Tired.
"Welcome back, Kael."
Kael froze. The ticking inside his chest stopped."This is your thirteenth rewrite." Blood drained from his fingers. He didn't know that voice. But his soul… did. Like a name whispered to a grave he knew that speaker had seen things. Known things. Possibly… caused things.
❝ERROR: Emotional Overload Detected. Anchor Initiated. Memory Threshold Exceeded.❞
A sharp sound cracked through the white void like glass shattering underwater. From behind him, the air bent. Faint lines like cracks in a screen slithered open. Not a door. Not a gate. A tear. In reality. Kael turned slowly. Beyond that rift he saw color. A chaotic burst of it. Screams. Lights. Voices. Weapons. Floating symbols. A bell tolling backward. A tower that reached past the sky. And people. Hundreds of them. All marked with glowing thread sigils. All dressed in war-gear. All chosen. And in the midst of them a voice. A soft whisper.
"He's not supposed to be here…"
Kael couldn't breathe. But he could move. One step. Two. Three. He passed through the tear in the white room into a world already rewriting itself around him. ❝Thread war activated. Sovereign conflict initializing. Prepare for first contact.❞
And just before the tear closed behind him,
the voice returned. "Try not to die this time, Kael."
The moment Kael stepped through the tear,
the world screamed. Not loud not audible. But felt. Like every particle of air recognized something was wrong with him. A pulse of ancient magic hit his skin like broken glass systems activating in the sky, runes spinning across the ground. Students hundreds of them stood in formation across a black-marble plaza that stretched toward a distant, impossible tower. Kael stumbled into the light, blinking. The white room was gone. Now he stood inside a colossal floating arena, walls made of memory-infused stone, ceiling open to an endless storm above. Lightning struck in spirals. Voices echoed in digital tones. ❝Welcome to SCRIPTFORGE DOMINION.❞
❝THREAD WAR: ROUND I — INITIATED.❞
He barely had time to breathe. Every other student in the space glowed with thread marks golden, silver, violet wrapping around arms, faces, even floating above their heads. Kael looked at his own hands.
Blank. No thread. No class. No mark.
Just… absence.
"Where's your registration mark?"
"What system are you linked to?"
"Is he even supposed to be here?"
Voices around him whispered.
Some mocking. Some confused.
Most scared. And then… someone stopped moving. A girl. Still. Unblinking. She stood at the far edge of the crowd long black-silver hair rippling in slow motion, her eyes glowing a haunting emerald. She wore the mark of a Witness on her collarbone a sigil not seen since the Fifth Rewrite. Her breath caught when her gaze locked with Kael's. He didn't know her. But his soul shivered the moment her lips parted.
❝Kael…? Not again.❞
A strange pressure crushed his lungs. He opened his mouth, but no words came.
"Who… are you?"
But she didn't answer. She didn't move. Her eyes wide with pain glistened as if they'd cried this scene twelve times before. And then, without warning .
BOOOOOOOM.
The sky split. The Tower roared. A black structure made of stone, glass, and time itself loomed in the distance. Floating rings rotated around it each inscribed with ancient script. One by one, they locked into alignment, and a blinding pillar of energy fired straight into the storm above.
❝Narracode Synchronization: STAGE ONE ACTIVE.
THREADS WILL NOW BE SORTED.
SOULS WILL NOW BE REWRITTEN.❞
Kael stumbled back. The ground beneath him lit up glyphs crawling toward his feet like hungry veins.
❝ERROR. THREAD CLASS NULL. NON-ASSIGNABLE.
Forcible isolation protocol engaged.❞
A circular barrier slammed down around him separating him from the other students. Gasps followed. He stood alone, inside a glowing ring of deletion red code slicing around his feet.
❝UNWRITTEN ENTITY DETECTED.
Please prepare for extermination.❞
His fingers clenched. His mind screamed. But before anything could happen.
A voice.
Not from the tower. Not from the sky.
Not even from inside his head.
This one came from outside the page.
"Let's see what you do this time, Kael."
"Narrator's turn begins."
And somewhere deep in the very fabric of the world…someone turned the page.