The ink bled.
It wasn't supposed to.
Elian Vale stared down at the map he'd drawn just three nights ago, its crisp edges now curving like melting wax. Roads once marked in careful sepia had started to drift. The little ink-dot labeled "Virelow"—his home—was smudging at the edges, as if the page were trying to forget it existed.
The candlelight flickered.
The lines pulsed.
Elian stepped back from the parchment, heart thudding against his ribs.
Not again…
He turned, threw open the shutters of his loft, and looked out into the dawn-choked silence. The air hung heavy, colored with early mist and the faint scent of sap and ash. Virelow slept beneath him, a hamlet of thirty houses, wood-and-moss roofs clustered around a withered tree older than memory.
Everything looked normal.
But it wasn't. He could feel it.
A wrongness. Like walking into a room that had just been screamed in.
---
He pulled on his coat—a patchwork of cartographer's leathers, ink stains, and soot burns—and grabbed the Codex Map from his desk. The large roll of parchment quivered at his touch.
The Ink was awake.
"Not now," he whispered. "Please not today."
He tucked it under his arm and descended the creaking stairs into the main hall of the tavern below. Morning light spilled through the tall windows. Empty chairs. Cold hearth. The place felt hollow.
No smell of breakfast. No clatter of cups. No one.
His boots struck the floorboards too loud.
He stepped outside.
And stopped.
---
Silence. Absolute. Unnatural.
No barking dogs. No gossip from the well. No cart wheels squeaking.
The village was still here—but muffled. As if someone had turned the world's volume down.
Elian sprinted to the well and looked around.
Doors stood ajar. Bread sat half-eaten on tables visible through windows. But no people. Not a soul.
Then he saw her.
At the edge of the withered tree's shadow stood a little girl. Pale skin, black dress, no shoes. Unmoving. Facing away from him.
"Elia?" he called, heart tight.
She didn't turn.
He approached, cautious. "Elia, where is everyone?"
The girl slowly raised a hand and pointed.
To the sky.
Elian looked up.
And froze.
The sky was wrinkling.
Like old paper curling at the edges. Clouds bent into unnatural spirals, like someone had sketched them with a shaking hand. The sun bled slightly at the edges, turning from gold to a raw, pulpy orange.
A voice rasped behind him.
"You stayed too long, Vale."
Elian spun.
An old man stood where the tavern had been a moment ago. No, not stood—floated. His boots hovered an inch above the ground. His cloak was the color of rusted ink. His face… blurred at the edges, like someone had forgotten how to draw it.
"Who are you?" Elian asked, voice hoarse.
The man's smile was too wide.
"A Cartographer, like you. But older. Hungrier. I mapped this village thirty years ago. It was stable—until you started redrawing it."
"I didn't—"
"You tried to save it. I know." The man tilted his head. "But every map is a cage, Elian. And cages rust. So tell me—what did you trade for the ink?"
Elian stepped back. The Codex under his arm trembled violently.
The old man laughed. A dry, fluttering sound like parchment tearing.
Then the girl turned.
Elian staggered.
Her eyes were gone. Not gouged, not closed—erased.
Her skin peeled away in lines, vanishing stroke by stroke like someone un-sketching her.
"No," Elian whispered. "Not her."
He dropped to his knees, unrolling the Codex Map. The Ink inside snapped awake, slithering across the page like liquid shadow.
Let me fix this.
He reached into his belt, pulled a stylus carved from bone, and pressed it to the parchment.
Map Glyph: Anchor.
The Ink surged, forming a circle around Virelow's smudge. The symbols flared red, fighting against an unseen force. The village on the map trembled.
The girl vanished.
So did the tree.
So did the sky.
The parchment buckled, and then—
CRACK.
The Codex snapped shut. The Ink recoiled like a wounded beast.
Elian gasped.
He was alone. Not in the village. Not even in a ruin.
He stood on an endless sheet of white. No horizon. No shadow.
Nothing but blank parchment.
A voice echoed in the space. Not from his ears, but from the Codex.
> "Welcome, Cartographer. You are now off the map."
---
📜
> He had failed.
Not because he lacked skill.
But because he thought maps were made to save places.
They weren't.
They were made to record loss.